Sometimes you wake up with an overwhelming desire to express your love for the good ship Destructoid and her crew. Today was one of those days for me. So after spending the day at work wondering how i could express my love i had this idea. Here are some mosaics made up from the avatars of the top 1000 posters.

Some came out pretty good, others not so much, but i might as well post all of them. There are big versions in the gallery below.





















For those interested, i pulled the images from Internet Explorers cache (after viewing the leaderboard), femputed them into jpgs (sorry those with animated gifs), manputed them into AndreaMosaic, a free mosaic program, and got most of the template images from here.

Takes all of a minute to make each one.

Maybe this is more of a forum thing, if enough people think so i'll remove this and repost it in the forums.

Democracy, not just for losers.


Fun game for new players, can anyone find Y0jimbos avatar?

I love awkward humour. I was a big fan on The Office, I love Reno911 and have always had a thing for Mr Shake Hands Man from Banzai. Hell, I’ve even sniggered at Dennis Pennis. So when Anthony mentioned that Robert Summa would be on Podtoid I thought it might be a damn good laugh.



It started off pretty well, just seemed like a normal show, Rev asked what games they’ve been playing, and they talked a little about Burn Zombie Burn (did I detect a little uncomfortable pause after Summa said something? It seemed like Jim wasn’t sure if to make a joke or not? )

Of course, it didn’t take long for Rev to take Summa to task for taking credit for Destructoid and claiming that he was the man that made them. Totally fair enough, he can’t expect to make claims like that and not ruffle feathers.



But then it just kept going and it occurred to me it was less entertaining and more just beating a dead horse. Fuck, not saying that the horse didn’t deserve to be beaten, but I kind of felt that Rev was expecting an apology from Summa whereas It was clear after 30mins or so that he wasn’t going to get it.



I’m sure Rev’s intended purpose for the show was to show the Dtoid community that Summa is indeed an asshole, but it didn’t really seem necessary and almost became more bullying than anything. It’s obvious Summa doesn’t see that acknowledging being an asshole is not the same as apologizing for it, and at times he couldn’t even understand Rev’s jokes about him being a kiddy fiddler.



Actually, i guess it was more like beating a dead horse, that was also autistic.



The best analogy I can think of is it’s like when I saw science graduates arguing with fundamentalist (with no university education) about carbon dating and feeling great about it. I still love Rev but felt that this whole show did him a disservice. He’s better than that.

I can’t seem to see any record of the show on Podtoid.com so maybe that’s why it's not on the front page (or for some other completely unrelated reason or that I missed it). It wasn’t as much entertaining as it made me feel like an outsider listening to a public argument. Awkward, but not funny awkward. Okay, some of the pedophile jokes were pretty funny. Okay, maybe a lot. But still….

Maybe I’m alone on this one. I don’t know, but that’s how I feel anyway.



p.s. Yes, everybody sees through Summa’s frat boy defense response.


UPDATE : On reflection If the podcast made me think enough to write a cblog about it, and also reflect on what it was exactly that made me uncomfortable it was a good thing.

Just got this in my inbox. I can't make it but thought it would be a good idea to let people know.. i.e. the few people in Edinburgh.





You are invited to an event hosted by The Skinny magazine and the ESRC
Genomics Policy and Research Forum.

Title: Digital Evolution: What Can Gaming Tell Us About Where Life Came From
and Where It's Heading?

Venue: The Drill Hall, 36-38 Dalmeny Street, Edinburgh, EH6 8RG

Date: Saturday 7th February 2009, 7pm









Details:
From the Game of Life to Spore to Second Life, computer games reflect our
fascination with evolution. But how life-like are these games, and what, if
anything, can they teach us about human evolution?

The Skinny magazine and the ESRC Genomics Policy and Research Forum welcome
you to discuss these fascinating questions with our guest experts:
award-winning science fiction writer Ken MacLeod and synthetic biologist Dr
Alistair Elfick.


To register:
This is a FREE, ticketed event. For your ticket please call 0131 467 4630 or
email evolution@theskinny.co.uk.

