twine your vines around me, drop your branches in my path

CoolVL is finally taking its first baby steps towards independent branding, as described here. It's actually a much easier install, now; both the mesh and non-mesh branches are now stable releases; and I just went in and wandered about a bit, and it doesn't seem like there are any major visual changes. It's just easier to use and easier to download. Not too bad, Mr. Beauchamp.

In tech news, there's now a process in the process of being patented that could permanently change eye color. Right now the process only works--and only for a select few cases--for changing brown eyes to blue--or, more precisely, burning out all melanin to result in a pale blue iris.

The process itself doesn't worry me, though I admit to being slightly unnerved about lasers burning anything out of my eye--but what does worry me is I can't shake the feeling that this was an invention without a direct need, until Lashisse--oh, excuse me, Latisse--came along. With so many women using Latisse and having their eyes turn brown...this was bound to happen, right?

In the meantime, office supplies porn. (Sadly, some of the best ones are no longer available.) I bring you:

• the wooden block memoblock (no longer available)
• the balding memo pad (from Pantogar, a Chinese hair-restoring company, available only as a giveaway through Hong Kong and Taiwan)
• the memo spa (note: that's the case price; the individual price is supposedly lower, but the company website isn't coming up at present)
• gingko and leaf-shaped "Leaf-It" memo notes (they're also priced on the high side, and based on the note at the bottom, dated 2010, may no longer be available)
• and floppy disc shaped memo pads (now available in colors!)

In gaming news, I can't imagine why anyone would want to actually play Saints' Row, but at least one fellow of my acquaintance has it on pre-order and is eagerly awaiting the delivery date. (And we both agree, Stiv really needs a game in which a "dildo bat" is an actual weapon.)

Both those links, btw? Not safe for work. NOOOOT safe for work. Just so you know.

Continuing (sorta) in the NSFW vein, an article on Kotaku takes on just how hard it is to overcome scandal in Japan. Far harder than in the west (unless you're Britney Spears), any hint of scandal seems to taint nigh irrevocably voice actresses--who aren't, overwhelmingly, known for their faces or bodies in the first place! Still, it's not a tale without something of a happy ending--one of the biggest scandals nearly took Yuko Miyamura down, yet she's still working in the voice acting industry, and even showed up in at least one live-action film. (In the end, she triumphed...sort of...but she's still not at the level she was, and she'll never be there again. In Japan, apparently, scandal never fully leaves.)

Meanwhile, one of Sweden's largest game conventions, Gamex, tried to get the Piratpartiet to attend for a few months before the convention...then, mysteriously, a week before Gamex was scheduled to start, they were told they weren't welcome and to not attend.

For anyone who doesn't know, Piratpartiet--the "Pirate Party"--is a political organization based in Sweden but working in both Sweden and the European Union at large; their goals are primarily reform of copyright law and abolishing the patent system. I don't agree with their goals, but they seem earnest and definitely not advocates of violence or severe political unrest. How'ver, I am with the article's author, when he asked why they'd been invited to Gamex in the first place--and even listed as a sponsor on the banner?

In the graphic novel, From Hell, written by Alan Moore, he posits that the "true" Jack the Ripper was in actuality Sir William Gull. This is one theory in a morass of theories that abound as to who, actually, committed the murders, and for what reason.

Now another contender has stepped forward, with an interesting piece of evidence--the great-great-great-great nephew of Sir John Williams (known to his family at the time as "Uncle Jack") discovered a black-handled surgeon's knife that he believes to be the murder weapon of Jack the Ripper. He's now published a book with his conclusions.

And Simon Pegg may be moving soon. That is all.