Tag: Andrew Tipp

Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why Lego Is Totally Awesome

What was your favourite toy growing up? More importantly, what is your favourite toy now? While most we grow out of most types of figures and games, there’s something about LEGO that rocks as much as an adult as it did when you were a kid. Here are seven reasons why LEGO is completely awesome.

1. The logo. The LEGO logo is awesome. It’s colourful. Bold. It promises fun straight away. It’s got that nostalgic brand appeal that seems to endure right into your adult years, like Heinz, Coca-Cola or McDonald’s. It promises simple fun with friends.

Even now, when I’m walking down a high street and see that red square with the bubble-style font it makes me smile, and brings out the kid in me. But as we’ll see, LEGO isn’t just for kids…

2. It’s for grown-up geeks as well as children. While the core audience for LEGO will always be kids, big kids love the toys just as much. While new-ish lines like Chima and Ninjago are more a children’s thing, surely the Star Wars, Super Heroes and Lord of the Rings lines have been brought in with one eye on the adult market? To see the adult fascination with LEGO, look no further than The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon showing his passion for building a LEGO Death Star.

LEGO represents the fundamentals of popular video games, too. Recently a lot of geeks have been playing Minecraft to get their sandbox world-building fix. And rightly so, because Minecraft is amazing. But LEGO has that simple pleasure of physically building things. It’s tangible. Sort of like a real-life Minecraft.

3. There’s a whole theme park dedicated to it. You know you’ve made it when you can build an entire theme park dedicated to the thing you do. LEGOLAND in Windsor is a kid’s toy Mecca; you can play with all manner of imaginative building block creations, and there are areas specifically based around Pirates, Vikings, Pharaohs and Knights. Although I’ve been to the LEGO flagship store in Copenhagen, I’ve never been to the theme Park. But I will. One day.

Of course there are lots of things you could do in the UK this summer, but a visit to the Windsor site must rank pretty high. Here’s how to check out trains to LEGOLAND in Windsor.

4. It’s really reactive to pop culture. The modern brilliance of the LEGO brand is that it’s so on top of pop culture. Whenever something relevant is happening – like the Olympics – LEGO is on-hand to recreate scenes using stop-motion. During the Games last year we had swimming races, gymnastics and Usain Bolt’s 100m win all ‘reenacted’ with the famous blocks.

Best of all, LEGO has started putting out mini-films and remakes of classic movies scenes – such as the one above of Casino Royale. I think the appeal of this is seeing ‘adult’ themes and drama acted out with children’s toys. Plus there’s the joy of seeing the simple special effects; the practical magic that makes feel like you could reach out and touch everything in the scene.

5. It’s educational. Think LEGO is all about fun? Guess again. All that time we were fiddling around with colourful bricks, we were actually learning. We were developing our creative talents and problem-solving skills. We were learning to work with others. LEGO is also great because in a world of multi-media distractions, it’s an activity that kids can use to train themselves into unitasking – learning to concentrate on one project, and focus.

LEGO has taken this concept to the max, building its own school in Denmark. Although, sadly, it’s not made of LEGO. The International School of Billund will be based on developing children’s enquiring minds, and will basically be the most incredible experience ever. What’s next? LEGO University? Best. Uni. Ever.

6. There’s always something new coming out. Unlike some toy manufacturers, LEGO isn’t prepared to rest on its laurels and cruise along churning out the same stuff year after year. They’re constantly bringing out new figures, sets and product lines. This can occasionally backfire, though; a recent study suggested that LEGO faces have been getting progressively angrier over the last 20 years!

A good example of an ongoing LEGO line that you can dip in and out of is the Minifigures Collection. Each series has about 16 different figures, and they’re wildly different – you can end up with anything from a DJ, ice skater, futuristic spaceman or mythological warrior.

7. It’s just as good as when you were a kid. Perhaps the best thing about LEGO is that it’s still as good as when you were young. It’s more than just nostalgia. While the Heinz beans and Big Macs of today don’t match up to the memories of your youth, LEGO is just as brilliant as ever.

In fact, considering everything I’ve said, I guess I should be saying that LEGO’s better than ever! It’s great because it’s a different toy to different people. It’s literally what you make of it. And it’s a toy where the only the only limit – apart from bricks – is your imagination.

About the author: Andrew Tipp is a writer, blogger and editor. He works in digital publishing, and often writes about pop culture, web trends and cool technology. Andy has been a life-long LEGO fan, and is also interested in films, graphic novels, bacon, miso soup and zombies.

July 12, 2013
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Your Friends’ Social Profiles Have Been Hacked (And How To Spot If They Have)

How well do you know the people you’re connected to on social media? Would you know if they’d been hacked? Would you know why they were hacked?

