HOME |
RSS | 
With the movie coming to theaters soon, there is a renewed interest in the board game Battleship. If you are cutthroat about winning, you’ll want to check out a tutorial on Battleship by Nick Berry of DataGenetics, the guy who brought us A Better Hangman Strategy. Be warned: there is math involved.
Mathematically, the chances of playing a perfect game with random firing are easy to calculate and are:
355,687,428,096,000 / 2,365,369,369,446,553,061,560,941,772,800,000
(This equates to, on average, once in every 6,650,134,872,937,201,800 games!)
But you can raise those offs with …more math! And lots of graphs. Link -Thanks, Nick!
Remember those sticky hand toys that seemed to multiply when you weren’t looking? My kids brought them home from everywhere, and I found them stuck to everything, rolled up in dust bunnies, spread around in the dryer, or tangled in a kid’s hair. But now you (or your kids) can play with one online, which won’t leave a mess! Link -via mental_floss
ShanesDominoez and Dieckdomino put together 30,000 dominoes that fall and evoke classic Nintendo products. And they have some pretty elaborate structures to knock down! -via Geeks Are Sexy
These guys went on a hunt for a real-world Pikachu, the most adorable animal in the world! See a making-of video that explains how they did it. -via The Daily What Geek
See also: This.
How do you make a tough little critter like Pikachu even tougher? Add Gundam technology and watch him soar!
This mecha enhanced version of the pint sized furry lightning generator is probably illegal to use in most battle arenas, but when Team Rocket comes to town you’ll be glad Gundamchu is on your side.
This vibrant rainbow circle was created by artist David Waller, who rounded up 6,000 toy cars he’s collected since childhood and arranged them into rings of color, reminiscent of an OCD sufferer’s childhood memory.
Hit the jump to see a fun close-up shot that looks like a traffic jam in Toyland, and a contrasting shot of the cars lined up in no particular order of color. *gasp*
Hoth is a beautiful, but inhospitable land. In fact, it’s so rough that even when shot in Lego version, it still seems terrible rather than silly -with the exception of those sweet pictures of Darth and the storm troopers skiing.
Mr. Potato Head has been altered. The results are not pretty. Flickr user Ginger Troll is responsible for turning him into a Big Daddy from BioShock.
Howdy, Neatoramanauts! Our pals over at Hasbro sent us this nifty Battleship box and you know what this means: let's play The Mystery Box game!
As many people already know the content of the box (a bit of Googling will yield the answer), we will only be awarding prizes to the funniest and most imaginative guesses.
Here are the contest rules:
1. Guess the funniest and wildest thing you can imagine is inside the
Battleship Mystery Box - one item guess per comment, please.
2. With each comment, please enter a NeatoShop
item you'd fancy (anything in stock, $25 or less). May we suggest the
Cthulhu
Bottle Opener or things from the Funny
T-shirt, Gifts
for Geeks and Zombie
Shop?
3 . You can enter as many guesses as you'd like, but they have to be in
separate comments.
4. Incomplete entries forfeits the prize.
Funniest guesses will win a random assortment of items inside the Mystery Box and NeatoShop items (one per winner). Good luck!
If you’ve ever wished you could bring home a Snorlax, the laziest of all Pokemon, then you have to check out this floor pillow made by Etsy seller Cassie Wilson.
It’s made of a super soft material, looks very cuddly and will probably be adopted by one of your pets as soon as you get it through the front door!
Check out the product page at the link below if you’re longing to lay your head on a Snorlax tummy.
Link –via Nerd Approved
Hello, Neatoramanauts, look at your action figure. Now back to this. Now back at your action figure, now back at this.
Well, it's about time! Mick Minogue has created the action figure of Isaiah Mustafa, the Old Spice guy, for Gallery 1988's upcoming MEMES show. The "Master of the Ladies" set comes complete with wild horse, man towel, sweater armor, scepter, oyster with 2 tickets to that thing you love, diamond, and, of course, Old Spice Body Wash Formula.
