Free MMO Dungeons & Dragons Neverwinter Starts Open Beta Today

After several delays, the latest incarnation of Neverwinter has been released to the masses. The long running Dungeons & Dragons’ property has surfaced as several very different games following its initial unveiling as Neverwinter Nights, an early online game hosted by America OnLine back in 1991, and this one is no different. That is to say, it is not different by being different. Or something. Quick, look over there while I bail!

Created by Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment (Champions Online, Star Trek Online), this free-to-play MMO takes brave adventures back to the Forgotten Realms a hundred years after the land was decimated by the Spellplague. As this is a video game, you’ll be to restore order and culture to the land by whacking things in the face with a shiny stick of your choosing while hoarding as much loot as possible. When that gets old, you can hide behind your Dungeon Master’s screen and take a spin at creating your own stick-swinging, loot-stealing adventure via the game’s Foundry construction set to be shared online.

Find out more or download at nw.perfectworld.com

Western Digital Makes Mechanical Hard Drives Thinner Than Ever Before

Solid-state hard drives (SSDs) have dominated the the race to create the thinnest computers possible. Long time hard drive manufacturer Western Digital has fired back and proved that old school mechanical drives still have a place in the future of skinny laptops. Merging the usual SATA power and data connectors into one new plug, WD has created a 500GB, 2.5” hard drive that is a mere 5mm thick. The best part? These new “Ultra-Slim” hard drives drives have begun shipping to OEM system builders for a mere $89. In comparison, Samsung's 500GB SSD costs about $350 at the time of this writing. Looking beyond Ultrabooks, it’s not hard to imaging these credit card-sized drives being offered in tablets. Imagine the coup for the first company to market with a 500GB Android tablet for the price of a 32GB model!

Source: Western Digital

Gravitational Waves | Out Of This World Weekly

The universe can be a strange place and today that means two stars orbiting each other very close have been observed to give off waves of gravity.  One of these stars is a extremely dense and rapidly spinning neutron star which is very capable of bending the local space around it.  The gravity on this star is about 300 billion times stronger than here on Earth and it spins very rapidly at 25 times per second.  The other star is an old white dwarf star caught by the neutron star’s extreme gravity and is so close, that it orbits once every 2.5 hours.  Together, these two stars caught in their gravitational dance are warping and twisting spacetime around them in a very precise manner which confirms Einstein’s theories about general relativity.  A predicted loss of a small amount of the energy in this system was to have been caused by ripples in space called gravitational waves.  Sure enough, no less than six telescopes have confirmed this loss of the miniscule 8 millionths of a second per year of the orbital period of the white dwarf due to gravitational waves radiating energy out of the system. 

Smash Hello Kitty’s Face into Every Meal

Food, eh? Been there, done that. Isn’t it about time we just turn our meals into a quick, easy pocket of nutrients that we can just shove into our gobs and keep going? I refer, of course, to sandwiches. Why have grilled salmon when you can have a grilled salmon sandwich? Meatloaf? Meatloaf sandwich! Scrambled eggs? Scrambled egg sandwich! Big, juicy steak? Big, juicy steak sandwich! Spaghetti and meatballs? Spaghetti and- er, maybe you should keep a bowl on hand for that one.

Now that we’ve make mealtime much more manageable, wouldn’t if be great to have a gadget that purrfectly prepares pockets of protein? Worry not, friends! As luck would have it, the overworked, ever-insane marketing boys in Sanrio’s tech labs have just just the thing. Now available with compliments from the cute factory comes the Hello Kitty Sandwich Maker. It looks like Hello Kitty AND makes your sandwich look like Hello Kitty! Just crack open Kitty’s skull, stuff your square shaped Wonder of a meal inside, push down really hard for several minutes, and BLAMMO! A yummy meal compressed into a charred lump of bread! Brilliant!

Not convinced? Check out these testimonials from Amazon !

JxG1991 calls it “Perfectly serviceable for a decent price.” Oborochann screams “Awful!” and complains that the machine squeezes all the cheese out of  the sandwiches, a claim verified by Kevin M Albeck’s testimonial: “The first couple sandwiches ended up with no cheese in them because it ran out all over the machine.” Delicious AND helps you loose weight! Finally, hallegirl and Hello Kitty Fan agree that the machine doesn’t actually do a very good job at branding the cute cat character’s face into the bread. But that’s probably user error! What would you expect from someone posting as “Hello Kitty Fan” who just bought a machine to make sandwiches?

