Now, I’m not exactly an expert in machinima - to date my exploits are limited to dialogue-free B-movies featuring square-headed robots or ninjas. Sometimes both.

Still, I like the sound of Machinima.com’s new competition. They’re opening a new UK portal and celebrating by asking people to create music videos to one of two tracks supplied by Jonathan Coulton - Bacteria or Todd the T1000.

Compo Details:

• Competition end date: 8th August 2008
• Top prize: Alienware Laptop, pre-loaded with Adobe Premiere Pro CS3
• Other prizes: Undisclosed but some runners-up will get prizes, as will a random selection of voters
• How to enter: Get the track, make your video, upload it to Machinima.com. Techinically, it’s only open to UK residents but I’ve been told that if non-resident makes a video and gets a UK-based mate to do the actual submission, they’re fine with that.

Everything you need to know should be available at the competition page. [It appears to be down as I type this, so can't confirm right now]

The launch is also sponsored by Rustlers. Yes, the “nought-to-tasty” microwave burger company with the hideous TV ads. Please, for the love of all that is tasteful, don’t use their marketing strategy as a jumping-off point.

Popularity: 8% [?]

I don’t like spoiling people’s enjoyment of games, especially when the game in question is Valve’s Portal. This is a game that really requires a whole afternoon’s uninterrupted game time to appreciate it’s sheer brilliance. So if you haven’t played Portal yet, stop reading this post and go play it. Otherwise prepare yourself for a little spoiler.

There is a song at the end of the game! Ok, not much of a spoiler to be honest. The existence of this highly amusing song been plastered all over the internet since the game’s release. However, some kind soul at topazstorm.com has recently turned the song (called Still Alive and written by Jonathan Coulton), into sheet music which can you find here.

Speaking of Jonathan Coulton, his website contains lots of his other music which is worth checking out. I especially like “Re Your Brains” which has the following chorus:

All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable, I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:
If you open up the doors
We’ll all come inside and eat your brains

We’ll be reviewing Portal when we manage to stop ourselves from playing it.

Popularity: 14% [?]