Want. As my coffee table, on my wall, on my monitor. I don’t care where it goes; I want it.

“Sick and tired of staring at Van Gogh’s Starry Night and being unable to manipulate it with your fingers? Enter: Greek digital artist Petros Vrellis and his interactive Starry Night animation.

Using openFrameworks, Vrellis transformed Van Gogh’s masterpiece into an interactive painting capable of rearranging itself through touch-sensitive gestures. Additionally, background music responds to changes in the animation’s flow.” Vimeo

Starry Night is my favourite painting ever out of every painting I have ever scene, so you can imagine my fangirl squeal when I saw this.

Want, want, want.

This is a stunning viral video imagining what happens in a bookshop after dark. All the books come to life, the shelves heave with motion, and eBooks are left looking ugly in comparison.

This is a viral video extolling not one specific bookshop or chain of bookshops, but books as a whole. Real books, made of paper and card, rather than their digital equivalents.

The problem is that although many of us love the feeling of holding a real book in our hands, which is far superior to holding an eBook reader, traditional books are clearly becoming a thing of the past.

In the same way music has already switched to a digital commodity, so will books. Movies and games are already well on their way too. You had better hold onto to the books you love as they won’t be around forever.

Although I don’t play it as much as I used to (does anyone?) I’m still a big fan of the Guitar Hero/Rock Band games. But there is a better alternative…

… a real guitar, obviously. But not everyone agrees with that sentiment. The characters from South Park, for one.

This is probably a really old clip but I don’t care, because it’s awesome. It’s also quite timely with Rocksmith, a new game which combines the gameplay from these games with a real guitar, now available to buy.

But enough of all that. I’m off now to play with my plastic guitar. Yes, I’m too old and I should know better. But it’s just too much damn fun!

Not sure what all this ‘blackout’ SOPA/PIPA stuff is all about? This video helps explain.

Tell Congress not to censor the internet NOW! – fightforthefuture.org/pipa

Governments have been trying to figure out ways to control the internet for a long time; this is just one more big push in their efforts.

Like many people, I’m seeing this bill as the way for the government to make a push on a big snowball. This goes through and things will just get bigger and bigger.

The best and the worst things about humanity exist on the internet, but that is the best thing about it. Why let governments control it?

Laughed. So. Hard.

Okay, so some of these are funny not so much in a laughing way as in a ‘dude, yeah, that’s kind of funny’. But the ones that are hilarious make it worth the full seven and some minutes.

I’m not sure which one I love more – the sabertooth copter or the drunken swinging horse.

(Mind you goose neck soldier is pretty funny, too.)

Come on. Let me know in the comments which ones you think are the funniest.

And if none of these made you laugh, then you need to go out an buy a sense of humour.

This video shows a short clip from the new animated TV series based on the 2004 cult film Napoleon Dynamite. It may only be just over a minute long but it’s enough to get me watching.

Napoleon Dynamite has been turned into an animated series. It premiered on Sunday, Jan 15, 2012 on Fox, with the first two episodes titled Thundercone and Scantronica Love respectively.

The story centers on the main character named Napoleon Dynamite and his friends and family. Nothing much happen in the rural Idaho setting, which means the characterization has to be superb. And it is.

The brilliant thing is that all the cast from the film returned for the TV show. I’m guessing they were lured back by the promise of huge wages for little work. But still, it’s nice to see.

We all know that mental illness is no laughing matter, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun with it, does it? This very tongue-in-cheek video for a mental health hotline does just that.

This video states clearly and dispassionately the steps callers should take when phoning the new hotline. They take into account the special quirks of each disorder and offer numbers that should be right up the alley of anyone suffering a mental illness. It’s all in good fun, but that doesn’t mean a few people won’t be offended by it!

So now I guess there’s just one question: which number should you press?

Yahtzee is back with his best and worst games of 2011 that he, gasp, actually played.

With two games vying for the ‘worst game of 2011′ spot, Yahtzee seems to be losing his touch. A touch of pure hatred, that is.

I like Yahtzee with his sarcasm and Australian location, but I can’t say much more about that.

Sadly, I haven’t had the chance to play any of these games. Sad face. I’ve given up my console ways in favour of Plants vs. Zombies and other PC games.

I am a sad, sad soul.

I do, however, plan on purchasing Skyrim. So there.

So who has the dirty mind – you or the singers?

Kind of like unnecessary censorship, this video relies on the countless naughty minds out there to go where the song clearly doesn’t go…

What makes this video even funnier is what you see as well. I could have sworn that those little boys looked just like they were holding…

…their toys and their marbles. Of course. What did you think I was going to say?

Okay, so we know that 99.9% of fluent English speakers are going to fill in the naughty words. The next question is – where is the next song?

You’ve all watched the official trailer for The Dark Knight Rises by now, yes? How about The Lion King, which you’ve had 17 years to catch up on. How about watching a combination of the two?

This video is a mashup of the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises (audio) and The Lion King (visuals). It works much better than it ever should have done. It looks like it was always meant to be this way.

Someone should give this guy (or gal) an editing job. Seriously. I’ve seen some truly awful movie trailers down the years; some which give away too much, some which give away too little, some which are just unwatchable.

If this person can produce something of this quality when splicing two movies together just imagine what they could do with a blank slate. Awesome, awesome job.

JibJab (primarily an eCard company) has been closing out each year with an animated roundup of the past 12 months for seven years now. And 2011 is no exception.

