Kid's Mental Search Results

News: Finally! A Practical Use for Arcade Game Skills

Most kids who play video games will never become professional gamers. Those that do are part of a very select group— it's like being a professional actor or athlete. It's nice work if you can get it. For everyone else, the sad realization usually arrives sooner or later that time spent playing games might not have the practical rewards that homework or working hard at your job might deliver.

News: Child Molesters and Sexy Fighters: A Study of Video Game Commercials

The Kinect for Xbox 360 and PlayStation Move might be fun to play with, but people do not look very cool while they're doing it. Air guitar is not particularly flattering (even if done on stage), and neither is air-anything else, as pleasurable as it might be. This is why I find it strange that a group of admen somewhere in the world think these kinds of commercials would appeal to anyone.

How To: Do the Land O'Lakes Indian Butter (Boob) Trick

The artwork for Minnesota's Land O' Lakes butter packaging is classic, dating back to 1928 when it was first created by Brown & Bigelow illustrator Arthur C. Hanson. The logo was updated ("modernized") once in 1939, again in the '50s, and has undergone minor modifications here and there since. The legendary packaging is good for two rather nerdy tricks: A) a very trippy optical illusion and B) a very infantile boob illusion.

News: Australian Government Finally Comes Around on Video Games—Well, at Least a Little

The Australian government has a dysfunctional history with video games. Any regular Yahtzee Croshaw follower can attest to that. The Parliament has established a series of unfortuante regulations that make games both highly taxed and overregulated in price. Bringing any goods all the way to an island in the bottom of the world is expensive to begin with, and new games in Australia can tip the scales at $80 or more.

Octodad: An Award Winning Game… From College Students

Fatherhood is difficult, especially when you're an octopus. That is the moral of the 2011 IGF Student Showcase winner Octodad, available for free from its website. This hilarious little title was created by a team of interactive media students at DePaul University in Chicago, and is the latest in a stream of successful indie games to come out of collegiate video game design programs. In fact, it's so successful that a sequel is in the works.

News: Totally Rad Shows Gnarly Side of Localization

Localizing a game is a task many do not fully understand. Not only do localizers have to translate the games they work on into a different language, but they have to translate it into a different culture as well. Oftentimes art assets, plot elements, and menu systems are changed to suit regional sensitivities. Japanese media tends to have their common drunkard characters removed or censored in American versions, for example.

Checkmate and... Checkmate: Bizarre Three-Way Chess Game

In a recent episode of The Big Bang Theory, character Sheldon Cooper designed a highly complicated three-person game of chess, with an odd-shaped nonagon board and two new pieces—serpent and old woman. Seemingly pioneering, in truth, three-player chess has been around since the early-1700s, with many different variations, most of which retain the basic game structure and sixteen pieces that each player controls.

Blue: The Color of Dishonor and Subterfuge

When I used to play Magic every day during 7th grade, one of my regular opponents was a kid named Eddie. He played an all-Blue, deck, the first I'd ever seen. At that point I was even more creature-obsessed than I am now and my deck were unwieldy hulks practically begging to be shamed by an all-Blue deck. I couldn't hurt him. Every time I tried to do something he had a response, a way to negate what I was doing. He would barely ever hurt me. He would win games just by making me play for so lo...

Old Magic: A Rant

Running this World has prompted me to think about MTG on a deeper level than I ever have before. In attempts to contextualize it, explain it, research it, and understand the parts of it that I don't yet understand, I have come to an unexpected conclusion: I'm old.

News: Navigating the sugar (and white flour) fests

What's the main dish that's served at pot lucks? Pasta! And what's pasta loaded with? White flour! Pot lucks, birthday parties and similar gatherings are a regular occurrence in our family. Humans like to socialize and in our culture, we do that best around food--food that mostly contains white flour. And if at least some of that food isn't loaded with refined sugar, it's like you've breached an important rule of social etiquette!

