The winning performances for last year’s Meow Mix Jingle All The Way To L.A. contest are online, and in an unprotected directory (Windows Media format). These videos are just about as strange as you would think they’d be. Meow meow meow meow!

By the way, today’s my 25th birthday. While my mom was in labor, Julie M. Fidler got some stuff from the Donny & the Osmonds fan club and stayed home sick from school, students rallied in opposition to Henry Kissinger’s planned appointment to Columbia, and Josh Brown enjoyed the most beautiful trip of his life.

And I was born at 12 noon. A pretty quiet day, I guess.

I created this in response to Mat Honan hassling me about not wanting a storTrooper avatar. If you haven’t seen the original, this probably won’t make much sense.

The 1983 Video Game Olympics, held at the Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa, pitted nineteen players against each other in five events: Frogger, Millipede, Joust, Super Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong, Jr. The three finalists went on to compete in the Video Game Invitational, hosted by ’80s car-wreck That’s Incredible. Thanks to the original owner of the Twin Galaxies arcade, the full episode is now online in Quicktime format.

A tape glitch skips over the moment when the winner reaches the high score on Buck Rogers and crosses the finish line, but it’s still well worth watching. Don’t miss John Davidson and Cathy Lee Crosby’s in-game color commentary of Cosmos, Burgertime, Millipede, Donkey Kong Jr. and Buck Rogers. (“Now comes a swarm of bees and Ben gets stung!”) Thanks to Mathowie for the tip.

Photos from the Fanime 2001 anime convention, where fans dress up as their favorite anime characters. I admire their passion for the genre, but I can’t help but laugh. (Found from a Google Image search for pinchy, looking for images of Mr. Pinchy.)