What do you get when you combine Lego, old-school Nintendo games, and music made from old gaming system chips? 8-bits of awesome that took 1500 hours to make. That’s almost 190 8-hour days. Goddamn. It’s worth it though. Check it out:

If you’ve been to college you’re probably familiar with the art of Salvador Dali. Not because of an art appreciation class, but rather the ubiquitous posters on dorm room walls. He’s best known for his surrealist paintings of melting clocks and long-legged elephants. Most people don’t know that in 1945 he started working with Walt Disney to bring his unique vision to the big screen. The project, titled Destino, was scrapped after just a few months due to financial concerns. In 1999 the Disney company decided to finish the short film, and in 2003 they released it to the public for the first time. Since then it’s been attached to various other Disney films, but never available on home video. That will apparently change next year, when Disney will release it with a documentary about the project’s history.

So it’s an interesting story, but how is the actual movie? Weird. But good. A good weird. The animators did a great job capturing Dali’s style, meaning the film looks like a Dali painting in motion. Check it out:

via BoingBoing

A ton of episodes of Bob Ross’ Joy of Painting are online! I’ve never painted in my life, and I’m not high. But I just sat and watched a whole episode. And I am reeeaaalllyyy relaxed. Bob was truly a force for good in the universe.

Looks like the Arrested Development movie is movie forward now that Michael Cera has agreed to be in it. A note to the folks behind the movie: screw this up and there will be a lot of angry fanboys. Fanboys who won’t be afraid to treat you like the cops treat Oscar.

How did I miss the little fact that The Roots are going to be the house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon? Could anything possibly give Fallon more street cred? This is huge. I may actually have to watch the show now.

There’s a new internet meem emerging where people take music videos and change the lyrics to describe what’s going on. My description doesn’t do it justice, but this literal version of Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” will give you the gist:

Eddie Murphey is set to play Richard Pryor in a biopic about the comedian. This would have been a great idea 20 years ago. But now? I’m not so sure. Eddie’s been in too many movies like Meet Dave and Norbit recently. I’m not sure he can pull this off anymore. Please Eddie, prove me wrong.

Samuel L. Jackson will be playing muthafuckin’ Nick Fury in nine muthafuckin’ movies. Looks like Marvel really is planning on making all these superhero movies. Right muthafuckin’ on.

It looks like old people and idiots aren’t the only one’s CasForGold.com is targeting. Ft. Knox gets cash for its unused gold. Ahh, you’ve gotta love The Onion.

Finally, this new Tiger Woods/Nike commercial is perfect:

(click for a larger view)

This illustration by artist Jason Freeny finally sheds light on the inner anatomy of the wild Gummi Bear. No longer does science have to rely on primitive guesswork when diagnosing the rubbery candy’s common ailments.

Is there a Nobel Prize for candy research? If there is, Freeny deserves it. One can only hope that his next task is to apply his groundbreaking research to the Gummy Venus de Milo.

If you like the illustration, go order it as a print.

It’s hard not to love it when people come up with creative uses for Legos. Here’s a guy who takes famous photographs and recreates them with Legos. From the photo of Marines planting the flag at Iwo Jima to New York construction workers eating lunch on a girder and Buzz Aldrin on the moon, he’s reenacted them with great care and attention to detail. If you’re not familiar with the original photos, here’s a site that shows both the original and Lego versions together.

All the photos on Flickr

On December 21st, 1970 one of our country’s most iconic photographs was taken. It recorded the visit of the nation’s most popular figure and its most powerful man. It’s a picture that hangs on walls all over the country. It’s the picture that shows Elvis in the Oval Office shaking hands with Richard Nixon.

For a long time that photo was all the public had to mark that historic occasion. Now the National Archives has an exhibit of 28 more photos of the meeting, plus a photo of the WWII handgun Elvis presented to Nixon as a gift. These pics are a must-view for any big Elvis fan (or I suppose any big Nixon fan).

All the pics are after the jump

The full story behind the meeting

“We don’t make mistakes here, we just have happy accidents. We want happy, happy paintings. If you want sad things, watch the news. Everything is possible here. This is your little universe.”

These are the immortal words of Bob Ross, the ultra-mellow painter whose happy little trees and puffy little clouds actually made PBS fun to watch. Bob died in 1995, but if he was alive today would have been his 65th birthday. Many people retire at 65, but something tells me Bob would have kept on painting, and kept on encouraging others to do the same.

If you want to celebrate Bob’s birthday you can:

• check out Bob’s biography
• learn how paint like Bob (in Photoshop at least)
• take a quiz about Bob on his official site
• Listen to Patton Oswalt’s take on him (Patton and I are from Sterling, VA, where Bob’s offices were!)
  Patton Oswalt - The Magic Of Oil Painting
  
• read Bob’s obituary from the NY Times

Or check out a full episode of his show, The Joy of Painting:

File under creepy: artist Le Gentil Garçon’s representation of what’s going on under Pac Man’s skin. His description:

Second version of Pac-man’s skeleton, conceived in collaboration with François Escuilié, palaeontologist, from the comparative observation of human and various predatory animal skulls. His studio’s team, “Eldonia”, specialized in casting fossils, made the edition.

This might actually keep me awake tonight…

via Kotaku

From Liz Kelly’s great “Celebritology” blog at WashingtonPost.com we bring you the “Madonna of Wal-Mart”. (Well at least that’s what I’m calling it).

Yes your eyes are not deceiving you. That is indeed Angelina Jolie and her children in oil and acrylic on linen by artist Kate Kretz. I think the Velvet Elvis may have met it’s match…..