Use the (mass * acceleration), Luke

I had caught the end of the first Star Wars movie (Episode IV, the first good one) today on Spike. You know what really bothered me, after having seen it again? In the trench run, when the rebels are trying to blow up the Death Star... how come no one has lasers on the back of their fighter ships?

You'd only need one to give yourself cover from the people tailing you:

BAM! No more Vader on your ass.
I'm not a physics major, and I'm just an average Star Wars fan with little to no knowledge of the Star Wars universe outside the movies. But I think I know enough of the two to wonder why the heck they've never thought of it before.

With fighter jets on a planet with atmosphere, like (off the top of my head) Earth, it doesn't make sense to have weaponry in the rear. A fighter jet has a limited amount of ammo they can take up in the air (weight restriction). Also, it's entirely plausible that firing weapons backwards will screw up with a plane's aerodynamics and send it out of control and crashing (a bad thing).

But this is a battle in space. Weight is a non-issue, and there are no aerodynamics to speak of. And since they're using lasers, presumably ammo isn't even an issue.

So with weight and aerodynamics ruled out, all that's left is for the pilot to correctly aim behind him while flying forward. That would be pretty difficult, if not impossible, for a person to do. But the rebels were using droid co-pilots. How hard would it have been for Luke to just say "Hey R2, I'm gonna concentrate on blowing up the Death Star... you go 'pew! pew! pew!' behind me. And take care of Vader for me while you're at it."?

They can create planet destroyers and hyperdrives, but the concept of firing behind them in a space dog fight still eludes them.

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Freakin' Magical Unicorn Gum

My girlfriend, an avid gum chewer, recently received a pack of gum from her brother. But it wasn't any ordinary gum... it's was Freakin' Magical Unicorn Gum. The packaging can be found below, but the company that is responsible for this awesomeness is Blue Q, makers of many other hilarious things.

Checking their gum selection alone has made me interested in Instant Afro Gum, Oh God I'm So Totally Wasted Gum, and This Orgy Is Off To A Slow Start Gum.

Front of the pack:

Rear:

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Shotgun Content 4

• I will be the first to tell you, I am not a gear head. I don't know the first thing about cars. But if I were going to "pimp my ride" or whatever kids these days call it, this is how I'd roll. 20" wagon wheels. Big enough for some serious street cred, yet bizarrely excessive enough for me to actually want to do that to my car.



• Some guy in Pennsylvania ate a 15 pound hamburger in less than 5 hours. I was literally brimming with American pride when I read that. Other countries may be starving, but this guy wins money for eating more than a human should in a sitting. Good luck with your, quote, "burger hangover", you American hero!
  
  Actually, I have to give him some credit... that burger looks incredibly threatening. Unless there's some kind of camera trick involved, it looks to be as wide as the dude's torso!



• This has to be one of the funniest things from The Onion I've seen in a while.



• Yesterday's post was inspired by my lone submission to cracked's reader contest. This time, they asked that we MS Paint what the current election would look like to a 5 year old. I only made one submission because I realized that I don't like to draw with a mouse, and I don't like MS Paint.
  
  
  
  And if I were to actually market the (fake) Terror Wrists product, I'd likely need to go on a Terror Wrist campaign. I'd set-up local Terror Wrist organizations, fan clubs if you will, which would carry out Terror Wrist activities.

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Terror Wrists!

Hey kids!

Tired of your boring normal wrists? Then check out Terror Wrists: washable wrist tattoos specifically designed to make your wrists more scary! You'll be the fright of the party!

Terror Wrists! Unleash your inner Terror Wrist!

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World of Goo is amazing

I should have spent more time updating today, but my time this evening has been spent between some work that I needed to get done (for work), and World of Goo. I had heard some really good reviews of the game and decided to check it out for myself.

I don't think I could give an fair reaction to the game right now, partly because I didn't have the time tonight, but also because honestly there is so much for me still to mentally parse. What I have gathered thus far: it's unbelievably fun and unlike any other game.

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I put on my robe and wizard hat...

So more Diablo 3 news broke over this weekend's Blizzcon. This time, around another playable class - The Wizard. I personally can't wait to one, as in most RPGs (action or otherwise) I tend to gravitate to the mage classes. Something about big flashy explosions really appeal to me, you know?

The trailer for the class is freaking awesome and totally confirms all the explosions and badassery I can expect with the Wizard when Diablo 3 comes out.

And if you haven't seen it, there is about 5 minutes of gameplay footage of the Wizard as well. Not as dramatic as the trailer, but gives you an idea of the gameplay and some more of the locales/enemies.

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King's Bounty

Freaking Penny Arcade. If it weren't for Tycho, I wouldn't have heard about a little Russian game called King's Bounty. I have yet to play it - I'm downloading the demo as I write this - but this article was all I needed to get me hooked.

Turn-based RPG/Strategy type gameplay? Epic struggles to upgrade a belt? Zombie wives? Yes, yes and YES.

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Photoshop Flailing: Ways to improve the presidential debates

Another week, another cracked.com reader photoshop contest it seems. This week's theme is coming up with ways to improve the presidential debates. My entries are below, but you can find all the other entries here. If some of the resolutions seem funny, click the image for the full view.

