A kayaker inadvertently got a face full of tentacles while coming between a seal and its lunch in waters off New Zealand. Kaikoura on New Zealand’s South Island has a large population of fur seals. The octopus tried to escape the seal by latching onto the bottom of a kayak but it is not know how successful that strategy was in the long-run.
The salty seal has yet to be identified and is considered extremely racist. Humans are warned to keep vigilant for the perpetrator and avoid feeding (OK yes I made that up).
Sony recently announced the PlayStation Classic system, a miniaturized recreation of the original PlayStation console that comes preloaded with 20 classic games from its iconic and eclectic library.
If you’re smart and eager to explore the boundaries of your digital devices, and if you’re like me in this respect and also love games, then you probably have an emulator. I use ePSXe myself, but there are multiple ways to play those classic games from video game consoles of a bygone era (backwards compatibility would be nice). I have a friend who purchases them from the official store through his next-gen consoles. Although we both still have the original games in their original disc format, there’s something about enhanced graphics and processing power that breathe new life into forgotten game gems that is exciting to be reintroduced with, especially if the games are rare and/or we haven’t played them yet. Me and him just go about it differently. I should be the last person excited about the PlayStation Classic, and yet, I already preordered (not before checking my local supplier’s cancellation process, of course). I like the idea of hardware and not having to fiddle around, BUT, my biggest trepidation comes down to the word “Classic” and what that means to Sony and their games selection process, because many were not considered classics and deserved to be, while others are so well-known they lost their replay value decades ago.
Only 5 games of the 20 have been announced, so fingers crossed it’s not an obvious lineup (so far so good).
These are my top (probably unlikely) wishes I hope to see included:
Not many. I can’t help but think about the alternative other. The type of goodies that get buried under popular opinion, sales statistics and algorithms. What good is a retrospective console if not to reacquaint gamers with gems they missed out on, right?
And here are three that (like Whittaker’s chocolates) I love so much that I would be happy if NO ONE played them, because they’re really great, and I’m mean like that.
The PsClassic is a great idea and I’m open to being surprised, I just hope the unannounced 20 is slightly more diverse than this mock-up:
In my defense of being a bit of a dork, I have a six-year-old brother. It is a far better thing for a boy his age then it is for me. Therefore, December 3rd being the release date gives me exactly two weeks to play-through what I want before gifting it. …So I can see if there is any content that is too grown up for his age range, you know, in case it would be irresponsible of me to share give to him. What are cool big brothers for, right (hehe).
Totally digging the chorus!（＾3＾♪ ♫ ♩ ♬ I’m searching for the undiluted heart ♪
Speak to me now
When I’m asleep and there’s nobody to depend on me
Hold out your hand
‘Cause I’ve been drifting and sometimes I need some sympathy
I tried to be what they want
I lost myself, I lost my feet, I lost my memories
Now in silence I wait
I need your touch, I need your face, I need you
‘Cause I’m searching for a night light in the dark
A brighter love, a brighter love
And I’m searching for the undiluted heart
A brighter love, a brighter love.
So now it’s all come to this
What was the purpose?
I assumed that everything would pass
I gave myself to the night
I walked alone, I fell asleep on empty streets
Now I see that
All this time my eyes were open
And all this time I didn’t close them
And the headlights play upon the ocean
I will stay this way
‘Cause I see you, I see you now
I’m searching for a night light in the dark
A brighter love, a brighter love
I’m searching for the undiluted heart
A brighter love, a brighter love
I’m hoping that somehow I’ll find my way
To a brighter love, a brighter love
Keep hoping ’til the night straight falls apart
A brighter love, a brighter love
[Interlude]
So I’m searching for a night light in the dark
A brighter love, a brighter love
And I’m searching for the undiluted heart
A brighter love, a brighter love
I’m hoping that somehow I’ll find my way
To a brighter love, a brighter love
Keep hoping ’til the night straight falls apart
A brighter love, a brighter love.
Librairie Mollat (France’s first independent bookstore) has carved a unique niche on Instagram with its #bookface portraits. The Bordeaux-based bookstore regularly features photographs of book covers held up in front of perfectly scaled and dressed people:
As far as social media gimmicks go, I think this is a fun one.
A group of high school students from the Heep Yunn School in Hong Kong who call their art group Illusdreamer spend hours creating strictly temporary masterpieces knowing they’ll be wiped away whenever their teacher needs to use the board again.
Their drawings are so big it takes them up to one hour to wipe the chalkboard clean.
This must have taken a very long time, and you get a sense of that when we’re shown the furnished houses seen in the distance during the opening shots of the movie. The video is 32 minutes long because it is showing the world with a play-by-play commentary of the film:
Spirited Away, another world-famous Ghibli film, has been the subject of YouTube user and Minecraft Builder Alan Becker’s attention for four years now, and with the evolution of the game, his Spirited Away world has also evolved. He recently posted a video of his and his team’s updated recreation, and the high level of detail of the town, the bathhouse, and everything around it will blow you away.
If you want to check out Becker’s Spirited Away world in Minecraft, you can visit their server at play.ghiblicraft.com. They have some other Ghibli worlds, too.
Meet Alma Deutscher, 6o Minutes correspondent Bob Pelley pulls four random notes out of a hat, then, soon enough, Deutscher uses the notes to start improving a sonata:
Last fall, 60 Minutes spent some time withAlma Deutscher, a prodigy on the piano and the violin. As her Wikipedia page tells us, “At age six she composed her first piano sonata. At age seven, she completed her first major composition, the opera The Sweeper of Dreams. Aged nine, she wrote a concerto for violin and orchestra, which she premiered in a 2015 performance.” And at “the age of ten she completed her first full-length opera, Cinderella, which had its European premiere in Vienna on 29 December 2016 under the patronage of conductor Zubin Mehta.” Fast forward to age twelve, you can watch Alma pull off something that, at this point, shouldn’t come as a surprise.
The Canadian convenience store robbery that has now become infamous for its poor execution got a Metal Gear Solid makeover. Here is what it feels like to watch people who are bad at video games…and life:
Well, I did end up making a short, silly little thing for the competition after all. It was judged last month and no, I did not place anywhere. The rules were simple; entries must be under 2 minutes long, be presented in a vertical format (cell phone screen dimensions), and incorporate the theme of light. Coming in as one of the shortest of all the 63 entries, here is 46 seconds of ghost hunting silliness, FIRST CONTACT/HADOUKEN:
References — STAR TREK; run that start date number through a Julian Calendar converter and you will get 20/05/2018, the date the competition was judged / Snorricam; opening camera angle (and those sparks were made by my sis and bro spinning burning steel wool) / SILENT HILL; radio sound on that Sangean ghost box / STREET FIGHTER; Hadouken, a special attack in the Street Fighter video game series / SONG OF THE SOUTH; song reference from 1946 Musical/Animation (Mum used to sing this when I was little and we would go out for walks).
I’m not OCD or anything, I just, do more with my time than most. It’s a blessing and a curse, believe me. I’m bound to get paid one of these days though for all my effort and randomness lol! Believe it or not, I actually wrote a 5 page script and story boarded the whole thing. Come the night of the impromptu shoot, however, my sister, brother, and I, just ended up winging most of it, two days before the competition closed.
One-takes and plenty of lolz later, we made something enjoyable together. I mean, it still would have been nice to have known what Taika Waititi’s reaction was to seeing it and $10,000 in the hand would have also been swell, but overall it was a neat, cheap, let’s shoot-the-shit-and-see-what-we-make weekend short. Thanks, Spark!
