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RollZero Electric Letter #7 - June 23, 2009


Hello, get out and welcome to RollZero's Electric Letter.

You know, people sometimes stop us in the street and say, "How did you get to be so attractive," or ,"Give me back my son." We always respond by looking them straight in the eyes and singing an ABBA medley.

In many ways, the RollZero Electric Letter is like an ABBA medley. For one, it's a weekly email. For two, it's packed to the brim - insofar as emails have brims, which they don't - with links to websites. And for three, it ends with a fantastic piece of fan fiction. It's almost as if Bjorn, Anni, Alfonso and Bertrude themselves were singing at you from your inbox.

Picture ABBA in your mind's eye as you peruse the following links.

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These things are from RollZero

What happens when you find a hypercube in your salad? What even is a hypercube? Well, it's this. And Florette, bagged salad producer, was very interested to find out that Chad Bradley chanced upon a small metal one in his salad. But now he's working out how to send it to them.
http://www.rollzero.com/chads-letters/220-a-salad-letter

Reviews are like opinions - everyone's got one! Wait, that's not how it goes. Reviews are like buses - you wait an hour for one and then three come along at once! That doesn't make any sense either. Sorry. Here's a review of Plants Vs Zombies, which is actually rather good (the game, not the review. Obviously the review's incredible).
http://www.rollzero.com/videogames/reviews/224-plants-v

Brodos and Pixelsmith found the American Embassy in Berlin, capital city of Germania. They only had a couple of hours there, which they used up by walking around for a bit. Then Pixelsmith wrote about it at great length.
http://www.rollzero.com/videogames/geek-adventure/208

Last week's Electric Letter was one of the greatest works of literature since William Shakespeare's The Magic Chicken. Read it in all its glory right here:
http://www.rollzero.com/pixs-column/223-electric-letter-6

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Bastards
A poem by Chad Bradley

Seagulls flock to the vicar, as he sits
Eating bread on a clifftop.
They want his bread, but he likes it too much.

His hands are stuck to his shoes,
Thanks to a very badly failed attempt to glue himself
To a bus.

Seeing this,
The seagulls snigger.

The vicar, unable to stand the mockery, bites,
And flings the loaf into the air
With a toss of his head.

Victory to the seagulls.
The vicar, thoroughly annoyed, moves to Spain.

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These things are from the internet

Proper Good Blog
Can't remember if we linked this before, but one of our favourite places to kill some time is Idiottoys. It's a cynical and exceptionally funny tech blog - laden with in-jokes, so you might want to start a few months ago and work your way up to the present.
EDIT: It's moved, dammit! And it's got a new name. That's confusing. Right, go here instead, this is what it's now called:
http://www.extralast.com/

Hit by Buses
People getting hit by buses and equally large vehicles seems to happen quite often in films. Or so we learned from this video compilation of nine vehicle-hitting scenes. Dawn of the Dead is the best one, nice and meaty. The one from Felicity is worth looking out for as well, because the woman in it has blatantly got time to warn the bloke about the bus. It's almost as if she wanted him dead.
http://www.jeffrubinjeffrubin.com/post/125440854/one-last

Criminal Record
Burglary is fun. You get free stuff to use or sell, plus you have an adventure at the same time. A member of Somethingawful - a brilliant site of brilliant things - did a bit of burgling at his neighbours' house, and recorded the experience with pictures and text. Technically it's not really burglary, more trespassing, but we're too far into the paragraph now to do anything about that.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3117769

WoW Denial
Here's a video of a teenager going absolutely batshit crazy after his mum cancels his World of Warcraft account. Could be fake, could be real, either way he does a very good impression of an especially angry Gollum. We sometimes do this at the end of the day when we've had a bad day at work. Except for the bit with the TV remote.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YersIyzsOpc

Jumping Goat
A baby pygmy goat does some Parkour round the office:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Y-SvS9kwo

Peel eggs really fast
Peel eggs really fast:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dut1b--AgLM

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Fan Fiction

This week's slice of fan fiction comes from the pen of InTheNightlight, who finds his inspiration in the heady universe of Sonic the Hedgehog. Here's just some of the praise his work has garnered from reviewers at fanfiction.net:

SPOILER ALERT: "Yay Blaze lived! Well...maybe not, but she came back to life! YAY! Thanx for the awsome story so far and for bring Blaze back. At the end of the other story, which I read only a minute ago, I was in friggen tears cause of what Silver had to do! But I do have to say this story is awsome!"

SPOILER ALERT: "Thank God Blaze is alright, I would like to hear more though. Please update."

"I love this story it's my second favorite and second story I have read on this website"
[we think this means it's the worst story s/he has read so far]


Silver and Blaze 2: The Flames of Disaster
From here.

LAST TIME……

“I don’t want to hurt you, Blaze!”

“Of COURSE not! I was always stronger than you, and I always WILL be!”

……………………………………

“BLAZE!!!!”

……………………………………

“Please, I wish Blaze were back……”

THIS TIME……

Silver was whimpering. He fell asleep, crying. Blaze was dead, and he was to blame. He tossed and turned, trying to stop his nightmare.

SILVER’S DREAM

Blaze was on the floor, dead. A devilish version of Silver towered over her, holding a blood-stained knife. The scene changed. He was watching the figure stab Blaze over and over, but she was either not affected, alive but dead at the same time, or was already dead.

REAL WORLD

Silver was still turning, hoping to wake up. However, his brain only forced him to dream on and on. But, Blaze was shining with a white light as it engulfed her heart area. She started to stir.

BLAZE’S POV

“Huh? Where am I? Last minute, I’m being hit with a laser…and then I’m on a fluffy, white cloud……now I’m here……Huh?” I noticed a white hedgehog. “Silver!” He didn’t move. Then he turned around. He was asleep, a troubled look on his face. I ran over. I put my head to his chest. He was breathing okay. I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness that he’s all right!” I lay down next to him. He seemed to relax a little. I snuggled against him.

THE NEXT MORNING

SILVER’S POV

“YAWN! Man, things just aren’t the same without—” I turned. “BLAZE!” There she was, as if she’d never been dead! She woke up at the sound of her name. I hugged her close. “Blaze? Is it really you?”

“Of course it’s me, Silver!” she said, hugging me back.

“I missed you so much! I’m so glad you’re back!” I exclaimed with joy.

“Where did I go?”

“It’s a long story! What matters is that you’re back!” I couldn’t believe that Blaze was back.

NORMAL POV

Silver and Blaze were closer than ever. Before they knew it, 2 years had passed. While walking in town one day, they noticed a sign on the school wall.

“Dance, Friday. Wow! Sounds great!” Blaze exclaimed.

Silver began to sweat. “Uh………y-yeah!” Sounds……………………great.” He put on a fake grin.

“What’s wrong, Silver?” Blaze asked.

“Wrong? Nothing’s wrong!” He lied.

“Silver.” Blaze said, sternly.

“Oh, okay. But promise you won’t laugh?” She nodded. “Okay. I……………don’t really know how to dance……” He blushed.

To be cont’d…

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Farewell

Every time you walk out that door, you tear a tiny piece out of our heart. A tiny, fleshy, slippery red lump, about the size of a £1 coin. Do you think we can afford to keep losing that? Do we look like we're made of heart? No, is the answer. But you keep on doing it all the same.

You're not the person we married any more.

You could make up for it by sending us a link, or saying hello: contact at rollzero dot com
Or even follow us on Twitter, where we keep forgetting to tweet: @chadbrad, @pixelsmith or @gm_wint