So what are you waiting for? Revolutionize meals in the cutest possible way with the Hello Kitty Sandwich Maker

Florida Cracks Down on Surveillance Drones

While the United States federal government has no qualms about flying Reaper drones over Texas to tighten up security on the Mexican border, Florida lawmakers have other ideas.

Legislators in The Sunshine State have passed the “Freedom From Unwanted Surveillance Act” and Governor Rick Scott has already agreed to sign the bill. Under this bill law enforcement would only be allowed to deploy unmanned aerial vehicles in certain circumstances such as managing hostage situations, fugitive manhunts, terrorist threats, or tracking hurricanes and wildfires. Before UAVs are allowed to be deployed for use in any criminal case, authorities will require a warrant to be issued by a judge.

The “Freedom From Unwanted Surveillance Act” makes Florida the third state, following Virginia and Ohio, to all but ban the use of airborne drones. Three law enforcement agencies have been licensed by the FAA to use UAVs, but all have yet to deploy any.

Review: Wizardry Online (Windows)–The Heroically Hardcore Dark Souls of MMORPGs

Wizardry Online makes doesn’t mix words. It is out to kill you. Permanently. Its home page proclaims WO as the “most hardcore fantasy MMO ever created,” and sports the tag line “Free to play die.” Its intro video features an adventuring part being wiped out with a lone survivor running for his life. The first two dungeons include dying NPCs with dire words of warning. Wizardry’s bark is a thunderous roar that shakes the very foundation of online gaming, but does its bite live up to it?

While it may not fulfill the “ever” part of the claim, Wizardry Online certainty IS one of the most intense and challenging dungeon romps available today. How so? Ah, where to start… No regenerating health, no regenerating mana, deteriorating weapons and armor, spells and specials are easily interruptible, dungeons are full of traps; treasure chests are full of traps, leveling needs to be done at an inn or magic fountain, character stats can go down as well as up when leveling, PVP is always on after a ‘noob’ grace period, gankers can steal your stuff, and the tutorial dungeon killed me. Twice. Oh, and poor or unlucky players are subjected to the possibility of character-rerolling permadeath. Also, the game is hard. All that said, WO tempers its laundry list of lulz with with smart design that keeps the game feeling fair and ensures that its most dramatic features are kept in check.

Kepler Finds 3 Earth Sized Planets In Habitable Zones | Out Of This World Weekly

The Kepler space telescope has been finding planets orbiting other stars for a while now, finding 2,712 candidates and 851 confirmed planets.   While many of these planets are Neptune sized and above, the number of approximately Earth sized planets in their star’s habitable zones have been increasing.  This week, 3 more Earth sized planets have been found in the habitable zones around 2 Stars.  One star, Kepler-62, has 2 Earth sized planets named Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f and the Star Kepler-69 has another Earth sized planet named Kepler-69c.  These three planets join 8 more planets that are of reasonable size and located in the habitable zones of their stars.  Kepler-62e is now tied with the unconfirmed Gliese 581g as the most Earthlike planet that has been found to date.  As more and more planets are found, we are continually reworking our understanding of what kinds of planets are likely to be found in other solar systems. 

What is Bitcoin? | Weekend Watchlist

It has been an exciting week for the anonymous, fledgling, digital currency Bitcoin. The market’s up! The market’s down! The market’s up! Mt.Gox is suffering a DDoS attack! No, it’s not! Yes, it is! The Euro is dying, buy Bitcoin! People are buying Bitcoins, sell now! Whew!

Feeling left out of the loop with all the the hoopla going down (And up! And down!)? Never fear, your buddies over here at Growing Up Otaku have dedicated this edition of the Weekend Watchlist to get you up to snuff on the digital dollar that has everyone asking, “What is Bitcoin?”

As with most things dealing with computer, a Bitcoin is the answer to a really hard math problem. So… there you go. See ya next time on Weekend Watchlist!

Okay, okay. There’s a bit more to it than that. It’s not simply about what Bitcoin is, but how Bitcoin works. Let’s start with the official word.

Feel and Smell Robert Downey Jr. Iron Man 3 Coming to Japanese Theaters in 4DX

3D? Pfft! Who talks about 3D anymore? Okay, aside from the trolls on the Internet. Well, it’s time for even these new-hating fuddy-duddies to get over it and star whining a different tune. Welcome the next trend in maximum movie watching, 4DX!

