Denethor, please keep away.

Alright, we know that Minas Tirith has been recreated as food many times. First the gumdrop city, and then as a cake. Old news. But now the White City has been recreated with matchsticks! That's right. I don't know why this particular person chose matchsticks, but he is doing a really awesome job. It's not complete yet, as you can probably tell from the picture, and it looks like it's estimated finish date is sometime in 2010. Seeing as how it was started in 2007, this thing is a major project. I can't imagine having it in my living room for that long.
Overall shot--the top part isn't quite finished yet.

The detail on this thing is just incredible! You can check out the website for more detail shots, though there isn't much information on how it was constructed other than carefully and tediously. I wonder if he is going to buy little Lord of the Rings people to populate it with. Probably not. Anyway, stay tuned!

Via Geekologie.

Geekery Keeps You Warm At Night

This person is seriously dedicated to Super Mario Brothers. Like, I can't even imagine how crazy. Check out this blanket:
You can check out this post on craftster to see more details on the project. Here's a model to show you how big this thing actually is. Keep in mind, this is a 6'2 guy.



Crazy! Now, I like Super Mario Brothers as much as the next guy, but this seems a little ridiculous. It took over a year and a half to complete. I mean, I was trying to make a Portal blanket, and I only got one panel into it before I completely gave it up. Of course, that was knitting and it's pretty hard (for me, anyway) to do colorways on knitting, it's probably a lot easier with crochet. And I do think the crochet on this project looks really nice, and I like how bright a lot of the colors are. I wonder what the back looks like.

If you are interested in gory details you can check out information on the individual panels here. Hope everyone had a nice weekend! Stay tuned!

Gotta Make 'Em All!

Alright, it's Pokemon time! If anyone wants some fun crafts to make this weekend (and you are a nerd--but I'm assuming most of you are if you're reading this) I rounded up a couple of crafts.

First up: a crochet Psyduck. Yeah, I know Psyduck is really annoying but as long as he's not running around like an idiot he's just fine. In fact I think I like him the best in crochet form because he's so quiet.

And if you can't crochet, or just want to do another kind of craft, we have here an Ivysaur plush pattern. I actually tried to make this and got so far as to cut out all of the pieces, but I never have sewed them together. Yes, I am that lazy. Still, I think he's really cute! I especially like his little fangs.
Also, if you're feeling brave you can whip up this Pikachu pattern--but there's no picture of the finished product, so who knows what monstrosity you'll actually end up with. You can also whip up this little pokeball to bring with you in public and throw at people. Extra points if you fill it with rocks and beat up the people first so they won't break out of the ball.

PS--That was rude. Please don't do that. I think I'm in a weird mood because I looked through this disturbing gallery of pokemon pictures which has put me out of whack. I don't even know how I found this. On the one hand I want to laugh at them, because I think the concept is funny, but on the other hand the amount of innards and blood makes me squick. So. Yeah. Here's one of the tame ones, which is the only one that doesn't have brains or blood spurting out.

I do like this one, mainly because of my aforementioned dislike of Psyduck. However, the Sandshrew and Chansey one make me want to cry. There's also a picture of a drugged Snorlax who has had his kidneys stolen. I don't know. Anyway. Stay tuned! Less disgusting stuff next time, I swear!

It's a Mon Cal Cruiser!

And not just any Mon Cal cruiser, it's Admiral Ackbar's ship Home One! It seems like that ship should have been the first one that the second Death Star targeted, but whatever. Anyway, the crazy dude that made this spent 11 months and $5500 bucks to make a 52 pound lego creation. Pretty crazy. And oh yeah, it's totally wired to light up.

I'm pretty sure that Mon Cal cruisers have little mottledy spots all over them, so it's kind of dissapointing that this one is all one color. However, the lights totally make up for it! Can you believe that this guy not only designed the blueprints for this massive thing, but also made sure there were hundreds of windows that could light up? It's crazy to even imagine how to get started on a project like that.
If you're interested, this guys also has some other crazy Star Wars lego creations, but they're all prequel stuff so I didn't really want to post them. Some people are into that sort of thing though, I guess. Anyway, hope everyone is having a nice week! Stay tuned!

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Cross Stitch

Alrighty, today we have a couple of wonderful Dr. Horrible cross stitch samplers made by craftster user beefranck, who also made the lovely "I'll be in my bunk" cross stitch, (and apparently has a penchant for cross stitching dirty words) .

This one is cute--I like the birdies, and how cheerful it looks with such an evil message. But my favorite:

That's just awesome. That looks like something you could hang in your guest bathroom to confuse and scare anyone who wants to visit you.