Check out more pics at Mick's website: Link - via Super Punch
Previously on Neatorama: Old Spice's Manmercials
I’ve kept a special place in my heart for Soundwave. He seems…well, competent. Unlike so many other Decepticons. It’s jarring that a highly advanced robot transforms into an audio cassette player. But sometimes watching Transformers requires a suspension of disbelief.
So does this excellent action figure by Airmax, which combines Soundwave’s intelligence with Cobra Commander’s ability to screech “Retreat!”
Link -via Comics Alliance | Artist’s Website
Now here’s a LEGO construct that would make HAL 9000 proud: a LEGO version of the Discovery One from the seminal sci-fi flick 2001: A Space Odyssey, built from over 3,000 pieces at 1:60 scale, as well as a morbid Dawn Of Man diorama which is full of angry primates and a pile of LEGO bones!
The set was created by Jason Allemann, who was kind enough to include a construction guide PDF so that anybody with a pile of LEGO bricks and time on their hands can bring 2001 to their hobby table. Happy building!
PDF Link –via Geek Tyrant –Jason’s Flickr LINK
This poster is obviously a dig at the movie Battleship in the board-game-to-feature-film category. Still, redditors are only too happy to fill in the details with comments. Link
Has your Prozac stopped working? Then maybe these adorable little knitted plushies can sub in as your new happy pills -at least, for a while, since they probably won’t keep the serotonin levels up too long.
Want to teach your kids about dental hygiene and give them nightmares at the same time? Then you need the Dental Doraemon plush, which comes complete with a set of choppers to help kids practice proper brushing and flossing techniques.
This is the first time I’ve seen Doraemon and his sister Dorami-chan with teeth, and I think I liked them better without the pearly whites.
Remember the first time you saw an ad for Sea Monkeys? I really wanted some, but never made the order. I figured the X-ray Spex were a rip-off, even in my childhood. Kirk Demarais was fascinated with those ads in the back of comic books, so much that he made a film about them, went to work for a novelty company, and wrote a book called Mail Order Mysteries. He talks about some of those products in an interview at Collectors Weekly.
Collectors Weekly: Isn’t it funny how when your parents tell you something is a rip-off, it just makes you want it more?
Demarais: Oh yeah. Suddenly, it was the forbidden fruit. I trusted my parents in general, but something about that, I thought, “How did they know?” They didn’t order it. It’s also the first time I ever encountered dishonest salesmanship. I thought, “With all the other commercials I see on television, you get what they show you.” Part of me had a hard time fathoming that people would just out-and-out rip you off, especially kids. That’s the coming-of-age lesson behind it.
Read the full interview, and learn the truth behind those tantalizing products at Collectors Weekly. Link -Thanks, Lisa!
The Game of Thrones season one trailer never looked so cute as it does acted out by Playmobil toys. -via The Daily What Geek
LEGO artist Ochre Jelly, known offline as Iain Heath, unveils his latest creation: a recreation of the webseries Epic Meal Time rendered in LEGO bricks! He says this scene was tough to do, but his love of bacon kept him going. See more pictures of this tableau at Flickr. Link -Thanks, Iain!
Previously: More Ochre Jelly creations.
(Image credit: Flickr user Ochre Jelly)
Flimmaker Walt Thompson asked Nealey to marry him, by showing her this stop-motion video! Star Wars characters showed up as witnesses. -via Geeks Are Sexy
From the bright and twisted minds at Keio University in Japan comes a set of robotic rings that appear to be made out of Furby’s eyes and mouth.
If the nonsensical gibberish spewing out of the little alien bird creature has made your life a living hell, why not get revenge and show the world how much you hate Furby at the same time? Or you can use these rings to start your own ventriloquist act and become a hundredaire!
Wearing these creepy rings means your fashion sense will truly isolate you from the rest of the world, but at least you’ll still have someone to talk to!
Comments Off
If you had a crush on the TARDIS from the Neil Gaiman episode of Doctor Who, well, you can now finally cuddle up and sleep with the it. Granted, this one is not the adorable girl from The Doctor’s Wife, but the sock monkey version is pretty darn cute anyway.
