The Unicorn Princess

What video game is your personal Game of the Year? 
Submitted by SimpleNate.

Personally, I enjoy kickin it old-school...

... my co-worker, Spaceghost, won't get his feelings hurt.  See, Spaceghost was wearing a tie yesterday.  It's not often that he wears a tie, and his ties are spectacular.  When I say spectacular, it's the same as a mycologist saying, "That's a spectacular slime mold."  You have to look at it as a professional in the field of ugly ties, as I do, in order to appreciate the spectacular properties of this tie.

Spaceghost Tie Specimen 1

Luckily, I got a picture of the tie before it scampered away under a work bench to build its nest.

At first, I didn't notice the tie.  The pattern(s) naturally bewilders the eyes such that they often refuse to register that anything is there.  The resulting subconcious void sometimes cues me in that I'm missing something good and makes me take a closer look.  Sometimes, however, I think I miss some truly amazing ties that my eyes are completely incapable of processing.

Lets examine this beauty.  At first, I thought it was some manner of plaid.  Then Spaceghost shifted in his chair and I thought I saw paisley.  Something in my brain snapped, and I asked myself, "Could it be that the paisley is merely a component of the plaid?" No, it has to be some manner of quilting... but there are no stitches holding the patches together. As you can see, the various patterns actually lay out into an off-kilter plaid where simple, god-fearing colors have been replaced by patterns that could possibly be the inspriation for many of Glenn Danzig's bigger hits.

Yo-yo guide books, for the most part, suck.  Sorry, that was a harsh generalization of yo-yo books... I should have said "Yo-yo guide books gargle man-yogurt."

You can pick up a few basic techniques from the books, and if you know absolutely no tricks you might be able to learn the ever-popular Walk-the-Dog.  (this is the part where I go into a bitter rampage, screaming about the people who see me walking down the street doing complicated tricks like the Brain Twister and they always ask "can you walk-the-dog?")  And some books offer good insight into the mechanics or physics behind yo-yos, which can be quite helpful.  But if you want anything more than that out of a book, if you are looking to learn anything more complicated than a Loop-T-Loop, please let me know if you find something because I've been looking for years.

Now let us discuss some of the videos I've run across in my search to learn skills that can make a woman's sex drive shrivel and die in mere seconds. There's this guy that put out a multitude of videos in the mid-to-late '90's who... wait for it... who calls himself Yo-Hans.  Oh dear baby jebus.  His dad, I think, started a yo-yo company based on Yo-Hans' above average abilities with a yo-yo.  He styles himself as some sort of world yo-yo champion because his pop's company held a "competition" that obviously was rigged so that this marketing whore would win. Yo-Hans is the guy in the video over there that talks to the camera.   He's that kind of guy.  Anyways, back to the videos.  All of the Yo-Hans videos feature music and fashion that would make Eastern European kids swoon.  And his idea of teh c00list trix evAr is workin two yo-yos at once with the loops.  In my opinion, that's like watching a guy run a marathon; after the first few seconds, you get the idea and you can skip out on the next four hours.  The tricks Yo-Hans does demonstrate, he doesn't  demonstrate them very well, and they're rather pedestrian and well-covered in the aforementioned books.  I won't bother mentioning titles of his works, as they're not worth it.  If you see a backwards-worn newsboy hat with some cool neon graphix, you're in trouble. Thankfully, I think Duncan bought out Yo-Hans' dad and absorbed all of their stuff... leaving Yo-Hans to schlep around in the third-world teaching the power of yo-yos to kids who'd be better off learning the power of milking a goat to feed their family.

Duncan, however, got it right.  The "How to be a Player" video was given to me, and I shrugged it off.  Another yo-yo video, I says to myself.  Pshaw.  This video, featuring hero Steve Brown and other yo-yo talents that I can't remember because I'm all sleepy, shows some amazing stuff... and then it shows you how to do it... in slow motion... with explanations.  Hero Steve Brown, hallowed be thy name, also convinced someone to put in a soundtrack featuring actually good music. And now, I see, it's in DVD form, which was the only drawback for a long time, as it was only available on ye aulde VHS (and my vcr put some unflattering static lines on the hero Steve Brown's artistry and made the tv speakers go "chhhhsshhshhvvvbthhhwweee" when paused).  Srsly, this is a good and helpful video... and I'm not just saying that because hero Steve Brown lurks in these parts, commenting on my conjectury and making me wet myself because famous people aren't supposed to talk to me.  I once made Vice President Dan Quayle's wife uncomfortable when she saw that it was me shaking her hand... and Ian MacKaye's nipples and sweat heartilly distracted me once when I was talking to him after a show long long ago. Me + Famous People = peepants.

Show us your hairstyles over the years.
Submitted by Lena Katrin.

Proof

Not good pictures.  Not good hair styles.