God Bless America

— source*

I'm pretty sure I can't be much more explicit than this. Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Associated avatars

*Note: when this was originally posted, the video was an embedded flash player. Now that flash has been discontinued, it has been replaced with a YouTube fan edit

Hamelin's motto

Seal of Hamelin, depicting a grindstone.
Around the top, in German, is written
"Independent City of Hamelin."
Around the bottom, in Latin,
"Never dispute people who
study rodents."

I still remember when I discovered that Hamelin was real. I always thought the name had been invented for the Pied Piper fable, since it seemed like little more than random consonants.

Formally the große selbständige Stad das Hameln (or Greater Independent City of Hamelin) the town has actually founded way back in the 9^th century! The tale of the Pied Piper arose as an explanation for why, in 1284, the town had no children.

The people of Hamelin have taken the story of the Pied Piper to heart, and it has permeated every aspect of the city. Indeed, the entire economy of the city is based around tourism of people who come to see the place where the legend was born. Attempts were made to industrialize the city in the 1940s and 50s, but they all failed. This is actually what has allowed the city to stay preserved in its 13^th century state!

Perhaps the most visible influence is in the city's motto: Nunquam disputus rodentologist; commonly translated from Latin as "Don't argue with one who knows his rodents," showing that the people who wrote it didn't quite get the lesson from the Pied Piper's tale.

Though it's pretty handy for me, isn't it? After all, what I've done on this blog has made a rodentologist.

The Legend of Zelda: 25 years pushing the envelope

Detail of Ag+'s tribute to Zelda's 25^th
anniversary, drawn on the day of
the anniversary.
Full image | Making-of video.
(More information below.)

This is not the typical “Oh, I wish I could draw like that” post. Sure, Ag+’s work is too awesome for words and sure, I probably wouldn’t be able to draw like that (even if I had all the fancy tools ’e did), but the main body of this post will be dedicated to The Legend of Zelda; the reason why he did such a prodigious piece.
"What? But this is not a gaming blog!"
But that doesn't take away the merits of the series, nor of researching its history, so hush.

Origins

In 1983, Nintendo put all its cards on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES); confident that, if things didn’t go well, they could always sell it in the U.S. After all, Americans will buy anything, right?

Nineteen Eighty-Four saw the Great Video Game Crash. Americans had suddenly decided that all home consoles were equally bad. Plus, Apple was releasing its Macintosh that year: an affordable computer that was an actual computer –not a dial-up terminal– which you could actually use to make things; a computer where the floppy drive was not a separate box! If you could have that, why waste money on a limmited machine that could only run half a dozen games? The fact that American video-game companies were full of litigation costs to the can’t-afford-making-anything-new level, didn’t help matters (after all, Americans will also sue over any little thing).

So how does a big, video-game giant like Nintendo deal with a crisis like this?

Christmas Sandwich

I have just discovered that the Christmas Sandwich (which I proposed here) does, in fact, exist! It was created for Mr. Bean (who else?) for the episode that aired on December 29, 1992. If you want to see the circumstances that led to the institution of the Christmas Sandwich, click the image on the right; it will lead you to a YouTube video.

John Lennon Google Doodle

Okay, so I was wrong when I said I wouldn't be able to post in a week, but today's Google Doodle is definitely worth breaking the silence. Click below to watch it

Well... I thought it was funny...

I probably won't be able to post again until next week or the week after, so in the meantime, I thought you guys could have a laugh with this drawing I was referred to through the Internet:

Fortibus Es

Last Saturday, May 22, I went to the library to meet with my partner so we could work on a project. As I've explained before, my college is quite removed from the city. It therefore has a whole fleet of buses used to take students between the city and campus. (Of course, you can always bring your car, but some 60% of the people who come to this college don't own one... long story.)

We had no problem getting to the library, it was getting back that was the problem. The library opens on Saturdays until midday; there's usually a bus at 12:30 for the people who need to come to it. But there we were at the bus stop, and 12:30 came and went. The logical question arose: where is our bus?

At that point, I told my partner the following:

Luc síbili si ergo, faustus üin don mon dei; pas fortibus es in aro.

This was obviously a reference to http://foribuses.com/. My partner didn't get it, even when I wrote it, so I had to explain: Luc síbili (Look, see Billy) si ergo (see her go) faustus üin (fast as wind) don mon dei (on Monday) pas fortibus es (past fourty busses) in aro (in a row).
My point? There may be no busses now, but on Monday there will be more than fourty!

When he got it, he said something along the lines of "that was so funny I forgot to laugh."

The bus finally arrived at 1:00; having been asked to wait for some course for non-students.