Alex Blechman

Adjust the slider until the romantic tension between Mario and Peach is platonic

Me: (staring at slider for 5 minutes) Is it almost barely visible or barely almost visible? I’m worried I can cannot not see the logo too much not enough

The human eye is sensitive enough to detect a single photon cast from a star one thousand light years away. So when you tell me to make a logo “barely visible” there’s not a lot of wiggle room there

I don’t know if I’ve ever adjusted a video game’s brightness level to the correct setting. I’m always guessing how barely visible a logo is supposed to be. I play every game wondering if my environment is murky enough

As a sci-fi space marine, I hate it when the motion tracker shows a swarm of glowing dots converging on my position

Forsake your name. Discard your life as a snake sheds its skin. Enter the forest and be reborn. For 30 days and 30 nights wander the woods a feral creature, neither man nor beast. On the next new moon, neath the darkest night, you shall complete Duolingo French Lesson 1

A clickbait ad that says “Disappear for 1 month and become a master of AI tools.” There is an AI generated woman looking at you, hinting with her gaze the message “Time for you to disappear for 30 or 31 days. Your family will not know your location”

I was too scared to click on this ad. Why do I have to disappear for 1 month? Is disappearing mandatory? Vanishing usually isn’t part of a sales pitch. “Go off the grid for 5 years and return having experienced the great taste of DrPepper”

The Henry Stickmin mission Stealing the Diamond. A stick figure man is quizzically looking at a diamond with nefarious intent

Does this count

For the last time, the definition of art is “something in a museum with a tiny explanatory sign next to it.” It has to be a sign that people kinda check out for a few seconds before getting bored and wandering towards the gift shop. That is art

Good news. The art experts arrived in Alaska and were so awestruck by the arctic tundra’s natural beauty they declared that all things are art. The world is art and we are all brushstrokes on the canvas of creation

Bad news, the art experts just double checked and it turns out Cray-Pas aren’t art either. It turns out art does not exist. All the art experts quit their jobs at the Art Academy and moved to Alaska to become crab fishermen

Bad news. I checked with the art experts and it turns out only Cray-Pas are art. Painting, sculpture, dance, video games, none of it is art. Just Cray-Pas

Boromir: The fellowship should pivot to ring

Donkey Kong can’t physically eat all the bananas in his banana vault before they go bad. He eats about 10% and watches the rest spoil. It makes him feel powerful

I used AI to fill out the rest of the Mona Lisa's background

Why is The Sphere playing Wizard of Oz? I already told them the best thing to put on a The Sphere-shaped screen

A Star Trek: TNG pinball machine, the most beautiful device ever created and the pinnacle of modern civilization

Does society owe them a free $10,000 Star Trek: TNG pinball machine? Yes, if they want it badly enough. Also, society should send out a repairman every few weeks due to this particular model’s notably finicky design flaws that require frequent maintenance

There is a silent epidemic of men who would really love to own the Star Trek: TNG pinball machine but society still hasn't given them a free one to put in their living room

Interviewer: Your films have a hopeful message, don’t they?

Hayao Miyazaki: *puts unlit cigarette in mouth and chews it like gum*

Pranking you by burying a clay tablet insulting your copper quality so people that dig it up 4,000 years from now think you’re a merchant of ill repute

You can tell The Twinge is upon you by doing ten backflips. If you feel out of breath afterward, you are The Twinge’s next victim

The Goosebumps horror book “The Twinge” is about a slight pain you feel in your back after turning 30 years old. If this curse falls on you it means you will die within the next 100 years

It’s not your fault if the Bluesky app inserts a weird line break into a post. This is called “The Angel’s Gap” and Bluesky adds it on purpose to keep us humble

Luigi’s Mansion is a good example

In co-op there’s the immortal Gooigi teammate with infinite lives. If they die they just respawn after a cooldown. It’s great if they’re skilled. But also a toddler can chew on the controller while a skilled player does all the work

Obviously some games should be universally hard and skill based, the way a friend group might decide to all go mountain climbing or join a rugby league

But you also want options for friend groups of varying skill
levels or families with different-aged players

Games are a social activity where your skill level can potentially exclude you from having fun with your friends. This is kinda a new thing when it comes to casual hanging out. You can’t be too much of a newb to go see a movie with friends or eat at a restaurant

“Friendslop” solves one of the big challenges in multiplayer, how to let people with different skill levels play together. There are some games that just aren’t fun if one person is too good or too bad

Now being terrible is a plus. You will entertain your friends by getting eaten by a ghoul

Had to discard a post because the idea was too good for bluesky. I muttered “Nah, that’s a 7 out of 10. Can’t waste anything above a 6”

Puffin Rock is a TV show from the Song of the Sea studio and also has a lot of ocean (which makes sense because the main character is a puffin)

crawlers of qud