The recycling of great music is an art unto itself. Taking someone’s original song and playing it takes both courage and a willingness to face critical comparison. Most performers, even seasoned ones, avoid performing cover songs whenever possible, but some of the best musicians have not only taken on the challenge, they’ve conquered it.

Proof that you have too much time on your hands.

The year 2011 was a year of numerous modifications, the world shifted in a variety of ways, as we witnessed uprisings from around the world. Revolutions unfolded amongst countries, people had to overcome adversity and the world grew to 7 billion people.

2011 was a year of hardships, as lives in Japan were changed forever from devastating earthquakes and tsunamis, floods overwhelmed Brazil that rippled effects around the world breaking hearts as each image unfolded. Many other disasters occurred this year as well, although not mentioned does not mean they went unfelt.

2011 was the year to watch the falling of a terrorist, to feel a sense of justice for those immediately affected by 9/11 attacks and the final rise of the last Space Shuttle Program launch.

2011 changed in search and social, adding a new social network, making search more social and uniting people from around the world even closer.

In 2011, the Prince found a Princess, The Oprah Winfrey show said goodbye, many celebrities got divorced, and politicians kept being politicians.

The biggest transformation that made a huge impact globally in 2011 was being an eyewitness, bystander or participant in changing the way we are heard; no longer do countries want to be silenced, controlled or forgotten. This transformation has been so tremendous even enabling Time Magazine to recognize 2011’s person of the year as “The Protester”.

Mom tries to sing “Ave Maria” and cannot seem to get past the first word without baby making a sad face. He curls his lip to the sound of his own mothers’ singing and even at one point sheds a tear. The most entertaining part is that the baby does not make a sound even though he is clearly upset, yet as soon as his mother stops singing, his face goes back to a peaceful one. I can see an Oscar in his future!

And I remember when the four color ball point pen was the coolest thing in the world.

Rock, Paper, Scissors level: ASIAN

Created originally in Japan, Pac-Man is a classic arcade game developed by Namco and through its popularity has become its mascot. This simple yet memorable game’s creator is, Toru Iwatani, who originally named the character “Puck-Man”, but had to change its name due to American vandals defacing an arcade game. Therefore, Iwatani changed the characters name to “Pakkuman”, which is Pac-Man in Japanese for the American version release; this eventually became the official name. Although developed in Japan like many games, Pac-Man became more common in American culture.

The Pac-Man Inspiration

What exactly inspired the creation of Pac-Man? It was Pizza.

That is correct, Toru Iwatani ordered a pizza and when eating the first quarter of the pizza, Iwatani saw a head with its mouth open, hence the first sight of what we know now as, Pac-Man, which was created in May 1980. It was also in the 80’s when Pac-Man made its television debut resembling the Pac-Land and Pac-Man 2 games.

Namco realized that Pac-Man could be developed for a game system after the game company, Atari, reinvented the game in 1981 with unfortunate flickering ghosts and slow motion characters that were not well liked by players.

Pac-Man’s very first story line began in Pac n’ Roll, where the character trained under Pac-Master during his summer vacation. In this game, the Pac-Master trained Pac-Man how to fight power pellets to help defend Pac-Land. This is when the future Ms. Pac-Man (Pac-Master’s daughter) and the ghosts Pinky, Blinky, Inky and Clyde were introduced. Chronologically, Pac-Man was the very first video game that featured some of these characters that Pac-Man would eat within a maze.

Pac-Man did not reach its popular potential until the early nineties, through figures and games and after Namco released Pac-Man World, a game today’s players are more likely to recognize with its 3-Dimensional characters. It was not until the Ms. Pacman game release when Pac-Man received her as a girlfriend and then wife; this is when Pac-Man Junior made his very first appearance. Pac-Man than took on Pac-Land to save fairies who have been taken by ghosts. The following games would follow, Pac- Man world 2, Spectral Realm, Pac-Mania, Pac-Man World Rally, Pac-Man World 3 and many others.

7 Fun Pac-Man Facts

1. Pac-Man loves to munch on a variety of foods such as, green grapes, strawberries, cherries, oranges, peaches, bananas, pears, apples and of course Power Pellets and the well known Pac-Dots.
2. Pac-Man’s biggest rival is Nintendo’s Mario, since Mario’s original name was “Jumpman” sounding very much like Pac-Man.  This is not such a huge surprise since the creator of Mario; Shigeru Miyamoto has stated that Pac-Man is his favorite video game character.
3. In the original Pac-Man Clyde is the only ghost missing.
4. The ghosts have real names but can only be seen in attract mode.
5. The very first installed coin-machine operated Pac-Man video game was on May 22 1980 in Japan.
6. The name Pac-Man comes from the eating sound paku-paku often heard in Asian cartoons (“paku” is the Japanese sound for “chomp”).
7. Power Pellets power-ups were inspired by Popeye eating spinach.

Pac-Man is still loved by many gamers today and played on new-aged consoles, the latest game is “Pac-Man Party 3D” available on Nintendo 3DS and was just released on November 8 of this year. Below is a highlight of the recent Pac-Man video game to see what you are missing if you have yet to obtain this game. “Wakka, wakka, wakka” dear Pac-Man friends.

Versus the cheap, watery, almost food you actually get.

One of the most sought-after talents in tech companies is graphic design. Venture- and public-funded firms know that talented graphic designers are often hard to come by even in a down economy and they’re willing to pay to get top talent. It has caused an explosion in the number of people turning their artistic and computer skills into the creative realm of technology.

Gaming Done Right:

It doesn’t matter how old the game nor how old the gamer. It’s an art that transcends time.

(Via: mezzochan)