Vancouver Olympics mascots

My name is Jessica and I'm an Olympics addict. I have zero interest in sports outside of two weeks every two years. Then if I could have my way, I'd never leave my house at night so I could stay permanently glued to my TV set. I love watching people who work really, really hard experience the sheer joy of victory. I also like watching people fall down and get back up again. Human beings are amazing and bewildering creatures.

Wow, I'm chatty this morning. What I set out to mention was Vancouver's completely adorable Olympics mascots, created by the design studio Meomi. The Olympics have had mascots since 1968, and these characters must be among the cutest. According to the Vancouver Olympic committee, Miga is a snowboarding Orca whale-turned-bear, Quatchi is a shy and gentle sasquatch, and Sumi is an animal spirit who wears an orca whale hat, has the wings of a thunderbird, and the legs of a black bear. So round up the kiddies and send them to the official mascot site, where they can watch videos, play games, download desktop wallpaper, print coloring pages, and make paper models of these guys. Awww.

Quiz: Is it a cheese or a font?

Is your Monday turning out entirely too productive? Slow things down a bit by playing Cheese or Font. (Via Swiss Miss)

Kern in space

Want to play a typography game that will make you crazy? Try kerning in space at Veer. "On earth you kern with the best of them. But how well do your skills hold up in a fraction of earth's gravity? Check the gauges, fire the boosters, and do your best to give 80-point type a 3-point landing." Good luck, earthlings. It's super hard.

Friday time-waster

Speaking of kittehs, a totally random tangent. I couldn't stop playing this NomNomNom4Fud game the other night. Brought to you by the folks at I Can Has Cheezburger, you pull a kitten's tail to launch him at food kibbles, and he bounces off stuff like a pinball. Argh, what's wrong with me? If you're new to the world of LOLcats, here are some LOLspeak guidelines to get you started.

This is trouble

I have to be very careful or I could get addicted to this font game. It might already be too late. I love it!

Host an Academy Awards party

A few friends are coming over Sunday night to watch the Oscars, so I searched the trusty internet to find some party ideas. Evite suggested Oscar Bingo, which sounds hilarious, so I googled to find some examples. Then I pilfered a few things other people wrote from here and here and added some of my own squares to make game sheets. Since I went to the trouble, I figured I'd post the PDF here in case anybody else wants to play along during the telecast. (There are ten different sheets in the file.) Whether this game will even work is hard to say. But I think it will be fun to try. And I'll be making some Red Carpet Cocktails for us to sip. Any red drink or punch would be fun, but I'm planning to use this one (scaled down and possibly modified). Have fun!

Update: Get 2010 bingo cards here. Get 2011 bingo cards here.

Flickr memory game

Need to kill some time? Here's an online memory game using images from Flickr. Type in any words you want and your puzzle will feature images with those tags.

Online memory game

Play this little memory matching game online at Sodapix, a Swiss stock photo company. (Via Swiss Miss.)

Start your career as a photojournalist

I found this via Swissmiss last week, and I'm addicted. It's a promotional game for Superman Returns. In it, you are Jimmy Olsen, trying to get a good shot of Superman for the Daily Planet's front page. I can't stop myself. I have to keep playing. Start your photo shoot, and you'll see what I mean.