4DX is a theater overhaul that takes your 3D big screen adventure to a whole new level with motorized seating, strobe lights, fog machines, bubble blowers, and, yes, Smell-O-Vision class aromatic vapors. Never heard of 4DX? It’s actually been around for a while. James Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar was the first feature that supported the 4DX format. Since that time, mechanical, odor-spraying theaters have begun to crop up all over the world in countries like Thailand, China, South Korea, Russia, Israel, and Mexico. Next on the list for this augmented reality theater experience: Japan. For an additional $10-13 on top of the 3D movie ticket price, viewers will feel and smell Robert Downey Jr.’s latest high flying Iron Man adventure in Nagoya, Japan. A further 12 titles are scheduled to grace Japan’s new 4DX theaters throughout the remainder of 2013.

Eager to get you butt on this new experience? You won’t have long to wait long. CJ Group, the folks behind the 4DX technology, are moving ahead with plans to bring the theme park ride experience to theaters in the United States by the end of the year with a goal of equipping an additional 200 movie houses within the next five years.

CNN Misreports Arrest, Everyone Goes Along for the Ride | The Sorry State of Journalism

What has the race to be first in an always online world cost us? Who do we trust? And when?

Does the public need to know? Really?

Worse, this wholly incorrect report of an arrest connected to the bombing of the Boston Marathon was republished far and wide without anyone checking the facts. And by “anyone”, I’m not referring to independent bloggers and the like. We’re talking career reporters and journalists at Reuters, the source from which most the news flows.

Guess how many names are credited for the article “Boston bombing suspect arrested” on NBC News, reprinted from Reuters? Five. Three writers and two editors. Five professional journalists covering the biggest news story in the United States today who couldn’t be bothered to make a phone call.

It isn’t news at this point. It’s gossip.

CNN is taking the backlash for making this mistake, but the real problem lies with every other major news network that carried this story only using CNN as a source. High school research projects require more sources than networks demand of our “news”. They don’t care. They’re just going to throw CNN under the bus and hope you don’t think about it. AND they may just run an additional story about how CNN screwed up.

While most other media outlets have gone back and corrected their story, other news networks have not. Little sites like, ya know, NBC News. And, of course, Reuters.

Is this worth it? Does the public need to know right now?

Free App Allows PCs to Charge iPods, iPhones, and iPads Twice as Fast

Ever try charging an iPad off of your computer’s USB port. Yeah, that doesn’t work well. Usually your best bet is to bite the bullet and hook up the wall charger. Enter this great little app for Windows systems from PC manufacturing powerhouse Asus. The Asus AI Charger is a memory resident application that adjusts the amperage on computers with programmable voltage output USB ports (most of ‘em in the past several years) to double the power when iOS devices are connected.  Best of all, this little miracle worker is complete free of charge (no pun intended) and works on any PC with supporting hardware. Don’t know if you have supported hardware? Give it a shot. It simply won’t work if your USB controller is missing programmable voltage.

So, how good does Asus’s AI Charger software work? Matthew Hunt over at Scotch Tape and Duct Whisky put it through it’s paces and created the chart below showing the results.

While I haven’t done my own tests, I can tell you that my iPad 2 now displays the “I’m charging” lightning bolt when turned on and plugged into a USB port, where before it would not.

Ditch your wall charger with Asus AI Charger available for free here.

Literally Green Powered, The BIQ House Runs on Algae

Welcome to The BIQ House! Dreamed up by designers from Splitterwerk, Immsolar, and B+G Ingenieure in Germany, this IBA Hamburg building exhibition entrant is a 15-unit apartment whose power needs and handled by trillions of plants the size of bacteria. The two sides of the building that get the most sun are covered with a “second green skin” composed of chambers filled with water, carbon dioxide, and algae. Photosynthesis of the growing plants provide a cooling effect on the building itself. Light and heat that pass through the algae farm is captured for use by a thermal generator with the excess stored via an underground borehole heat exchanger. When the growing chambers are full, the algae are syphoned out and fermented into biogas to fuel the BIQ’s other power needs. By combining solar, geothermal, and biomass power, this apartment of tomorrow is not just stylish, but 100% free of fossil fuel use.

Source: IBA Hamburg

Behind the Blog SE: View GUO in New Ways With New Templates

While we spend a good amount of time trying to ensure a clean, easily readable template for this site (and ensure everyone gets to experience the modern marvel of rounded corners!), we know you can’t please everyone. Heck, when you run a site rooted in what used to be counter-culture, you should know you can’t please everyone! So we’ve added a bunch of new templates for readers to check out our content in a number of different ways.

Before we show off the new stuff, a brief word on the old. We’re always looking for ways to speed up page load times and while remaining pleasing to look at. As we continue to present heavier multimedia content, this isn’t always possible. As a result, the main page has been shortened to only feature the last 10 posts. Also, some of the javascript for the share buttons is too slow. Still. This is being looked into but, frankly, it’s a mess in here. Also know that the ‘prime’ version GUO (the one you’re looking at now) will always be our primary concern and the one that receive that most testing.

Mr and Mrs Otaku Play: Papers, Please

It is 1982 and you are an agent of the Ministry of Admission manning the immigration checkpoint of the fictional communist country of Arstotzka. At your fingertips is the mighty Rubber Stamp, a tool that will irrevocably change lives forever… And, perhaps, even end some.

What do you do when a murderer on the run seeks admission to your country but all his documents are in order? What do you do when a married couple fleeing their tyrannical homeland is threatened to be separated by a missing work permit? What do you do when every violation of the Ministry’s increasingly labyrinthine immigration policy, accidental or deliberate, is docked from you merge salary and your son needs medicine?

By the way, that immigrant you just approved was a suicide bomber..

Join the Internet’s nerdiest couple, Growing Up Otaku’s own Mr. and Mrs. Krutzler, as they man (and wife!) the border crossing in the beta version of Lucas Pope’s wickedly intriguing new game, Papers, Please.

Try the beta for yourself (Windows or Mac PCs) at dukope.com.

Vote for Papers, Please on Steam Greenlight.

To enter your name for use in the final version of the game, fill out Ministry approved paperwork here.

More Mysteries About Saturn’s Rings Uncovered | Out Of This World Weekly

Since 1610, Saturn’s rings have held a special wonder for those that have viewed them.  These 14 rings, which are mostly composed of frozen water with only small traces of dirt, can be anywhere from 10 meters to kilometers thick and have been found to have their own extremely thin atmosphere of Hydrogen and Oxygen.  Now these rings are thought to rain down on Saturn, causing effects on the planet itself.  Evidence of this was found in the 80’s when the Voyager space probes passed Saturn and noticed that there were a few dark bands going around Saturn.  Recently in 2011, scientists observed the planet in near-infrared wavelengths with the W.M Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii and saw these same distinctive bands but only at particular latitudes.  It turns out that these latitudes correspond with both the rings and Saturn’s magnetosphere. 

Scientists Discover Cthulhu and His Daughter Living in Termite Guts. No, Really!

Researchers at The University of British Columbia have discovered two new microscopic organisms that have taken up residence in the intestines of termites. These newly discovered little creatures measure a mere 10-20 microns long and are believed to help the bugs digest wood. Upon observing the octopus-like appearance and movements of these lil’ wood muchers, UBC researcher Erick James elected to name them Cthulhu macrofasciculumque and Cthylla microfasciculumque after the ancient alien gods featured in several early 20th century horror stories by H.P. Lovecraft.

The official research article featuring pictures and videos of the Great Old One and his daughter are now available on the international, open access research journal PLOS ONE.

Cthulhu fhtagn!

TellTale's Poker Night 2 at The Inventory Coming to Steam

Back fresh from the Value news room is something new we have been waiting for.We've all have heard of Poker Night at The Inventory with Heavy, Strong Bad, Max and Tycho. Now Telltale Games is back with Sam from Sam & Max, Brock Samson from the animated series The Venture Bros on Adult Swim, Claptrap from Borderlands series and Ash Williams from cult horror film Army of Darkness. There is also another guest coming to the party: From the Portal series it's GLaDOS but she will be the dealer in this game along with her silly rant of her trying to kill you.

 

 

The game is set to release on April 23, 2013 for PC, PlayStation and Xbox 360. Also there will be sweet Team Fortress 2 and Borderlands 2 items with the pre-order on Steam for $5. You'll also score a free copy of Poker Night 1 at The Inventory.

7th Grader Launches Hello Kitty into Space

Lauren Rojas totally ruined the grading curve of her seventh grade class at Cornerstone Christian School in Antioch, California. When the class science project regarding the effects of altitude on temperature and pressure was handed out, Lauren went way, way over the top and launched her favorite feline to edge of Earth’s atmosphere dangling on the end of a high-altitude balloon.

The purrfectly pretty catonaut soared over 93,000 feet to edge of our atmosphere before her balloon, quite literally, burst. Unfazed, Hello Kitty began her glorious decent back to terra firma, where, in true cat style, she became stuck 50 feet up a tree. A local arborist was called for rescue and capsule, camera, and Kitty were successfully recovered.

Computer Memory Gets Square as Hybrid Memory Cube Moves to Replace DDR RAM in 2013

The scary sounding Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium has just unveiled the fist official standard specifications for a new type of high-speed computer memory. This new Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC) 1.0 spec, created as a joint venture between various chip manufacturers including IBM, Samsung, and Micron, details a radical new way of creating PC memory that promises to increase speeds as much as 15 times while using 70% less power.

The Hybrid Memory Cube achieves this huge performance boost by stacking the actual chips of a RAM module rather than laying them out side-by-side, as convention DDR does. This results is a much shorter connection between the actual chips that compose the memory module. A shorter trip between chips means that all those little 1s and 0s get where they’re going faster and require less energy to make the trip. Furthermore, by stacking the silicon dies inside a single casing, the physical space of computer memory could be shrunk by as much as 90%.

Consortium members are planning the first release of HMC RAM later in 2013 and are already busy crafting the 2.0 spec for this technology. As with any new technology, you can rest assured that these early chips absurdly expensive and relegated to supercomputers and high-end servers. Pending any major upset from early adopters, consumer grade HMC modules should being to trickle down to system builders a couple years later.

Get more information and check out the full spec sheet at the Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium’s home page.

Counter-Strike Creator Returns with Free Online Shooter Tactical Intervention

One of the creators of the original mod-turned-phenomenon ,Counter-Strike, returns to the realm of team-based, online, first-person shooters with Tactical Intervention. After an extensive beta, OGPlanet has finally declared the game 1.0 and turned it loose on the bloodthirsty population of the Internet to get their snipe on. Tactical Intervention features the familiar terrorists vs. counter-terrorist teams pitted against each other in four game modes including VIP Escort and Hostage Rescue.

Fans of competitive team-based shooters looking for a new fix should head on over to ti.ogplanet.com and check it out since Tactical Intervention if free-to-play .

Google Glass? Build Your Own iOS Glass for About $300

Like it or love it, wearable computing is now trending on a futurist hipster near you. Trust the guy whose been wearing an armful of iOS gizmos for the past few years. Obviously the device generating the most buzz these days is the wearable webcam/Android HUD Google Glass. While the Big G has been trickling out $1500 prototype versions of the device, DIY hobbyists have taken matters into their own hands. And those hands are full of dremels and soldering irons!

Give it up for Instructables’ user XenonJohn who took a Myvu Crystal Media Viewer and combined it with a gaming headset and a whole lotta the ol’ measure-twice, cut-once to create a wearable heads-up display for his iPod Touch for about $300. While John’s “Beady-I” device may appear to obstruct the user’s vision in one eye, he claims to still have perfect stereo vision when looking ahead . The iOS display is visible only when he glances down.

Check out the full story with step-by-step build instructions over at Instructables.

Space Spectrometer May Have Found Dark Matter | Out Of This World Weekly

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer riding on the I.S.S. might just have found the first clues about Dark Matter.  This $1.6 billion particle detector has been counting incoming particles emanating from space for two years now and scientists are excited by the data which they have been analyzing.  It appears that there are far more energetic positrons, the anti-matter version of electrons, zipping around in space than previously thought.  It is difficult to explain why these particles are as abundant as they are with current methods, with the only possibility being that they are a temporary phenomenon caused by a pulsar throwing large amounts of electromagnetic radiation in our direction.  Yet it is theorized by scientists trying to find Dark Matter that these positrons could be formed by weakly interacting massive particles of Dark Matter colliding and annihilating each other.  Not enough data has been collected to definitively prove anything yet but the data is high quality and this experiment will continue for another 18 years.

