Gimzoo

Image roundup

Friendly squirrel.

"Portland State University is expanding its campus. There was one holdout."

Cloud cosplay.

Beaker.

Bangkok at night.

1. Reggie Bush has apparently decided not to turn over his Heisman trophy after all. (Good, let them explain some more why he shouldn't keep his trophy, but Cam Newton can.)

2. A primer on the NBA contract negotiations (it's pretty optimistic that a deal will get done).

3. Age of Conan is now free to play.

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Ha, guess I should turn off that notification!

Thanks everyone, I'll do a Threadless giveaway at Tumblr some time soon to thank you for trying out Super Punch 2.

Link roundup

1. It's mildly interesting from a karmic standpoint that the National Enquirer supposedly videotaped To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen cheating on his wife. It's more interesting to wonder who tipped them off so they could get the scoop.

2. Photo gallery of China's 26-mile Jiaozhou Bay bridge (the current longest ocean bridge in the world). Via.

3. Scientists think these ants raise other bugs for food. Via.

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Link roundup

1. "The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on the verge of collapse as investigators have uncovered major holes in the credibility of the housekeeper who charged that he attacked her in his Manhattan hotel suite in May, according to two well-placed law enforcement officials."

2. Charlie Sheen says he used steroids for filming Major League. Via.

3. The first half of this article by Bill Simmons about how Hollywood tried to trick people into thinking Ryan Reynolds was a movie star is somewhat interesting. But the second half, about how Will Smith engineered his career like a stat expert, is really fascinating.

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Link roundup

1. Ann Althouse had to resort to shaming Blogger staff to be able to export her blog. Meanwhile, the official Blogger blog had a new post today, but made no mention of yesterday's outage.

2. Relatedly, I've decided that it couldn't hurt to become familiar with Tumblr, so every time Blogger's down, I mess around with Super Punch 2.

3. "Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of by the folk."

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Invisible Jet and Wampa

Two paintings by Erika Taguchi-Newton (who has has various goods on sale at Etsy):

Wonder Woman and her invisible jet.

Teatime with Wampa.

*Buy wampas at eBay.

Tarot cards

Tarot cards.

*Buy tarot cards at eBay.

Bioshock Infinite's warped Americana

Irrational Games posted two minutes of gameplay from Bioshock Infinite, consisting of a short tour of a souvenir shop. I cropped a few wallpaper-sized stills:

*Buy Bioshock toys at eBay.

Illustration roundup

Winnie the Pooh and Martian Tripods by Robert Brandenburg for Gallery 1988's Crazy for Cult show.

Ramona Flowers by NC Winters, also for the show.

Cable, Spider-Girl, and War Machine as Green Lanterns by lastscionz.

Chibi Batgirls and Robins by Karen Wang (available for purchase as buttons).

Delirium by Mike McCarthy.

Book cover by Romek Barber

Gallery of book covers by Romek Barber. Via.

Toon Death, Toon Nien Nunb

That's it Folks! by Thomas Sullivan up for vote at Threadless.

Nien Nunb (and others) by Trevor Zammit.

Link roundup

1. World of Warcraft is apparently now free to play (but you can't pass level 20). I think I'll give it a try to prepare for The Old Republic. Can anyone recommend a class? (Something cool and straightforward.)

2. "Chinese government photoshop disaster goes viral."

3. Jackasses (NSFW).

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The Threadless giveaway

Thanks to everyone who sent in a photograph. I actually ended up giving out four $25 credits and if you sent me one of the photos below, then you should have received an email from last night. The big Threadless sale should be starting right now.

UPDATE: Since Greg asked, here's the rest of the submissions, thanks again everyone. I'll do another giveaway soon:

Illustration roundup

The Fantastic Four redesigned by Darren Rawlings.

Monster wallpaper by Bobby Chiu (available in high-res at the link).

Deathbed leadership by Adrian Smith.

Black fox wallpaper by Philipp Dornbierer.

Thief by Johannes.

Midnight Cowboy by Dave MacDowell (devastating movie, wish I'd never seen it).

Image roundup

Garf-Eel.

Boneless bananas for sale.

Lil' Team Fortress 2 cosplay.

Gandalf the Green.

Hypnotoad.

*Previously: That time Garfield dropped acid.

The upcoming Phineas and Ferb game sounds great

Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension, by High Impact Games,sounds great.

Here's the trailer:

And several minutes of gameplay:

*Previously: Perry the Platypus Mini-Cakes.

Link roundup

1. Blogger was down all night again. You had to really hunt for an acknowledgment and solution.

2. I meant to post this last night, but here's a fascinating line from the Figures.com tour of Neca:

Here paint applications are applied based on a Paint Master NECA provides. These can get pretty complex. For example, NECA's Gears of War figures feature 150+ paint applications per figure, most all done by hand in the Chinese factories. That's alot of work to make one figure - about 6 - 9 months from start to finish.

3. Dr. Sketchy's San Francisco had a Star Wars-themed session. Here's a semi-safe for work video of the event, and a totally NSFW version, and you can find the uploaded sketches here.

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Link roundup

1. You didn't really buy that nonsense about how great the yakuza was for keeping order in Japan after the tsunami right? The nuclear power plants failed probably in no small part because they were dominated by the yakuza.

2. The latest incredibly raw personal story from Penelope Trunk - - the heart of the post is a really good message - - if you want a happy relationship, you have to be brave enough to tell you partner what's really bothering you.

3. The BBTS has new Marvel Universe preorders - -sets feature Tony Stark, Iceman, Absorbing Man, Astonishing Wolverine, Magneto, Ultron, Darkhawk, Sub-Mariner, X-23, Steve Rogers, and the Guardians of the Galaxy I posted earlier today.

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A visit to Neca

Figures.com took a tour of Neca's toy-making headquarters. There's lots of in progress photos, and a giveaway at the link. Above, you can see unproduced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures, as well as the beginning of a design for a figure based on Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City. I posted the awesome trailer for that game earlier this month.

Link roundup

1. New specimen box by Alex CF.

2. I couldn't post anything new before I left for work this morning because Blogger was once again not working (third time this month? fourth?). Meanwhile, Tumblr unveiled a beautiful new app for the iPhone.

3. There's some question as to whether his math's way off, but here's an assertion that Apple's brand new top secret data center is mostly a shell for show.

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