Fried Mars bars, Futurama theorem, the thagomizer, ëẍcëssïvë ümläüts, long names, Neutral Moresnet, and oddities of the English language

Today's post is a tad longer  than normal, and we will look at the metal umlaut, a comic-inspired anatomy nomenclature, Scots who deep-fat fry candy bars, a theorem about body switching, some odd English words, a sub-nation that was shared between the Prussians and the Dutch/Belgians, and a couple of odd names.

GeekDump #3: 21 Feb, 2011

• The Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device as made by a fan... I would pay good money for this. I'm such a Portal fan that I bought the plushy Weighted Companion Cube a few years ago:



2008 was a heady year for me. "Your Weighted Compainion Cube cannot accompany you in the next test chamber and must be euthanized." :'(

• College Humor explains why Valentine's Day sucks without using the words "consumerism" "corporation" or "artificial", which is refreshing.
• My cat sometimes stands uprights on his hinds legs like this, which I call "meercatting", but he doesn't know how to use a sword and lacks the accompanying mariachi music.
• The infamous All Your Base meme... everyone who has ever been on the internet knows about it, but it seems to me that it should be older than ten years... Well, the Engrish game (Zero Wing) is older than that, but the video by Bad_CRC is just over a decade old.
• If you haven't heard, the Guitar Hero franchise is officially dead. This Nerf Now requiem is bittersweet... I'm very sad to see a fine game go.
• Anybody play the original Final Fantasy Legend on GameBoy? Remember the final boss? Comedienne Jackie Kashian reminisces this.

GeekDump #2: 19 Feb, 2011

• Manufactoria: assembly-line puzzle game where you have to read, sort, and write programming for robots going through the line. It gets tough pretty quick, unless you have a knack for systems engineering.
• Do you play Minecraft? If so, you'll probably enjoy this video.
• Freddie Wong is a Youtube celebrity who posts videos (usually action videos) that he's edited and done stunts for himself. They are a lot of fun, and he maintains a second channel for the tutorials and behind the scenes stuff.
• A Portal speed run. Whoa. I don't normally watch these, because then I get hyper-jealous, but I'm impressed.
• This photo isn't so much geeky as it is just plain cool (unless you're a tactical geek).