Hello Kitty/Space Invaders cellphone charm

As you may know, I like Hello Kitty a lot. Not enough to know anything about her or her friends, just on a superficial level, which is really the only level on which to appreciate Hello Kitty. I think her simple, earnest, goofy, focus-group-tested sweetness is a nice counterpoint to the other entertainment properties I enjoy. With Hello Kitty, there's no danger of getting sucked into the fandom; there's no temptation to spend a couple of hours reading backstory or looking on message boards trying to find Hello Kitty release dates or critical analysis (not for me, anyway.) There are no Hello Kitty design trends for me to get pissed about. There's no lifestyle involvement. Hello Kitty is just cute, and I can just enjoy the cute cartoon cat.

Despite the fact that Space Invaders is a video game, I feel kind of the same way. I feel like every word that needs to be said about Space Invaders has been said (plus several extra by me just now) and I can think of it separately from the games I enjoy/write about/pursue. Space Invaders is just Space Invaders-- it's simpler than most cellphone games, proudly displays its blocky-ass pixels, and is repetitive to the point of hypnotism. I love it. I love playing it, and I love watching it. I am a pixel fan.

This combo cellphone strap ("Hey, pick two things Japanese people enjoy, and we'll slap 'em on a cellphone strap") is something I would enjoy having dangle uselessly from my own phone, imprinting pixelated 3D Hello Kitty sprites into my cheek. I almost said "dangling impotently," but I decided to save my penis jokes for when they are intentional. I then blew my wad by including it in this paragraph anyway.

Throwing some website ideas out into the world

I've been thinking about websites I'd like to start, but don't have the money or the technical knowledge to create. Maybe after I get a job I'll save up for some domain names and try to find some pre-written resources to develop them, but until then, I'll just stupidly expose them and allow them to get stolen.

1. Gamercraft: a site for people to post their game-related craft projects, like, say, t-shirts and bead pictures, and to share templates, how-tos, and ideas. Basically Craftster for game nerds. So why not just use Craftster? Two reasons: first, it would be very useful to have all of the materials follow the same theme, so that when you see someone's backpack, you know it's going to have a videogame theme, instead of looking at page after page of emo band logos and stuff I'm just not at all interested in; and second, part of why I like these crafts is that it makes me feel like part of a gamer community. Limiting the site's domain to game stuff would make it more likely to attract an interesting, tight-knit group of people with very similar interests to my own.
   


2. ObsessiveGamer: a site that combines social networking with insane hoarding by allowing you to keep lists related to your game collection: what you own, when you bought it, how much it cost, if you've completed it, etc., and share these lists with other members. You could include links to your collection list in message board signatures and such. The entries would be linked to information about the game, so that if you saw Sweet Home in someone's list, you could click on it and find info about the game. I really don't have the database creation/maintenance knowledge to do this, but it would be awesome.