Randy and Paula liked his performance, but Simon was a prick as usual.


This is an apt metaphor. People claim to be interested in NASCAR, too, but secretly they're hoping to see some serious wreckage.


LOL.


Diabeetus vs. Puddin' Pops. The ultimate debate.

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Coolest guy on crutches EVER

This video by Joey Garfield is truly amazing. He did a video to RJD2's "Work it Out". RJD2 is awesome in its own right, but that guy dancing... wow. You have to watch it to understand.

Is there even a term for this kind of dancing? Crutch breaking? Extreme crutch stylin'? Being totally awesome? I bet that fedora is the source of that guy's abilities...

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Yatta!

I got #4 in the weekly Cracked.com photoshop content. You can see all the selected entries here.

Not only that, it turns out they used mine as a header. A link to the screenshot can be found below:

http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk43/TheUnwind/2008%20-%20October/crackedhomepage.jpg

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Diablo 3 rumblings

I'm rabid for just about any details of Diablo 3. You may or may not have seen these already, but recently some information was disseminated by Blizzard via its forums.

The entirety of my life, circa 2010 (or whenever Blizzard releases the game)
First, there is going to be a new death mechanic. In previous Diablo iterations, you were kicked back to town when you died and that was that. The Diablo team has realized this takes away from the action of game and the town was always a safety net for the player. Instead, they plan on using a checkpoint system, where when you die you restart at the checkpoint (possibly with a death penalty). Sounds interesting.

Also, monsters will behave more like, well, monsters. Thus far, the monsters of Diablo all seemed to work in perfect harmony to kill you the player. None of them ever fought with, or even did indirect damage to, each other. It appears that they're going to address this, though monsters won't naturally attack one another without reason.

Lastly, they are working on items in the inventory and rehauling its UI. The UI (of anything) is one of those things I typically have to see to truly appreciate, but this is freaking Blizzard. By definition, whatever they do is correct.

Death Mechanic article: http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Gaming-Rampage/Die-die-die/
Monsters and Inventory article: http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Hellforge/Bashiok-on-Monsters-and-Inventory/

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The Unwind, Serious Business.

After doing a little research, a sad-but-true new motto for the site can now be "The Unwind: Less Popular Than Watching Paint Dry!"

Ok, let me start from the beginning...

On a lark, I decided to see how this little blog o' mine is faring. See where its place is in the grand scheme of things. So I turned to Alexa, one of the leading companies in web insight, to see how I stack up to other sites.

As of 10/8/08, According to Alexa, The Unwind's traffic rank is 7,156,414 (details). That didn't initially register with me until I tried to put it into perspective. According to Netcraft, another research and analysis company, there are 181,277,835 webpages in the internet. Being in the top 4% is not bad at all, right?

That was, until, I found out that Watching paint dry (source) is more exciting than The Unwind. Watching paint dry is a site that was just a webcam of a painted room drying. I say "was", because now the site isn't really doing anything. And it still commands a traffic rank of 690,094.

Hey, at least my buddies over at Traveling Munchies (details) and Musicfan Gallery (details) are right there with The Unwind in also being less exciting than watching paint dry!

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CSI: Henson

Sometimes I get a flash of brilliance. Through the magic of photoshop, I've inadvertently created the best television show ever (that doesn't currently exist). I would pay infinity billion dollars to be able to watch:

It also happens to make perfect sense for all parties involved. Jerry Bruckheimer needs a new, fresh take on CSI; the Muppets have been starving for work since 1999 (Muppets From Space, their last movie); and I really really really need this to happen.

Jerry? Whoever owns the rights to the Muppets? We need to do lunch...

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Chris Hansen soundboard

Chris Hansen, the host of Dateline's "To Catch a Predator", just makes me laugh. On the one hand this is man who is doing some good, if overly sensationalized, journalism and helping make the world a safer place by putting some really evil people behind bars. On the other hand, taking his quotes out of context has to be the creepiest (and disturbingly hilarious) thing ever.

That's my awkward segue into finding a Chris Hansen soundboard out on the internet, which takes those very quotes entirely out of context. Not only is this soundboard NSFW, I also highly recommend not listening to any of this anywhere near loved ones, or generally within earshot of anyone else entirely. You've been duly warned.

http://www.realmofdarkness.net/soundboards/chrishansen-soundboard-2.swf

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Photoshop Flailing: The most awkward moment of all time

These weekly reader submission photoshop contests from Cracked.com are really addicting for two reasons: One, I really want to win one of these... or at least appear as one of the selected entries. Two, they already choose a subject for me to practice and ply my photoshop skill.

You can find all the entries here, but the theme of this week's contest is "the most awkward moment of all time".

This one is awkward because the boom mic guy ruined some otherwise great footage:

"That's one small step for man... one giant- DAMMIT, GARY, GET OUT OF THE SHOT!"

Here, Santa finds himself on the naughty list with Chris Hansen on an episode of "To Catch a Predator".

Have a seat.

With sincerest apologies to Thích Quảng Đức and his ultimate protest, this would be pretty awkward:

She didn't even bring enough to share!

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