fun

Rubber band revolver is your new favorite problem solver

I went shopping for my little brother's birthday last weekend, and I never thought I'd say it, but toys are way too complicated. In addition to having the most complicated packaging ever, all the action figures and playsets look like they were teleported out of some dystopian future. I really do miss the days when the imagination and roleplaying were the only accessories necessary to have a fun time. Which is precisely the reason why I've selected designer/craftsman Andy Mangold's Rubber Bandit modern take on the classic rubber band gun to show off today.

The … Read more

Pac-Man oven mitt channels inner child

When I was a child, I loved playing video games. Before my parents invested in a gaming system, I would go to great lengths to secure a spot on my friends' couches, playing Nintendo classics for hours on end. I never went to arcades, so I got all of my gaming in at home.

In high school and college, I finally discovered the arcade classics, and my all-time favorite was Pac-Man. It was easy enough for me to master, and just complicated enough to be challenging and interesting. I'd visit arcades with friends and plunk quarter after quarter into … Read more

DoInk lets you draw, animate in your browser

DoInk is a free online drawing and animation tool that runs right in your browser. You can treat it like Microsoft Paint and use it to do just a quick doodle, or take advantage of its layer cloning and vector-based designs to create relatively advanced animations.

I chose the latter, and put together a pretty slick looking animation in just a few minutes. Adding additional frames is simple and intuitive, and the app saves everything you're working on in the background (and in the cloud) so there are no local files to worry about. You can also hop between … Read more

DSiWare, WiiWare, and Virtual Console releases for this week

This week adds more downloads for the DSi, a party pirate game to WiiWare, and a Sega Genesis remake of the Pitfall series. DSiWare Mixed Messages (Activision, 500 DSi Points): Mixed Messages is a party game all about communication. Play along with up to 21 different users in the game of "telephone" for your DSi. Master of Illusion Express: Shuffle Games (Nintendo, 200 DSi Points): The Master of Illusion series continues with Shuffle Games. This mini game will allow you to predict what your audience is thinking! WiiWare Party Fun Pirate (TOMY Corporation, 500 Wii points): Exchange turns … Read more

Four cheap ways to entertain yourself

After yesterday's free-pizza minidebacle (make sure to read my final update to learn how to get a free order of Cinnastix), I thought I'd shift gears and find deals designed to entertain your brain rather than tickle your tastebuds:

DVD: Amazon has "Firefly - The Complete Series" on sale for $19.99 shipped. This is one of my all-time favorite shows. And check out the five-star ratings from nearly 3,000 reviewers! Game: Like first-person shooters? Newegg has Prey (PC) for $5.99 shipped. It has a lot of action, but very story-driven. Highly recommended. Music: … Read more

WriteOnIt turns pics into fake magazine covers

WriteOnIt is a simple service that lets you caption and manipulate uploaded photos. Just like BigHugeLabs' Flickr toys project (story), it can take uploaded photos and stick them into magazine covers. It can also slyly insert them onto coffee mugs, billboards, art easels, and fake mirrors within ready-made photos.

You have very little control over the complicated bits, like transparency, placement, and cropping--which are all absent. However, with that simplicity you can very quickly put together something that both looks polished, and that could fool your viewer.

Of all the tools my favorite is the newspaper creator. You have five … Read more

How much Wii fun can a FunChuk chuck?

Add a touch of color to your angelic Nintendo Wii with the new FunChuks from Logic3. Available in red, orange, yellow, green, black and white, they function pretty much like the real McCoy.

Like the original Nintendo Nunchuck, the FunChuk offers an eight-way analog stick, built-in motion-sensing accelerometers, and dual buttons.

Beyond these, the FunChuk is shaped quite differently. It's more petite and features a bean-like profile. While it's hard to judge its ergonomics from the above picture, we do believe the original Nintendo offering is somewhat superior in terms of build and finish. It's listed on … Read more

Get more out of cut-and-paste

Play With Pictures takes one of the most essential image editing features and expands it into an entire program. It is not a photo editor, at least not in the mold of Photoshop. Play With Pictures takes the cut-and-paste feature and simplifies the process while building out supplementary features for creating online avatars, greetings cards, and other projects that require image mash-ups.

The interface presents a re-imagining of the image editing toolset, gearing users towards projects instead of stand-alone edits. The left nav toolbar even notes the steps needed to take a user from start to finish. Tools are categorized … Read more

Inside CNET Labs 8.5: Random acts

A half episode of random talking that's longer than any full episode. First, Eric passionately brags about this enormous thingy of his, but it just bores Dong. Then, Dong talks about his failure to pick up ladies in uniform and how you can't mess with people with guns. No business talk at all. The best part is the very end where you'll get a bonus track.

Enjoy!

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