Also, anyone watching "Dollhouse"? What do you think of it? I think it's getting better, but I'm still mad that it is on the air instead of Firefly so I think that may be clouding my judgment a little. Also Joss Whedon needs to get moving on the Shepherd Book comic that he has been promising to make. Then again maybe I just liked the last episode because Eliza Dushku wasn't in it very much. I never liked her as Faith and I'm watching this show despite the fact that she is in it. On a similar note, even Nathan Fillion could not make me watch the awful "Castle" show that he is in now. Maybe it's because his character is friends with James Patterson, who I loathe (strictly in a bibliophile sense, I'm sure as a normal person he is...fine, he just needs to stop churning out his crappy novels every other month! Now he's taking over the kids seciton too with his ridiculous Maximum Ride novels, which, in case you are not familiar with them, is about a kid with wings who is named Maximum Ride. Yeah. That's her name. For reals.) or maybe it's because of the bad writing or the annoying female lead, or maybe it's just cause I want him to bust out his gun and shoot some people, Mal style. Anyway, this whole thing turned into one long rant that I'm sure everyone by now has written off as insane ramblings, so I'll go now. Stay tuned for more coherent posts soon!

Get me a beer!

Hey everyone! In the spirit of recycling and reusing everyday trash objects...oh who am I kidding, I don't care. Check out this cute little r2d2!
Aw, it almost makes me want to buy beer so I can throw away the beer and make a small army of these guys. All of the parts seem to be made from scavenged materials, but they don't really seem to be easily accessible materials. For example, the eye is made from a vintage camera lens.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoy him! It's always a good time to share R2D2. Stay tuned!

via Make.

Best Dinosaur Book EVAR!!

Okay, I had to share this book I found today. Check out the cover.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the dinosaur at the bottom of the page. He totally cracks me up every time I look at him. I can't decide if he is like "AHHHHH F$#^ GUYS THERE'S A F#$^@#$( HUGE METEOR COMING GET IN THE ARK" or if he's more of the party type, and like "HEY TASTY ZEBRAS, PARTY ON THE ARK! CALL ME BITCHES!" And the dino in the back is totally skipping towards him (very flamboyantly, I might add) because either way you know there's some serious stuff going down on the ark later on. I didn't scan the back of the book but there are a bunch of people running around in a corn field and also a water buffalo for some reason.

And here's a dinosaur eating melons (no those are not giant beachballs, they are melons. Huge melons. Because dinos are just giant lizards, so there can be giant melons too, okay?). Because apparently the T-Rex really preferred melons to meat. He's really ripping into it very viciously, for some reason. Jeez, it's just a melon, T-Rex, calm down. I guess it makes Jurassic Park less scary if the T-Rex was just chasing everyone down to invite them to his tea and crumpet party. It looks like the dino in the back is bringing the crumpets.

Anyway, I just wanted to share with everyone these pictures because I think you all know I like crazy pictures that crack me up. Anyway, stay tuned for real news coming soon. Probably.

PS-Sorry about the swearing up there. It just felt like something that crazy dino would yell. And yes, he has to yell everything.

New custom order!

Alright, here's a new dude! His name is Kakashi and he's from Naruto. Sometimes anime characters come out kind of funny looking (I think because a cartoon medium doesn't always translate well to our dudes) but I think he turned out really well. I'm not really familiar at all with Naruto, but I think this little guy can be appreciated even if you are not a fan.

I think he's really sharp looking. He has a little headband on, and a scarf thing around his neck. He also has some crazy pockets on his vest, and little patches on his arms.



Whoa! Crazy eye! That's what his little headband is hiding. It's just made out of sculpey. I'd probably wear a headband too if I had a crazy looking eye like that.

Anyway, I guess that was a pretty short post. I just wanted to share the new dude with everyone. I hope you guys like him! Stay tuned for more craziness coming soon!

Secret Life of Stormtroopers

Apparently, most Stormtroopers spend their off hours drinking and carousing. But I mean, wouldn't you? They have to wear uncomfortable looking armor all day, they can't shoot worth crap and they all look alike. I bet the ladies don't find that too exciting.

Anyway, this post does have a point! Check out these awesome flickr sets I found. They are very much in the feeling of ATilla the household ATAT, which for some incomprehensible reason (most likely I'm just really easily amused) I think are the funniest things on the planet.

First off, The Adventures of TK-027.
Stormtroopers also apparently like giant vats of syrup and huge pancakes (in addition the the liquor).
Two stormies run into an accident while playing with Darth Vader's lightsaber.