Wow, i can't believe this.

I've been hearing all about the Americans playing Rock Band and having a blast and lamented the fact that living in little ol NZ i could never play against my xbox live buddies.
But it's been so long, and now Harmonix has gone and made Rock Band 2 surely they would just let NZ dive right into Rock Band 2 given you can play the Rock Band 1 songs anyway... right? right? RIGHT!?



Today i got an email from my local videogame supplier (Gameplanet NZ http://www.gpstore.co.nz -sorry Hamza, you're exactly right) letting me know that Rock Band 1 is finally dated and priced for NZ.

ROCK BAND 1 comes out OCTOBER 10th.




Yeah, that's right, we are only now getting the FIRST Rock Band, and to carry on the theme of ONE there will be ONE shipment only, and the cost of getting into it is the raping of exactly ONE anus.



Here's the run-down.


PlayStation 3



Rock Band (game only) ($119.95) - 87USD
Hardware bundle (Drums, Wireless Guitar, Mic) ($299.95) - 220USD
Drum Kit ($179.95) - 131USD
Wireless Guitar ($99.95) - 73USD

Xbox 360



Rock Band (game only) ($119.95) - 87USD
Hardware bundle (Drums, Wireless Guitar, Mic) ($299.95) - 220USD
Drum Kit ($179.95) - 131USD
Wireless Guitar ($99.95) - 73USD


Nintendo Wii



Rock Band (game only) ($99.95) - 73USD
Hardware bundle (Drums, Wireless Guitar, Mic) ($299.95) - 220USD
Drum Kit ($179.95) - 131USD
Wireless Guitar ($99.95) - 73USD

PlayStation 2



Rock Band (game only) ($99.95) - 73USD
Hardware bundle (Drums, Wireless Guitar, Mic) ($299.95) - 220USD


What? Why is the ps2 hardware bundle the same price as the next gen's? That's a bit rough, but i guess that's where they are going to make the most money.

Oh and guess what? apparently that 220USD hardware bundle DOES NOT COME WITH THE GAME.

I can only dream of having as much money as they're going to make from NZ alone.



http://www.gpstore.co.nz/News/Archive/9647.html

Here's the story:



A 12-year-old girl was persuaded to send 300 sexually explicit photos of herself over the internet in exchange for points on a gaming site, Customs has revealed.


United States authorities discovered that 300 objectionable images were uploaded from a New Zealand email address to a web-based US photo account and told New Zealand Customs.

Assisted by the police child abuse team, Customs executed a search warrant and identified a 12-year-old New Zealand girl as the likely sender.

The girl's account had been hacked which resulted in the loss of her game credits. She was contacted by an anonymous game player who offered to restore the credits she had lost.

In return, the girl was asked to send sexually explicit photographs of herself to the player. Over time, these requests become more graphic in nature.





US and Canadian authorities are investigating the suspect.

Customs manager of investigations Terry Brown warned that parents needed to be aware of what their children were doing on the internet.

"Once images are on the web they are effectively there forever," he said.

Mr Brown said Customs investigators found that online games provided an easy means for children to be groomed by sexual offenders.

"Images of child exploitation such as those present in this case may lead on to actual physical offending," he said. "We need to protect our children by making sure they know what the dangers are."





Mr Brown said Customs, the Department of Internal Affairs and police were working together to combat exploitation of children and catch sexual predators.

"Our communities need to be educated that online sexual abuse of children is happening in our society."

In a recent interview Interpol online child abuse investigator Mick Moran said that there had been "a huge increase in self-taken child pornography".





Living in New Zealand myself, i can verify that this is a simple matter of cultural differences. In New Zealand it's quite legal and socially acceptable to exchange sexual pictures for goods and services. Just the other day i got a bottle of milk and 2 loaves of bread for a picture of me finger banging Helen Clarke.



But seriously... what the fuck?

Story from: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4596880a10.html

here we go again





I don't know, i can't think of a better system but there must be a way not to spam the cblogs everytime there is a contest.