DaFont.com

Another great website is DaFont.com. A good number of fonts and access designs are available on the site for free and the rest are free for personal use only. I used the site making a mock game design logo a while back and the download was usable in illustrator, photoshop, and loaded directly into word. There are a lot of places to find fonts, but this is a great start.

Grandma's Boy

Video Game design, karate monkeys, the old lady from Everybody Loves Raymond. If you are looking for a geeky and underappreciated movie try this one on. Steady pot referrences aside most could find humor with this movie. Make sure to get the 2006 movie, not the 1922 movie of the same title (Doris Roberts might have been in that one too). Critically panned on release the movie went on to make more than 4 times its box office on dvd sales. It is up for rent, or purchase for around $10.

ThinkGeek.com

From the last two entries you knew it was coming. ThinkGeek.com is great online store. The Microbe Plushies and the NES/SNES duo system are but two of hundreds of products on this site. Survelance cameras, science tech, movie props are all just some of the many things available. Ever want your own phaser? Laser Keyboard? Check out this site. Products are available for any event. There is gonna be something you want.

Dual NES/SNES Gamesystem

This is a break for me, as someone who has gone through many gaming system over the years. The line had to be drawn somewhere, systems were piling up, although each one had some fond memories you didn't visit them much. With this duo system two of them can be reclaimed. Available on thinkgeek.com the NES/SNES system is smaller than either one of the original systems. Also available in an NES/Genesis configuration this system runs $50 for either.

Unusual Plushies

Giant microbe plushies, anime plush toys, video game dolls. The standard in America was always the teddy bear in plush toys, but the increasing influence of Japanese culture on the United States has given rise to more unique and dynamic plush toys. What began at amusement parks and carnivals with a Mario or Sonic seen here or there has become a online influx carried on by the special cultural interest groups. Above is a picture of plush microbes in a special petri dish container that is sold by thinkgeek.com. Other online vendors include yukariskawaiishop.com (kawaii being the japanese equivalent to cuteness) and gambattletoys.multiply.com.

Free Images Online

Free image sites. While MorgueFile.com is a well-known site for free high-resolution photos that is perhaps the best known there are a few other sites that are worth checking out. A couple of other sites are Stockvault.net and FreeFoto.com. FreeFoto.com seemed at a glance to have the greatest number of regulations regarding the photo ownership. I put the three photo sites through a quick test asking them all for images of a “nightclub.” In the test MorgueFile.com returned the most results that I would consider relevant to the request, Stockvault.net returned slightly fewer images (some of which what I would consider a greater degree of relevancy, and FreeFoto.com which ironically makes the boast of having the largest collection anywhere of free photos had zero search results. Stockvault.net had good results, but some when clicked on were redirected to pick up the photo out of sight. Due to Stockvault.net’s redirect and fewer results coupled with FreeFoto.com’s total lack of a search result my snap decision would be that MorgueFile.com is still king. There are some things out there worth taking a look at.

Intuos Tablets

Intuos tablets by Wacom are great and I recommend them to anyone interested in New Media or even traditional art. Wacom has three lines of digital drawing tablets, but having only used an Intuos it is the only one that I feel comfortable in reviewing. While there have been a few generational models of the Intuos tablets the current is the Intuos 4, with the resolution and pen pressure sensitivity roughly doubling every generation. The price for the small Intuos 4 (4*6) is about $200 and the next size up is about $430. With the thousands of levels of pressure sensitivity and per inch resolution on even the previous model I was able to find a perfectly adequate Intuos 3 for a little over $100 with some searching. The feel of the tablet is great write out of the box and the driver is a breeze to install. The movement of a pen is so much more natural than a mouse. Even though I just got the tablet and have only played on it for a total of about 15 minutes I was able to draw decently and navigate it in Photoshop. I have posted that sketch here.