Article Pokemon Google Trends Showdown
Google Trends is a great tool for seeing what the world is searching Google for, where they're searching it from, and how often they're searching it. It even has a feature where you can show different searches to compare their popularity over the past decade. As an experiment, we're comparing Pokemon searches with ones more applicable to real life, and seeing who came out the winner. The results may surprise you (if you think anything is more popular than Pokemon, that is)…
Article 7 Terms From Star Wars That Don't Mean What You Think They Mean
Despite all the humans, English language, and proper British accents, it's important to remember that the Star Wars universe isn't our own. Things are different there – they have landspeeders, they order around protocol droids, and their language – although sounding similar – has words that we think we know, but really have no clue. These are 7 terms from Star Wars that don't mean what you think they mean.
7. "Sith" is a species.
The Sith are the bad-guy Force people. Everyone knows that! They're the anti-Jedi, lightning shooting, Darth-named weirdos who refuse to use anything other than red in their lightsabers. Except…well, they didn't start off as "the group of Dark Side Force-guys." They started off as a species unto themselves.
Basically, they were red-skinned humanoids with gross face-tentacles from the planet Korriban. They had a predisposition towards the Dark Side of the Force, but that wasn't what defined them. That happened once a group of human Dark Jedi happened upon the species and interbred with them for a couple thousand years. Eventually, the Sith species was pretty much bred out of existence, and Sith became synonymous with the evil, cloak-wearing dudes we know them as today.
Although, it probably would've been smart to try using any lightsaber color other than red if they wanted to not give away their allegiances immediately.
Article Pwn Up: Woodrow Wilson, Mage Champion
Ever had a moment so nerdy that you needed to tell the Internet about it? Send your submissions to dorklypwnup at gmail.
-Andrew S.
I met my girlfriend by playing Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. I trapped her in the reactor on the Reactor Hazard map (on purpose). She yelled out "YOU TRAPPED ME, YOU TEAM-KILLING F*CKTARD!" I realized the quote since it came from Red vs. Blue, and it was love at that moment. Turns out she lived in the same town as me, we met up and have been happily together ever since. I'd say we're about even on the number of team-kills against each other so far.
-WM
I recently moved away from my best friend, who would always come over and have long gaming sessions together. He made the long drive over and after playing a lot of Resident Evil 6, we went to look at his grandfather's old house, which was empty and up for sale. After finding the back door open, we looked through the house – but every time I opened a door, my left trigger finger twitched, to get my gun ready for zombies.
-Samuel
Article The Dorklyst: The 8 Worst Videogame Raps in Marketing History
Since the beginning of videogames, one thing has been clear: marketing executives have no idea what the appropriate time would be to use rap in commercials and advertisements. Or how rap should sound. Or what it should be about. But "having no idea what we're doing" has never stopped an executive, so terrible/awkward raps became one of the cornerstones of the videogame ad industry. These are the 8 worst raps in videogame marketing history.
8. Supersonic Controller
The Supersonic Controller had a lot of hurdles this commercial tried (and failed) to leap: selling a wireless controller when the technology wasn't good enough to make that work, selling a controller shaped like a triangle (great shape for pizza, terrible shape for a controller), and convincing you it would work for the Nintendo – even though it was a third-party non-Nintendo-approved hunk of plastic that would embarrass MadCatz.
And what better way to stumble through this all than with a family-friendly rap (thus defeating the main appeal of rap in the 80's)? The problem is (besides being awful) that the rap can't even muster up the self-confidence to sell itself. They actually include the line "It will do." It's essentially saying that it gets the job done, but "Meh, It Works, Sorta" isn't exactly the ringing endorsement they thought it was.
Article Pwn Up: Do You Even Bench?
Ever had a moment so nerdy that you needed to tell the Internet about it? Send your submissions to dorklypwnup at gmail.
-CJ
Here's the story: last summer after playing various FPS's for almost 12 straight hours, a couple of my friends dropped by. After a couple of hours, we have noticed that we were out of beer. Mind you that all of us are really lazy individuals, so we decided to order some beer from the shop just across the street (I live in Turkey and you can order alcohol by phone). The problem was I didn't know the phone number of the shop, so I went to my window to see if I could read the number. I live on the 10th floor, so I reached out with my right hand, and just right-clicked the air to zoom in. It took a couple of seconds to realize what I have done, but my friends were already laughing their asses off.