Link Via Geek Crafts
There’s Francie, Jazzy, Stacie, Kelly, Krissy, Tutti, and Todd, who all disappeared under mysterious circumstances (or possibly just poor sales). Now that Barbie is running for president, these missing relatives may prove to be skeletons in her closet. Link
Comments Off 
You know the US presidential election season has really started when Mattel launches their Presidential Barbie line. This year’s models come wearing a pink power suit designed by Chris Benz and somewhat sensible wedge shoes, although Barbie’s feet are still made for high heels. Link -via Buzzfeed
Bald is beautiful! Mattel has announced that they will development a Barbie doll without hair especially for girls dealing with hair loss, whether from chemotherapy or another cause, in themselves or a family member. The dolls should come out in 2013.
Although “Mattel has a policy of not forwarding unsolicited product ideas to our design teams,” it seems like New Jersey resident Jane Bingham with her friend Rebecca Sypin, who launched a Beautiful and Bald Barbie Facebook page last December, sparked the idea. The social media move went viral. Bingham and Sypin reportedly met in a pregnancy chat room. Both Bingham and Sypin’s daughter lost their hair to chemotherapy. So they hoped the doll could be used to help children cope and understand what other family members are facing, like Bingham’s 9-year daughter learning to understand her mother’s condition. And for children battling cancer like Sypin’s 12-year old daughter, it’s a reminder that hair isn’t what makes them special.
Reportedly, it’ not Barbie, but it’s a female friend who will be hairless. The friend will have wigs, hats, scarves and other accessories children can put on the doll. (And what’s a Barbie Doll without accessories?)
The dolls will not go on the market, but will be donated to children’s hospitals and other charity outlets in the US and other countries. Link -via Breakfast Links
The element of surprise is a tremendous advantage in battle. Similarly, taking an opponent by surprise can lead to a quick victory in chess. And what would be a greater surprise than for your pieces to combine into a giant fighting robot that sweeps the board in a single move? Cymon of Thingiverse has designed a chess set that will let you do just that.
Shiro, Japan’s most laid-back cat, has reached a level of fame in which fans can buy their own version of him (but only in Japan). Watch Shiro test the new toy to show how authentic it is. The plushie is almost as patient and tolerant as Shiro is! Link to pictures. Link to video. -via Buzzfeed
(Image credit: kagonekoshiro)
These pixel art versions of the Masters Of The Universe rogue’s gallery comes to you courtesy of artist Ty Lettau, who was kind enough to convert them all into papercraft figures you can print out and put together for your own amusement.
Who knew Skeletor was such a square? Print them, play with them, and marvel at how little muscle mass these guys have on their blocky bodies!
Link –via Rampaged Reality
Comments Off Boston Dynamics is showing off their newest innovation with this video of their Sand Flea Jumping Robot in action. It looks like a flask with wheels, or one of those RC cars that can flip end over end and keep wheeling, but the Sand Flea is so much more:
Sand Flea is an 11-lb robot with one trick up its sleeve: Normally it drives like an RC car, but when it needs to it can jump 30 feet into the air. An onboard stabilization system keeps it oriented during flight to improve the view from the video uplink and to control landings.
While the Sand Flea is currently in development for use in military applications, I’ll be surprised if RC cars don’t integrate the awesome jumping feature into their own models in the near future.
Comments Off The Dark Knight Rises is almost upon us, and I’m excited by all that I see about this movie-awesome action figures, the confirmed return of Liam Neeson as R’as Al Ghul, and now the trailer gets a LEGO makeover, thanks to Paranick Filmz.
You gotta love how far stop motion LEGO films have come over the last few years, and with the inclusion of visual effects the bar has been set even higher.
–via Comics Alliance
| FEATURED ITEMS FROM THE NEATOSHOP | |
 |
Cthulhu
Bottle Opener There's nothing like popping open a cold one with the Great Old One! Summon the Cthulhu Bottle Opener. |
 |
Funny
T-shirts From Mike Jacobsen's geeky shirts to One-liners - we've got the funniest T-shirts on the web. |
 |
Zombie
Bottle Opener Nothing livens up a party like the undead - get the Zombie Bottle Opener at our Zombie Shop. |
View more: New Items &
Best Sellers |
|
