23 February 2008
[religion] 20 Tacky Religious Products Guaranteed to Anger God … ‘As you’re no doubt aware, the most common complaint about nativity scenes is they’re too prejudiced against non humans. After all, who are the dogs supposed to pray to? Luckily, some intrepid inventor out there took a stand and made the Dog Nativity Scene featuring Mary, Joseph, some wise men and the Messiah Himself, all as partially clothed canines.’ [via GussetBLOG]
22 February 2008
[comics] The War on Fornication — Peter Bagge comic strip on sexual politics in America at the moment.
21 February 2008
[comics] Warner Bros revs up live action Akira … ‘The Times suggests that Akira purists may not be entirely happy with the fact that the story is set in New Manhattan, rather than the futuristic Tokyo of the original Manga classic.’
[london] All in a Day’s Work — the blog of a London Cab Driver … ‘A lady I took to Camberwell last night gave me a twenty and two tens for a £22 fare and I gave her one of the tenners back. “You’re honest” she said thanking me. “It’s the only way to be” I replied.’ [via Time Out]
20 February 2008
[books] Youth of Today — Charlie Stross wonders about the what his future readers will be like … ‘There have always been cameras in shops and schools and other public places, although there are more of them than there used to be. Old folks grumble about privacy, but really, you’re being watched wherever you are. If you don’t like it, get a hoodie.’
19 February 2008
[diana] They’re all guilty? ‘Definitely.’ Fayed gets his day in court — Mohamed Al Fayed testifies at the Diana Inquest …
Shortly after Tony Blair and Robin Cook had been added to Fayed’s list of conspirators, Richard Horwell QC, a note of incredulity rising in his voice, said: “So that’s MI5, MI6, the CIA, the DGSE – the French intelligence service – Judge Stephan … the French ambulance service … Lord Condon, Lord Stevens … Mr Burgess, the Surrey coroner and Lady Sarah McCorquodale?” He could have added several more: two bodyguards; the French pathologists; a photographer called James Andanson, who was allegedly driving the white Fiat Uno that brushed against the Mercedes shortly before it crashed in the Alma tunnel in Paris on August 31 1997; Henri Paul, the chauffeur; a reception clerk at the Ritz hotel; Sir Michael Jay, the then British ambassador; Sir Robert Fellowes, the Queen’s private secretary, who was Diana’s brother-in-law; Lord Mishcon, her solicitor; and – of course – Prince Philip and Prince Charles. Time and again, Fayed answered: “Definitely.” 18 February 2008
[wwrfd] What would Richard Feynman Do? … ‘Is there a bongo drum around?’ [via Interconnected]
[comics] The Last Man Exits — the New York Times covers the conclusion of Y: The Last Man … ‘A stand-in for Ampersand, named Zuni, was posing for photographs beside a beverage cooler in the shape of R2-D2. “I jokingly told the store I would do this event if they had a live monkey,” said Mr. Vaughan, who slipped Zuni’s trainer a $5 tip. Ms. Guerra, 36, was particularly enchanted by the animal. “I’ve never seen a live monkey before,” she said. “I cheated and based Ampersand on my cat.”’
17 February 2008
[movies] Happy Groundhog Day! — Jaime Zawinkski wonders how many days Bill Murray re-lived in Groundhog Day … ‘Between days #21 and #22, he memorized the entire Jeopardy show, which would take at least a few viewings. It’s possible he did that while learning piano, or French.’
16 February 2008
[comics] If I Have To Explain It… — Evan Dorkin blogs a scan of the King and Kirby section of the Manhattan Phone Book … ‘Coincidence? I think not!’
15 February 2008
[crime] Death of a Supergrass: The Armed Robber who got out of Jail Free — Duncan Campbell sums up after the death of the UK’s first Supergrass … ‘A short, squat man, described by a former colleague as “like Bob Hoskins but without the charm”, he held extreme rightwing views and at the time of his arrest was knocking back a bottle of vodka a day. He was reviled throughout the criminal fraternity. One of the men he helped to convict spent many hours in jail teaching his pet budgie to say “Bertie Smalls is a fucking grass.” But from the police’s point of view, Smalls was a godsend…’
14 February 2008
[doco] True Films – 200 Documentaries You Must See Before You Die — a PDF E-Book on documentaries written by Kevin Kelly now available as a free download.