Every day the people we follow create hundreds of updates. We get status posts. Photo uploads. Direct messages. We get links to off-site content.

But sometimes the stuff your friends post looks weird. Why? Most of your friends probably have a weak understanding of internet security, and might be using the same guessable password across all their social and email accounts.

Basically, they’re very hackable, and they need some free virus protection. So how do you know if your friend has been hacked or if you just need to unfollow them?

Here are some tips to work out how and why your friends may have been hacked…or whether you might actually just need to unfriend them…

1. The strange Twitter DM. A friend sends you a peculiar direct message. It says someone has said something bad about you on a blog. Or it doesn’t say anything, there’s just a strange-looking link with no explanation.

This is spam. Your friend has been hacked. Do not click on the link. It’s probably a phishing scam. The hacker wants your account data, and the link could lead to the internet’s version of Mordor.

Stay in the Shire. Get in touch with your friend and let them know what’s happening. And tell them to change their password!

2. The unexpected Google+ invitation. Out of the blue a friend invites you to join them on Google+. Is this spam? Have they been hacked? Of course. No one uses Google+!

Actually, that’s unfair. And far from the truth. Google’s social baby has just overtaken Twitter to become the world’s second-biggest networking site. Your friend’s message is almost certainly legit.

So respond to your friend and join them on G+. Unless you don’t like them, in which case pretend you never got the message and have never heard of Google+.

3. The relentless Facebook updates. One of your friends begins posting relentlessly about games they’re playing. You get constant newsfeed updates about the in-game levels they’ve completed, items they’ve found and secrets they’ve unlocked.

You also keep getting notifications about the apps they’re using, and never-ending invitations to install garish-looking third-party widgets.

Your friend’s Facebook profile has not been hacked. They simply have a poor grasp of the site’s posting and privacy settings. You need to either unfriend this person or hide all updates from them apart from the absolute essentials. It depends on how you feel about poor social media etiquette.

Alternatively, you might want to let them know about the volume of stuff they’re posting. They might actually be cool, but not realise they’re essentially spamming their friends with digital gibberish.

4. The bizarre Vine messages. Similar to the Twitter direct messages, your friends start posting odd sayings, messages and links in comments on your videos. Your friends don’t usually do this. Is it legit? What’s going on?

It’s likely that your friends’ have been hacked. Vine is a new social platform, and people may not have got a grasp on the security settings for their accounts yet.

Most likely the hacker is just spamming for the lulz. Or more sinister forces could be at work. In either case, don’t click on the links, and let your friends know what someone is posting in their name.

This guy who calls himself the Burger King got hacked by some Scottish bloke called MacDonald. Sort of.

5. The Tumblr that tumbles in quality. You notice that your friend’s old fashion and pop culture blog has become active again. Hooray! But wait – they’ve started blogging about kitchen cabinets and laptops and foreign holidays. The posts are nonsensical. What’s going on?

It’s spam for sure. What’s happened is a hacker has gained access to your friend’s blog and started posting ‘spun’ articles. Spun content is like digital sewage clogging up the web. Don’t become part of the blockage!
Holler at your friend and let them know what’s happening with their blog. They’ll be eternally grateful.

6. The Instagram account that flips. Your friend used to post awesomely arty photos on Instagram. They uploaded interesting images of bars, restaurants, mountains, sunsets, food and clothes. Now they only post images of their kids.

What’s happened? Your friend has grown up and had kids. It happens. Unfortunately, they’ve also decided that all people want to see them post now is pictures of their children.

This syndrome is not confined to Instagram, either. Once contracted, it may spread to all your friend’s social profiles. It’s usually incurable, but there’s hope in the form of browser plug-ins that swap newsfeed photos of babies for cool images.

7. The email that promises unbelievable riches. Ok, email isn’t officially a social media profile, but if it’s part of your Google profile the lines begin to blur.

So you check out your email inbox. There’s a message from a friend. The subject line tells you they’ve made lots of money from the internet.

Unless you know your friend has recently reaped the rewards of some digital startup enterprise, this is probably spam or a scam – the hackers want to gain access to sensitive data on your computer through malware.

So don’t click on any links in the email. In fact, don’t open the email at all. Drop your friend a line and let them know. Again: password, password, password.

About the author: Andrew Tipp is a writer, blogger and editor. He is a full-time digital scribbler and part-time appreciator of Britney Spears. In his spare time he eats bacon.

February 26, 2013
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Crossroads Is The Best Road Trip Movie Ever

It’s been a decade since the release of Britney Spears’ misunderstood road trip movie Crossroads. The film was initially derided as an awkward, contrived and cynically packaged marketing exercise, but now, finally, the critical landscape is ready to accept the truth: Crossroads is a masterpiece, and the greatest road adventure ever committed to celluloid.

Why? Well, there are dozens of reasons, but here are the top seven…

1. The story. Crossroads is a both a literal and emotional journey. The plot sees three small-town friends – the shy Lucy (Britney Spears), popular Kit (Zoe Saldana), and pregnant Mimi (Taryn Manning) – travel across America so Mimi can audition for something and fulfill the dream she’s held for at least the first 12 minutes of the movie.

But this is no shallow teenage odyssey – these girls are on a journey of self-discovery. Forget your preconceptions of Crossroads as derivative fodder for the early 2000s Myspace and MTV audience; this is an original and skilfully crafted coming-of-age chef-d’oeuvre.

In the space of an indeterminate length of time, the three lead characters face life-changing conflict and decisions. This transforms them from girls – who don’t think about practical things like maps, accommodation, car tax or bike insurance – into almost-women of responsibility and self-determination.

In many ways Crossroads packs a far greater emotional journey punch than, say, The Motorcycle Diaries. Ernesto Guevara is no Lucy Wagner.

2. The star. As Lucy Wagner, Britney Spears creates one of the most iconic female protagonists in film history.

Her narrative arc is compelling. Dramatic. She changes from a girl who’s musically talented but shy, to a girl who’s musically talented but not quite as shy. And even though the film is partially about her sexual awakening, she maintains a thoroughly wholesome all-American-ness throughout. This is the work of a seriously amazing actor.

In fact, Britney’s acting is mesmerising throughout the film. She does it all, acting sad, happy, conflicted; no emotion is beyond her acting range. Her lack of acting employment since Crossroads just goes to show that she acted so well in 2002 she has nothing left to prove.

3. The Themes. While the casual viewer might see only facile fun and friction, Crossroads is really about the things that matter. Things that matter to young people. Things like love. And friendship. And there’s stuff about date rape and teen pregnancy too, which in no way feel like token issues lazily shoehorned in to engineer credibility by association. It’s deep.

And it gets deeper. Road trips movies are about vehicles, and Crossroads is both a road trip movie and a vehicle; it’s a star vehicle – showcasing Britney’s acting talent – and it’s a vicarious vehicle, transporting us through the kind of intelligent and seminal cinematic adventure that comes along maybe once in a generation.

Even the movie’s title, Crossroads, is a reference to the metaphorical crossroads encountered by its characters.

Basically, this is a movie that works on every possible thematic level.

4. The Cameos. While this vehicle is driven by the star quality of Britney Spears, Crossroads has several excellent supporting performances. Lovable dork Justin Long has a close-but-no-cigar bedroom scene, playing a desperate nerd trying to lose his virginity with a partially-clothed and smokin’ Britney. The scene is incredibly plausible.

Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall plays against type as a vacuous, materialistic narcissist. In her role as Brit’s mother, Cattrall enjoys some of the most authentic-sounding dialogue of the film. Her performance is veritably the opposite of stilted and awkward.

Best of all, Dan Aykroyd plays Brit’s father Pete. Some people say Dan Aykroyd hasn’t done anything decent since Ghostbusters. They say he doesn’t care anymore. But Crossroads is proof that argument just isn’t true. There’s no way he phoned this one in. No way.

5. The Poetry. One of the best scenes in the movie comes when Britney recites a poem from her notebook by the campfire. Brit informs us she’s Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman by reading aloud lines like, “I used to think I had the answers to everything, but now I know that life doesn’t always go my way.”

It’s a stunningly eloquent and insightful exploration of complicated teenage emotions. In just one minute of screentime, Britney simultaneously lends a lyrical complexity and high-brow gravitas to the already nuanced film, and establishes herself as the feminine voice of her generation.

If there can be any criticism of Crossroads – which is difficult because it’s pretty much perfect – it’s that there should be more poetry.

6. The Dreamboat. The professionally handsome man-actor Anson Mount plays Ben – Britney’s on-screen love interest. Ben is a dream. A hunk. He’s a good-looking rebel playing by his own rules. At one point he smoulders so hard he threatens to reduce vulnerable Britney to a puddle of yearning oestrogen.

Anson’s completely believable chemistry with Brit is momentarily jeopardised when one of the girls admits he’s a criminal; maybe even… a killer. Yes. I know. Edgy.

But it turns out Ben was actually arrested on a technicality – for crossing the border with his step sister to escape their abusive father. Making him the most selfless and noble criminal of all-time. And even hotter. And probably one of the best-written characters ever.

7. The Music. It’s actually impossible to imagine how Crossroads has only achieved a score of 3/10 on IMDb when you see the incredible karaoke scene in the movie. Picture this: Mimi tries to sing, but is useless. So Britney steps in. To begin with, she’s very shy and isn’t particularly good. People heckle. They heckle Britney!