-Eren
I recently had to write an essay for a test. The prompt asked whether or not a factory built next to a school should be required to dispose or prevent any air pollution that it produces since it's near a school.
While I should have written about different safety precautions in place, I instead went on a rant using SimCity questioning why on earth would some idiotic city planner decide to put industrial next to education.
-Carlos
Article Incredible Pokemon Reinterpretations
In this week's InterNerd, we explore several different artists' reinterpretations of existing Pokemon – imagining them as real beings, nightmare monsters, actual humans, and more.
Realistic Pokemon
DeviantArt-ist Arvalis has put together a pretty sizable collection of incredibly realistic Pokemon designs – with a trainer silhouette in each to show the sheer scale of these 'mons. But one of the coolest parts of these designs is how other Pokemon are subtly worked into many of them (notice the Caterpie in the Charizard one below).
Article The Dorklyst: The 10 Weirdest Evolutions in Pokémon
The entire concept of having animals evolve into insanely-powerful beast monsters by beating the crap out of others in battle (or by being exposed to stones, being traded, etc.) is pretty ridiculous in and of itself. But it's not too difficult suspending your disbelief when the end result is a fire-breathing dragon who remains loyal to you (despite the fact you're forcing it to fight a bird who shoots lightning). But there are some specific evolutions that are extremely weird, even in the already-weird field of Pokemon evolutions. These are the 10 weirdest evolutions in Pokemon.
10. Cubone into Marowak
Cubone's life kinda sucks – he's so upset at the death of his mother (remember, this is an entire species of Pokemon, meaning they all are bereaved over the deaths of each of their individual mothers), that he literally wears her skull, which may not be the most emotionally-healthy coping tactic. Then again, in some deeply, deeply messed up way, his mother is still protecting poor little Cubone – since her skull now acts as his helmet. It's definitely indicative of some kind of creepy Norman Bates/Mother relationship, but it's mostly harmless.
Where it gets weird is when Cubone evolves into Marowak. Essentially, Marowak's just a bigger Cubone, which isn't all that weird. What is weird is that Marowak is defined by having gotten over the death of its mother (remember: AS A SPECIES, Marowaks have ALL gotten over the deaths of their individual mothers), but still wears a skull on its head. But it's specifically NOT its mother's! Meaning…Marowak found some random dead Pokemon's bigger skull and is wearing that now? Something tells me Marowak hasn't quite reached the closure it claims to have.
Article Pwn Up: You're Not the Big Boss of Me
Ever had a moment so nerdy that you needed to tell the Internet about it? Send your submissions to dorklypwnup at gmail.
I got really excited, starting looking for fabric and patterns, stopped shaving, gathered a bunch of reference images… and died a little inside when I realized Snake loses his right eye, meaning the eye patch would be over my one good eye. Screw you, Kojima.
-Sam
A few weeks ago I was in my English class, writing an essay. I got to a point where the best word to use was "Experience." Being a huge fan of RPGs, specifically Fire Emblem and Pokemon, I had no idea how to spell it and nearly didn't make it past the EXP.
-Ben
My cousin had her first child a few years back. She's practically my sister and I am now the godmother of a beautiful boy. I recently went into town to visit her and my godson. He's the coolest three year old I know. He likes to quietly sit in my lap while I play video games, he doesn't get scared at monster movies, and his favorite toy is the pull-apart zombie doll I got him for Christmas. I managed to convince her to let me take him home with me for a week so I could spend some more time with him.
After his return home, I received a rather upset phone call from my cousin. She demanded to know why her son was now obsessed with zombies and and told his father that he would have to "shoot him in the head" if he ever turned. However, what she was most upset about was the embarrassment he caused her at my grandfather's funeral. He demanded to take his toy shotgun and while at the grave yard patted me on the leg and said, "Don't worry Skye-mama, I will protect you from the zombies." He continued to interrupt the service by shooting off the toy gun. When his mother took it away, he screamed at her, and wanted to know how she "expected him to be able to blow out zombie brains." I thought it was pretty cool.
Lo and behold. I am banned from babysitting for a while.
-Skye