News: Dont Talk to Strangers

I have been writing since I was a little boy. I remember watching South Park at age 9 and writing my own episodes. Aside from some curse words and sexual humor that you don't expect from a nine year old, there really was not much there. In middle school I used to write short stories, usually about myself and some of the things that had happened to me. To this day no one knows that a lot of the events I have written about are true. This is something that people have always asked about. I remem...

How To: Make Portuguese sweet bread

Want a sweet bread for a nice holiday treat? This Portuguese Sweet Bread will do the trick. Just watch the video recipe to learn how to make it, just like your grandmother used to make. A classic sweet bread treat. You can even use the dough to make Portuguese doughnuts.

How To: Make Macaroni and Cheese

Packaged macaroni and cheese dinners can be a quick, guilty pleasure, but making the real thing can be easy, too. This is the perfect recipe for a rainy day (and great for kids on spring break!)

News: Wig head (couldn't spell manniquin)....jk

You need a car with a sun roof. You get the wig head and act like it's a real person standing up with their head out of the sun roof. All of a sudden, you slam on the brakes, and the head goes flying. Or, you drive past one of the Jackass gang and they hit the head with a baseball bat or golf club Like Tiger's ex-wife did. Again, the head goes flying, hopefully to scare the shit out of some unsuspecting bystander.

News: Gorilla Man in Hollywood

I've got this awesome looking gorilla suit, that I use to mess around in, and it always has good results. For some reason people are just afraid of the suit. I think its because it looks so real, or that the face has an eerie stare. Some people don't even know what it is till its too late. Anyways, this thing is loads of fun and I still use it to this day.

News: A$$ Whooped By Kids

So you get in a room, playground, arena, whatever you've got to work with, with a bunch of kids. You give the kids tennis rackets, and you let them go off on you. Let them beat you up, hit you in the head, balls, face, anywhere is fair game. Only rule is not to cry.

News: Book Review - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

I loved The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay for so many reasons. For its fantastical sense of adventure, set against the real world action and tragedy of the Jews in Europe during World War Two. I loved the opening chapters of Josef in Prague – a city I spent several months in a few years ago and one of the most beautiful places I’ve been. Reading scenes set in Prague and descriptions of places I’ve seen made the story that much more personal for me.

How To: How Red-light Cameras Work

As you may have seen in your city or town, red light cameras are on the rise in the United States. In many instances in my area, these cameras have sprung up seemingly out of no-where, and mostly without any reason. Over use of these systems can make privacy (even on the road) a fleeting possibility.

How To: Access Wikipedia During Today's SOPA Blackout

It has been suggested that about 150 million internet users will be affected by today's blackout of Wikipedia in protest of SOPA and PIPA. If you don't know what those are, go here and read up on it, and then take action yourself! After you've contacted your Representatives about these bills, you'll probably still need to get some work done today using Wikipedia's English-language site.

Google Dorking: AmIDoinItRite?

What is Google Dorking? Well, simply put, "Google Dorking" is just an efficient way to utilise keywords in order to perform very specific searches on a given subject. In this case, one would look for websites/servers that are vulnerable to attacks or are configured improperly by using specific search criteria that should yeild results, should it find matches to known mistakes/errors in a website or webserver.

News: 20 Amazing Minecraft Costumes at MineCon 2011

MineCon 2011 (held at the Mandalay Bay in Vegas) was in a word, awesome. The crowd was overwhelmingly young, the vibe was fun and nerdy, and best of all, the costumes were inspired. Below are my favorites, which unfortunately aren't of the best quality (lighting was low and super yellow, which wasn't helped much by my standard point-and-shoot). If you happened to attend Minecon as well, post about your experience to the community corkboard... if you're pictured below, please comment!

How To: Make a Redstone Death Machine

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. Oh, the power of redstone! But, what good is any technology if it can't be harnessed for killing? Here's a redstone build for the mad scientist in each of us.