But they don’t know what’s coming. None of us could. Suddenly – and this is so unexpected, it blew me away – it turns out that underneath all the shyness and awkwardness Lucy/Britney is actually amazing at singing. Amazing. She’s a natural. She sings ‘I Love Rock’n’Roll’. And people love it. They can’t believe how wrong they were!

With ‘head fakes’ like this, it’s possible that Crossroads isn’t only the most underrated road trip film ever, but the most underrated film. Of all time.

About the author: Andrew Tipp is a writer, blogger and editor. He is a full-time digital scribbler and part-time appreciator of Britney Spears. He has worked as a travel editor for gapyear.com, but watching Crossroads was his greatest adventure. In his spare time he eats bacon.

January 21, 2013
Guest Post: 7 Reasons You Wouldn’t Want To Be James Bond

James Bond is a hero; an archetypal action icon. He’s got the licence to kill. He’s got the cool gadgets. He gets the girl. He saves the day. Every man would want to be Bond, right? Well, no actually. There are plenty of reasons why being 007 wouldn’t rock. Here are seven reasons why it would suck to be MI6’s infamous secret agent…

1. Your Personality. Despite 23 cinematic outings, you’re still a curiously undeveloped character. You possess the superficial charm of a cunning cad, but deep down there’s little rattling around except arrogance and bitter grudges. You have serious communication issues, and are only able to express yourself through cynicism, brute force and a penchant for one-liners. While that’s undeniably entertaining for two hours, you’d actually enjoy life more as a Bond villain. In fact, there are seven reasons why that would be better.

2. No Friends. You don’t have friends; you have assets – sprawling networks of intelligence gatherers, double agents and fellow spies. But you can’t even hang out with them like a normal person because, most of the time, you end up killing them. Could you make some genuine BBFs? Not likely. Friends don’t tolerate it when you visit Fort Knox without bringing back a souvenir, or cancel dinner plans at the last minute to go on a murderous rampage at an embassy in Madagascar. Or star in a film as bad as Quantum of Solace.

3. Social Media. You already tell everyone your real name. This makes you vulnerable. But now you have to worry about your latest conquest Instagramming your awesome new toy, or tweeting about your top secret location. And what about when you want to check in to your luxury hotel on Facebook, or oust Le Chiffre as the Mayor of Casino Royale on foursquare? All your enemies will know where you are. Which is a problem. Your only hope of anonymity is to use a network no one else does. You’ll need to join Google+.

4. Insurance Costs. It might look fun to smash up millions of pounds worth of high-tech kit, but when you write off a souped-up supercar constantly it gets expensive. Constructing vehicles with built-in rockets and ejector seats means you need very special modified car insurance. And as a reckless playboy your quotes will be eye-watering. Your excess will be excessive. Rumours are already circulating that the follow-up to Skyfall will be Skyhigh – a sequel in which Bond battles rising insurance premiums, with a sub-plot about protecting his No Claims Bonus. It’ll be box office gold.

5. Bond Girls. You’ve spent decades as both a literal and figurative lady killer. But after 50 years of shallow and meaningless romantic liaisons, you’ve got a problem: you’re running out of women. It might seem like a supermodel falls into your bed every time you stop by Monte Carlo, but those days are numbered; your prolific promiscuity is leaving the world bereft of fresh conquests. And not only are they growing scarce, but attractive female characters are also getting harder to seduce now that scriptwriters have decided to give them personalities and feelings and stuff.

6. Transferable Skills. You haven’t aged since 1962, but one day you’ll have to quit 007-ing and hang up your Walthar PPK. Being a jet-setting spy gets old after a while, and eventually the familiarity of normal life will seem more appealing than driving invisible cars. But finding a job will be tough. You’re essentially only good at three things: espionage, seduction and violence. And you don’t officially exist, so you have no CV. Oh, and you’re a sociopath. These factors make it difficult to find a job outside being James Bond. A career as a male escort looks promising, but who wants a psychopathic gigolo? Your future employment prospects look bleak.

7. Death Proof. Sorry to spoiler, but you don’t die in Skyfall. And you won’t die in your next outing as 007 either. Or the next one, probably. Daniel Craig has signed on for two more Bond adventures, meaning you are effectively immortal. Knowing you aren’t going to die is boring. It takes edge off the action. Shooting bad guys is less exciting when you know they can’t kill you back. Not convinced? Immunity to peril might sound cool, but if they let Madonna do another theme song then being impervious to death won’t seem so amazing.

Author Bio: Andrew Tipp is a film geek and pop culture noodler. He is a man of science, and of reason. He is also a man of action. And he likes coffee. And bacon. He has previously written for backpacking website gapyear.com and youth media magazine IP1.

October 20, 2012