Cameras on R/C Model Aircraft Around the World | Weekend Watchlist

In this edition of the Weekend Watchlist, we’re moving in miniature. As we’ve already seen, 21st century breakthroughs in miniaturization and mass production has led to tiny, affordable cameras capable of being mounted on anything by anyone. Even better, cheap storage space and an online lifestyle has enabled footage from said cameras to be shared with everyone all over the world. One of the more popular uses of this technology for hobbyists is to capture video from their favorite remote controlled model vehicles for a whole new perspective on our world. Come fly with us this weekend as we get high for on a global scale.

Our first stop is Kinrara, Malaysia where YouTuber  Harudin Mj has attacked a webcam onto his remote control helicopter, the Esky Big Lama (pictured above). This is a very popular choice of RC aircraft for budding enthusiasts because it’s cheap, sturdy, and easy to fly.

By the way, consider this whole Weekend Watchlist to be under a Volume Warning. We’ve got a lot of different setups to showcase and a lot of microphones strapped to some really whiny engines.

Horror! Logitech Discontinues the Cordless Optical Trackman | Requiescat in Pace

Our computer input peripherals are the shoes of our virtual selves. Our choice is as much a statement of our personal style as much as our physical needs. Some are happy to trip the live fantastic across the many tubes of the Information Superhighway on any ol’ mouse. Others demand the tactile feeling of a touchpad. Some live by the gamepad while a whole new generation is growing up predisposed to letting their e-tootsies go al fresco as they pinch and swipe via touchscreens.

Me? I’m a trackball kinda guy. Always have been. More specifically, I use a centered trackball that is rolled with the fingers rather than the thumb controlled variant. Ever since IBM PCs began to experiment with GUI shells such as GeoWorks Ensemble, OS/2, and Microsoft Windows (none of which bore version numbers in those days), I found the pick-up and re-center act of using a traditional mouse tedious. I also like to keep a cluttered desk, a sin most mouse users don’t have room for. It hasn’t been an easy lifestyle. I still remember waiting with baited breath for power user features such as the scroll wheel or the magnificent 5-button layout to trickle down to my favorite I/O device. It usually took a while, but those features came. And when they did, you could usually expect that vanguard of PC peripherals, Logitech, to be leading the way.

For a decade now, the Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman has been my fingerwear of choice for all my computing needs. The plethora of buttons has served not just my Internet adventuring but my hardcore gaming, both at desk and on couch (try doing that with a mouse!), for a decade now. Considering my usage habits, it shouldn’t surprise you to know that I ended up with a left mouse button devoid of clickyness every three years or so. I never complained. Shoes wear out and I’ve been known to traverse terabytes in a day. And thus is was that I found myself yesterday staring forlornly at an empty shelf where my style of e-shoes were usually sold.

The Logitech Cordless Trackman is no more, the history of its existence wiped clean from Logitech’s web site.

I have remapped my trusty back/melee button to serve in stead of the fallen left-clicker. The patch should serve until the new version is released. Because there IS a new version coming. Right? RIGHT?!?!?!

Please! Because I sure as heck don’t wanna have use this:

Behind the Blog: April 2, 2013–Fetishizing Bloggery

Shh! Do you smell that? It’s the staff of this here lil’ nerdist haven being on fire for the past month!

No not literally. Huh? No, I don’t know why you’d have to be quiet to smell something, especially when there’s no actual smell to smell. Look, you’re the one responding to a static block of text and- No, wait! Come back! I still haven’t hit you up to use our Amazon affiliate link for all your online shopping needs yet! I mean.. er… sat down and told you all the funny anecdotes about the great content we’ve been producing here at GUO over the past month. How funny? Well, ya know, it’s more ‘mildly amusing’ than actually funny, but- No, wait! Come back! I mean, it’s hysterical! And informative! And we’ve got a very special deleted scene! Well, not a scene so much as a statement, but it’s the same thing when you work in text. And it’s kinda dirty! Yeah, we run a family show, but I think the words are big enough that we can slip this one past the censors.

So how ‘bout it? Care to click on through the page jump and take a little tour of what’s on the other side of your computer screen in this month’s edition of Behind the Blog?

April Fools’ Day 2013

So we blanked the site and ran this image as our only post. Even tweaked the template to remove comments and the byline. The original vision of this prank was to completely replace the site, but it turned out to be a bit trickier than we imagined since we’re using Blogger on the back end and don’t have direct FTP access.

FYI, that is the real image used by the U.S. Government when they seize a website. I took this image from a closed torrent site.

Any April Fools’ jokes catch you’re eye? Let us know in the comments.