And the other set, Stomin Stormtroopers. This flickr set has an insanely huge number of pictures (like almost 11 pages) and all of the pictures are hilarious, but here are some of my favorite.
Dancing the night away at a New Year's Party (those two in the back may be getting too close)

Standing around the water cooler, discussing how much the new Star Wars movies suck.
Vader trying to take a picture of his drunken and disorderly crew. That one in the front had way too many beers though.

And one last one, with raptors!
Ahahahahahahahah! Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed these. I think they are hilarious. Stay tuned!

Walking off a cliff!

Remember lemmings? Not the little crazy critters that jump off a cliff, but the ones that explode when you tell them to. Yeah? Kind of an old game, but I still play it on my DS so it hasn't completely faded into obscurity. Anyway, the brilliant Planet June made up a bunch of little lemmings in their various forms--walker, floater, blocker, building and miner, unfortunately no exploder. (She also made an amigurumi llama out of llama yarn! I want a llama!) Anyway, on to the pics:

Once again, eyelash yarn proves that it is useful for things other than scarves that look like hairy boogers. The lemmings hair is so cute! You can see larger pictures here. And the best part? Free pattern! Now you can make your own unholy army of tiny little lemmings and throw them off your balcony*. Now we just need someone to make an amigurumi Jazz Jackrabbit! Okay, maybe not, he was kind of creepy. Stay tuned, new dude coming within the week!

*I do not condone throwing lemmings, live or otherwise, off of balconies. Or any other animal for that matter. Except for maybe spiders.

How much is that AT-AT in the window?

Okay you guys, you have got to check out this flickr set. It's a bunch of photos about the family's newest pet, ATilla (adorable name!) and his wacky adventures. Check it out:

Oh ATilla, I just let you back in!

I hope he doesn't stink up the place as bad as my cats do, yucky.

Aww, ATilla likes his new playmate.

Anyway, I thought this set was just too cute not to share. I would totally love a little AT-AT as a pet. Pew pew! Yeah, that's right, he would have working lasers. Don't worry about the cat scratching your couch anymore, worry about your little AT-AT blowing it up! Alright, that's enough. Stay tuned!

You can't take the Firefly crafts from me!

For some reason I've been seeing a lot of (new! well, to me at least) Firefly related crafts out there. I thought I would share!

First off, some awesome crocheted and knitted versions of Serenity. I do like the crochet one better, I think (the first one) because I like the colors on it and some of the pieces are a little more detailed (I want the removable shuttles though!), but the knit one has a light up butt!
I think if I am ever bored (well, if I'm bored and I don't have mountains of work I'm supposed to be doing--okay, probably even if I do) I want to make one of these bad boys (or is that girl? Are spaceships girls too, like boats? Why are there so many parenthesis in this post?) but it does look rather intimidating. I'll keep an eye out to see if the pattern ever pops up.And then a cute cross stitch that was also found on craftster:
I like the ship, it's instantly recognizable. It's kind of weird that the quote is actually a small dialogue, but I think that the two colors of thread help that a little bit.

And now my favorite, even if it is a bit simple, I think the hearts are a great touch:
Ha ha! Jayne is so gross.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoy this stuff! Keep an eye out here for new stuff, and don't forget to keep an eye on crazy penguin Drake's adventures! Since I can't seem to get away from crafting stuff I'm going to be posting some cool tutorials over there, so stay tuned!

Lots of Random Information!

All right, you guys may be wondering why it's so quiet over here. No, it's not because I'm lazy (mostly). First of all, we started a new store!

It's called "Portrait of a Penguin" (or PoPArt) and we are selling prints of some very cute little penguins. Each one comes with his or her own story about how they fit into the history of the Kingdom of Byrd.

And I started a new blog written by a penguin traveler named Drake Cook.

It's a first person narrative about Drake's adventures in Antarctica and his exploration of the ruins of the Kingdom of Byrd. Hopefully it will be very interesting and funny, so please feel free to drop by and let me know what you think!

Lastly, to contribute to the complete randomness and off-topicness of this post, I have a very interesting little story by George Orwell about working in a used bookstore. If you ever have, or ever thought about, working in a used bookstore, or even if you just think George Orwell is awesome, you should give it a read. I wonder what Mr. Orwell would think of the teenagers now coming into the used bookstores, asking "Hey, do you have that nineteen-eighty-whatever book by that dude?" I bet he would think it was funny.

Anyway, back to real posts soon, I swear! I found some awesome Firefly stuff I'm going to be posting next time, so stay tuned!