In the words of JibJab: 2011, Buh-Bye!

A lot of stuff happened in 2011, both good and bad (but mostly bad). From politics to celebrity gossip, the economy going down the pan to er, more celebrity gossip. This video has it all.

Which all makes me wonder what 2012 will bring. Not too much, mind you, as it’s impossible to predict the future. May as well just let it happen, I say.

Here is 2008, 2009, and 2010 for your viewing pleasure.

Mars Needs Moms has been named the biggest box office flop of 2011, beating the likes of Sucker Punch, Arthur, Cowboys and Aliens, and The Rum Diary to the title.

Mars Needs Moms cost around $150 million to make but only took around $40 million at the box office worldwide. That’s a really bad result by anyone’s standards.

I actually think the failure of this movie proves one thing more than any other: the need for good marketing. You can spend a fortune and create the finest movie ever but if you don’t advertise it no one will ever go see it.

The strange thing is Mars Needs Moms doesn’t look that bad. I’d be tempted to see it on DVD and I suspect Disney will end up making its money back in home video sales from this point on.

Winter solstice is the shortest day of the year, with the least hours of sunlight within the 24 hour period. Which means it’s a rather depressing day.

This video explains the science behind the winter solstice, with the planet we all live on tilting the furthest away from the sun. At least in the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere it’s six months later (or earlier).

Winter solstice is actually today (Dec. 22) although there seems to be some confusion over the date. It falls on a day between Dec. 21 and Dec. 23 each year, although it most often lands on Dec. 21.

Winter solstice is an important date in the calendar for many cultures and religions. It’s no coincidence that Christmas is celebrated just a couple of days later.

We’ve already looked at the reaction in North Korea to the death of its leader Kim Jong-il. But what reaction has the new received outside of the communist country?

A slightly different one, it has to be said.

This video is from Team America: World Police. It shows Kim Jong-il, or at least an exaggerated version of him in animated form, singing I’m So Lonely. Or perhaps that should be I’m So Ronery.

This is the most fitting tribute to Kim Jong-il I could imagine. It’s not particularly nasty – some people are saying a lot worse things about him than this – and will give all those outside North Korea a laugh.

Readers of Bill Watterson’s ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ comic strip probably remember all the weird, strange and gruesome snowman creations that Calvin created over the years.

This fun short brings them to life.

I wasn’t exactly a ‘big’ reader of Calvin and Hobbes, but I do remember seeing some of his strange creations. Especially the snowman ’swimmer’ trying to get away from the sharks.

I love this and I have to thank the people who created it. It’s a small thing, but it made me smile and reminded me of good times.

Merry Christmas to everyone. May your snowmen be in peril.

‘Simon’s Cat’ is a great animated series I have been following for a couple of years now. But this particular episode may well be my favorite of all time. It’s called Fowl Play, and it’s Christmas-themed.

Simon spots the Christmas dinner – a huge turkey with all the trimmings – through the window. He is stuck outside in the cold, ice, and snow. But not for long.

He lets himself in, steals the turkey (replacing it with a tin of cat food), and makes off with it out the window. Much to Simon’s displeasure.

Clearly no real cat would do this. It would have a munch on a turkey though. In fact, mine has done in the past. The cheeky, Christmas-ruining little git.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas is awesome. But I’ll tell you what is even more awesome: How The Grinch Stole Nyan Cat. Yeah, that’s right, this is a mashup of epic proportions.

If you’ve missed out on the Nyan Cat then where have you been? This is the meme of 2011, with a mixture of Japanese pop song and strangely drawn flying space cat thing.

The original Nyan Cat video is great, if not completely weird and a little bit annoying. But this mashup showing the Grinch riding Nyan Cat across the night sky on his sleigh is even better.

This makes me want to watch How The Grinch Stole Christmas again. Even though it’s a bit rubbish. Perhaps they should remake it with Nyan Cat replacing max the dog. I’d watch it.

More than ever, the message of Mouseland resonates…

Kiefer Sutherland presents the speech that his grandfather, Tommy Douglas gave in 1944 about the futility of electing parties that don’t really have the interests of the people in mind.

With the Occupy protests and the government shutdown of Occupy protests, the dissatisfaction with the system and everything else going on, I think this video really resonates.

We’ve been electing ‘cats’ for so many years that they have put this amazingly incestuous system into place.

And now it’s time to take the system down. The people standing for the people are being harassed, injured and put down, but you can’t jail an idea…

I’m not quite sure why I decided to view Erick Oh’s video “How to Eat an Apple.” I certainly hadn’t experienced any problems navigating the fruit. No matter what my motivation though, I’m glad I took the time to view it.

This video is less tutorial and more surreal animation. I have no clue what it all means but I sat spellbound as I watched it unfold.

This clip features some of the slickest animation I’ve seen for some time. It elevates the genre above mere children’s entertainment to something we can all enjoy. I’m still grappling with its message, but maybe the feeling it’s left me with matters more.

At the time of writing more than 400,000 people have viewed this video. And I bet each and every one of them had the same thought as me afterwards: What the hell?

Welcome to Kitty City…

This seems to just be an attempt at making a messed-up animation using nothing but cats and kittens. In which case the animator succeeded. Great job. But that doesn’t mean I understand what is going on.

Depending on your point of view this could either be considered art, a cool music video, or a demonstration of what happens when someone off their face on drugs gets let loose on a computer.

Whatever the case it’s strangely hypnotic. So much so I’m going to watch it again. And again. And again.