Slow news day: the revelations of Caturday

I’M IN UR NEWSPAPER WRITIN MAH COLUM. No, seriously, that's the headline. Bless you, Houston Chronicle.

The origin of LOLcats is murky at best. From what I can tell based on various blog posts — the most authoritative at LinguisticMystic.com, written by a Colorado linguistics student — they may have evolved from a practice called Caturday, in which cat lovers posted photos of their felines with funny captions on Saturdays.

The article also interviews the creators of ICanHasCheezburger.com and mentions "In Ur X, Y-ing Ur Z" and lolcode. And they wonder why newspapers are dying.

Why I'm cackling: the Xbox 360 major announcement

Last night there was word that there'd be a "major announcement" re: the Xbox 360 today. So I was looking forward to it, idly, wondering if this would finally be the impetus to get me to enter the console world.

In a word: no.

The "major" Xbox 360 announcement has been revealed as Pac-Man Championship Edition for [XBox Live Arcade], an exclusive revamp of the classic arcade game including all new levels designed by Pac-Man creator, Toru Iwatani. The game will also feature new modes, will cost 800 points, and will appear tomorrow on Xbox Live Arcade.

For me, the amusement lay, as it generally does, in fandom's reactions:

"Worst Major Announcement Ever"

"I was hoping it would be something along the lines of: '360 no longer sounds like you are flying a jet when you are playing.'"

"Major PS3 announcement tomorrow: Pong Extreme! EXTREME!!!!!!"

Epilepsy-inducing logo!

Sorry for the blogspam, but this just keeps getting better and better.

A segment of animated footage promoting the 2012 Olympic Games has been removed from the organisers' website after fears it could trigger epileptic fits.

Though you could say that about the stationary logo, too.

Edit: Emphasising that it was not the logo itself which was the focus of worries, she said: "This concerns a short piece of animation which we used as part of the logo launch event and not the actual logo." I'm not sure I believe them. The logo is alive. The logo wants us all dead.

Spoilers for Deathly Hallows surfacing...?

Remember when the photocopy of page 606 of Half-Blud Prince started floating about the Internets before the book's release? Be wary -- same thing appears to be happening again, according to my faithful monitoring of the rando-pic generator. No link (I'm not going to either ruin someone's enjoyment of the book or shower fakery with attention, either way), but two thoughts:

1. What kind of name is "Rimulus?"
2. If these are genuine, I was so right.

Picspam, free coffee day edition

There was free coffee across the street today. This may give some insight into my posting frequency today. As an apology for y'all having to sit through my daily blather, here, have a picspam -- paltry, I know, but it's the best I can do. ( 31 pics below.... )

Jericho...returns?

Well, this is unexpected.

Multiple sources are telling me that CBS is thisclose to sealing a deal to bring Jericho back for at least eight episodes, possibly at mid-season.

Okay, now I'm going to bed.