This time it’s from TV Tokyo, where five Legomaniacs created 1,000+ piece Lego hamster* wonderlands.
First up is the ‘exciting fruit paradise’ – with a pineapple wheel, grape tree jungle gym, melon ball pool and a banana see-saw. According to the narrator, ‘it’s a hamster paradise!’.
There’s also a *yawn* Robinson Crusoe recreation, a pretty cool ninja house, a modern transformable block house and bizarrely, the Metabolic Syndrome Reduction Training House (メタボ解消トレーニングハウス).
The latter is for chubby hamsters struggling with the dreaded Metabolic Syndrome, one of those crazy health problems that became a major buzzword a few years’ back in Japan. The Training House features a bicycle wheel with a dynamo mechanism to power the front lamp (above), a treadmill, dumb-bells and even mini vermin-sized scales to measure progress.
*The featured hamster looks more like a mouse without its tail cut off. Or do all hamsters look like that? More importantly, do hamsters taste like guinea pigs? If so, find five delicious recipe ideas here.
Atari Teenage Riot has a new album coming out next month, which makes me feel rather old. Firstly, as I haven’t listened to them since 1997’s The Future of War, and secondly, because the new song, Activate! makes my head hurt.
Old.
Like the Atari above, which we had as kids until a centipede crawled in, got electrocuted, and ruined Donkey Kong for everyone.
Click the ‘play’ button to hear them doing their digital hardcore thing, & do let me know if you last beyond the first 30 seconds… Were they always this loud?
It was all thanks to a viral campaign urging feminists (and computer geeks) to vote in a poll deciding Barbie’s next occupation. Other options included an architect, environmentalist, newsreader or surgeon, with the newsreader role initially the most popular. That was until Geekgirl’s successful online campaign to ‘Help Barbie Get Her Geek On’, which means Barbie is now decked out in ‘geek-chic’ binary code & Bluetooth.
So if Mattel would just explain what computer engineers actually do, little girls (and I) might have a whole new career to aspire to. Apart from that small (personal) problem, we support any move to inspire young Barbie fans into non-traditional fields such as science and technology. Little girls already into science and technology are probably busy with Lego or Meccano… Oh wait, they’re not allowed:
*Teen Talk Barbie was the inspiration for The Simpsons’ Malibu Stacy, whose sage advice included:
Don’t ask me, I’m just a girl!
This led to Lisa’s conservative response, Lisa Lionheart (below right). Lionheart’s wardrobe is rather simple, yet possibly preferable to the pink/blue/green disaster above.
