YouTube user Shuey187 is too good at Tetris. It’s not enough to beat the games and record better high scores, but Shuey187 makes pretty pictures with the tetrominoes, not by hacking them together in some editor, but by actually playing Tetris and aligning and clearing the pieces accordingly until they form the desired outcome. Shuey187′s channel showcases various pictures and patterns, from hearts to a space invader to a double helix, but Shuey187′s newest creation, the green-clad Mario brother Luigi, is a pretty impressive sight, as it comes fairly close to the top of the container, and Shuey187 had to continually deal with blocks that were otherwise inappropriate for the build.

(via Joystiq)

Battling the issue of pushover alarm clocks that simply give up attempting to wake their owners whenever said owners smash the snooze button, Instructables member nolte919 created an alarm clock that is not only persistant in attempting to get one out of bed, but does not allow an infinite cycle of hitting snooze and falling back asleep for a few minutes, and requires the snoozer to pass a test of Tetris before it shuts off.

The clock’s alarm has a user-defined snooze limit that, once reached, will not turn off until the snoozer clears four lines in a round of Tetris. The snoozer can silence the alarm for thirty seconds while playing Tetris, but if the game doesn’t detect input for thirty seconds — a period of time that isn’t long enough for a successful snooze — the alarm will sound and the process will start over. The alarm is clever in that it is persistent and also requires a snoozer to prove they are coherent before shutting off, something a snoozer probably wouldn’t be able to do if they’re stuck in the infinite loop of napping and smashing the snooze button. Head on past the break to see a video of the alarm clock in action.

YouTube user olilord, gives us all a New Year’s treat, playing the Korobeiniki, otherwise known as the Tetris theme song, on Link’s ocarina in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The creepy look on his face probably stems from him reading the button combination to play the song, and not from being possessed by a Poe.

(via reddit)

The folks at Devastator Quarterly have given us the early ’90s Tetris animated series that we never knew we wanted. It’s got it all: A hip-hop theme song, an obligatory human sidekick named Zack, and a wonderfully unnecessary backstory for the anthropomorphized Tetris blocks. In this biting political allegory, the Tetris blocks fled an “evil czar” named Time Limit from an unnamed “frozen land,” and he wants them back to rebuild his magic, sinister wall. Also, the blocks are named “Tom, Lance, Sam, Steph, Reversula S-Block, and schemin’ Lex,” in case you were wondering.

(via BuzzFeed | Devastator Quarterly)

The Dictionary By Kurt Vonnegut (Flavorwire)

World of Goo Hats (Rock, Paper, Shotgun)

Mmmm, T-Shirts… (That’s Nerdalicious)

Cuba is Upset with Call of Duty: Black Ops (Kotaku)

Tetris: PTSD Vaccine? (Ars Technica)

Cats And Darth Vader, Match Made in Heaven (Geeks are Sexy)

Supersoaker Inventor Invents High Efficiency Solid State Engine (TDW)

(awesome wedding invitation pic via Kotaku.)

Tetris gets the inevitable (?) big budget blockbuster film treatment. It’s in French, but you’re probably not missing too much in the way of rich, intricate plot setup.

(Technabob via Neatorama)

“A Complete History Of The Soviet Union Through The Eyes Of A Humble Worker, Arranged To The Melody Of Tetris” is a well-put-together music video by a band called Pig with the Face of a Boy, which, as the title suggests, explores the history of the Soviet Union while loose variations of the Tetris theme play. The video cycles through a number of visual styles, from grainy archival reel to black-and-white midcentury propaganda film to the low resolution color saturation of ’80s TV, and appears to incorporate real historical footage.

There’s definitely a gimmicky hook here, but the video is better for not being one long setup to a “In Soviet Russia…” joke: As Neatogeek’s John Farrier points out, this isn’t just “one of those awful Soviet chic presentations, glamorizing life under that regime … [but] a remarkable expression of music, animation, and historical storytelling.” Video below:

Father, grandfather, bowler, softball player, stock car racer, and steel contractor Mike Leyde has beaten Bejeweled 2. Now, we know what you’re saying. “Bejeweled 2 is the flagship product of PopCap Games, gurus of easy to learn, difficult to master. You can’t beat Bejeweled any more than you can beat Tetris.”

Well, that’s true. But you can, over a period of several years, amass a score so high that the game can no longer comprehend the magnitude of it: 2,147,483,647.

Read on...

xkcd, in all its wisdom, recently depicted Hell as a game of Tetris in a bullet-shaped playing frame, such that you can never quiiiite create a row.

Now, a fan has made it into a playable game, which adds extra bouncy physics to the hellishness that is Tetris with impossible rows.  We’ve pulled the game from [the imgur of .swf files] swfme for your playing pleasure, after the jump: