I’ve already tried the Simpsons Character Creator and the South Park Character Creator but none of them were ever sanctioned by the companies that own the rights to those likenesses. But with the Simpsons Movie coming July 27, Fox has put together an offical – flash based – Simpsons Avatar Creator that is extremely well done.
The whole site is done very well, in fact. I’m really impressed. I think its the most well thought out movie website in a long while. You can watch all the trailers – teasers and official – and simply watch them in the viewer or download them to your iPod. You can even link them to your blog! They also have screensavers, wallpapers, and icons to download, too. You can take the avatar you created and tour springfield and you are integrated into the city. Moe’s Tavern, for instance, has your avatar’s picture on a sign saying, “Wanted for Fake ID.”
But back to the avatar creator.
The creator lets you pick all different body types for the gender you choose (or are in many cases). They are modeled after different Simpsons characters. There a Bart like body, a muscular body (like Snake or Ranier Wolfcastle), a skinny body modeled after Cletus the Slackjawed Yokel, and a fat body just like, my favorite, Homer Simpson. Afterwards, you pick the eyes (with optional eyebrows), the nose, smile, hair, and clothing. the clothing is basically a T-Shirt but you can stick a few images on there and color it along with changing the pant and shoe colors, too.
If you register, you can save your avatar and print it out if you like. You can’t download it, though, which kinda sucks but I’m sure some suit (i.e. lawyer) decided they didn’t want to make the site too much fun.Nevertheless, you can still do a lot with the site and I’ve heard that they are adding interactive features everyday. So if you are going to be like me and going at the first showing at 12am the day it is released, go a create your own avatar and take a screen shot like I did to put it up on your blog.
Here’s me as a Simpson’s character:
My site isn’t super popular – I only get between 460 and 490 page views a month; my reports from Google Analytics tell me that. Most of my readers are from North America – about 30 or so a month from Canada and about 170 or so from the United States. I have about 100 readers from Europe each month and close to 40 readers from Asia and the Australian/New Zealand region.
I don’t write much on the site. I write when I’m bored or when I have something important to say. Occasionally, I’ll come up with some genius and write something intellectual. And once in a while I write a review of something. I think I touch almost all topic, too. One, in particular, has turned out to be my most popular topic which gives me 70% or more of my traffic: my Newton’s Law of Porn article.
It should probably come as no surprise. Porn is a huge business. Its considered one of the vices that generate the most tax revenue for states. Other vices include alcohol and tobacco products and you can see how much money they generate – billions to the companies that sell them and millions (possibly billions) to the states; some places like New York City have a state and a city tax that could be 60% of the pack of cigarette’s cost!
Anyway, for some reason, people like my article on PornoTube; it’s the most popular outbound link! I think I should get some of their ad reveue (if they make any) for referring so many viewers. Now that I think about it, I should come up with a porn site for people to contribute videos to. It would be a crowded market, though, I’m sure.
I’m proud of that article – its a law of society that, I think, is almost as the universal truths of physics and chemistry. But I wish I could come up with other articles that got that kind of attention without the easy porn angle to attract visitors. Don’t get me wrong, I like the visits and I like people reading my article… I just wish I could write some other cool post that got similar views on a topic other than one of the popular vices in the world.
…But some animals are more equal than others.
- George Orwell, Animal Farm
Sad news everyone.
Our beloved Mr. Wizard, the man who first got me excited about science and technology with his TV show: “Mr. Wizard’s World” on Nickelodeon, died of bone cancer. He was 89. 
Mr. Wizard fascinated me with all types of experiments. I remember many of them very well and still quote the lessons I learned on that show. I remember how he burned a sugar compound into pure carbon and was nearly dumbfounded when he talked about sound waves and the Doppler Effect. He gave me my first chemistry lesson by filling a glass with ice water – all the way to the top – and proved that as the ice melted, the water would never flow over the ridge of the glass because the ice melted and the water evaporated at the same rate. At seven or eight years old, I got it the concept but still found it hard to believe; but when I did take a chemistry class, the math added up. My favorite experiment was when he used dry ice to cool things so much so they became brittle; he then used a hammer (after putting on the safety goggles) to smash things like a tennis ball or shrink balloons to nearly nothing – and then smashing them!
I know others have followed in Mr. Wizard’s footsteps but, from what I can see, they can’t reproduce the quiet, calming, demeanor Don Herbert had; while those inspired by him will live to carry his legacy to a new generation of scientists, there will always be a special place for Mr. Wizard.
He will be missed.
I’d like to take the opportunity to compare Microsoft’s stock to the rest of industry for all those nay-sayers out there. Things could change but its still interesting how things are working out.
Using Google Finance, MSFT is up 3.12% from April 28 – the day after I wrote the previous post on the matter. Apple is up 25.80%. Google is up 6.91%. It is outperforming the S&P 500, the DJIA, and NASDAQ as those three indexes are almost flat.
I wonder what will happen after the WWDC and the iPhone launches?