13 February 2008
[comics] V Vs Scientology — interesting comment on the Forbidden Planet Blog about V for Vendetta masks used at recent protests against Scientology … ‘V masks have been a tremendous bestseller for us for a while, now I am starting to understand why!’
12 February 2008
[tv] C.J.’s Catchphrases — a collection of sayings from C.J. on Reginald Perrin … ‘I didn’t get where I am today by everything smelling of a Bolivian unicyclist’s jockstrap!’ [via As Above]
[space] An astronaut from NASA describes the smell of space: ‘At first I couldn’t quite place it. It must have come from the air ducts that re-pressed the compartment. Then I noticed that this smell was on their suit, helmet, gloves, and tools. It was more pronounced on fabrics than on metal or plastic surfaces. It is hard to describe this smell; it is definitely not the olfactory equivalent to describing the palette sensations of some new food as “tastes like chicken.” The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation. It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch…’
11 February 2008
[funny] The Fail Blog … ‘This is a site for sharing all things that FAIL with the world.’ [via Sore Eyes]
10 February 2008
[comics] Annotations to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier — from Jess Nevins … On a parody of the London Tube Map included in the book: ‘Many puns here: Maida Jump, Court Short, Turnham Blue, Colouring Inn, Tooting Bottom, Eating Broadly, Rothernot, Pen Stroke Newington, Upper Etching, H.B. Row, Ink Staines, Whiteout City, etc. Also no wonder than Mr Moore’s line would include “Chin Topiary” “Barking” and “Very Cross”…’ [via Feeling Listless]
8 February 2008
[comics] Coloring Comics, Old School — fabulous explanation from Todd Klein about colouring comics in the 70’s and 80’s … ‘I think the 1970s were probably the nadir of paper quality at DC. Comics from the 1940s and 50s had much better paper, and still look it today if well kept, but the company began cutting paper quality to save money some time after that, and when I started it was pretty awful. So, as you can see, any colors other than the primary ones were likely to come out mud.’
[sex] Map of Sexual Fetishes, Categorised and Interlinked … I suspect this isn’t as comprehensive infoporn as it seems… but I know now what shrimping is so it was worth a look. :) [via Qwghlm]
7 February 2008
[comics] On Collecting Comics … some useful advice from Eddie Campbell.
6 February 2008
[comics] Chapter 1 of Criminal Online — from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips … ‘Whenever things begin to fall to pieces, I think of my father.’ [via The Comics Reporter]
5 February 2008
[comics] A Wonderful Alan Moore Song — from MJ Hibbett who also did another favourite of mine Hey Hey 16K … ‘Well the entire shop went silent as everybody realised… a generations hero had caught us all buying shite.’ [via Blah Blah Flowers]
[comics] A Conversation with Writer Brian K. Vaughan — interview with the writer of Y: The Last Man as the long-running comic series concludes (link contains serious spoilers) … ‘People have been asking me for so long, “what’s it feel like to be done?” And I was like, not until I hold it in my hands will it feel like it’s going to be over. Actually, I haven’t read it yet, so there’s probably still another undiscovered stage of death. I’ll be angry over the ad placement or something.’
4 February 2008
[funny] Out of Context — funny YouTube video of some out-of-context movie scenes … ‘My mommy hurt my head.’ [via Waxy]
[csi] How Gil Grissom got his name: ‘…series creator Anthony E. Zuiker mentioned that the character was originally intended to be named Gil Scheinbaum, but after Petersen was cast, Zuiker decided he was ‘insufficiently Jewish’ for the name and along with Petersen decided to rename the character for astronaut Gus Grissom, and Gil because of one of the actor’s hobbies, fishing.’
3 February 2008
[blogs] What I Killed Today — the sad blog of a veterinary technician detailing what animals they had put down that day … ‘An emaciated ferret who had been fighting an auto-immune disease.’ [via Warren Ellis]
1 February 2008
[comics] Alan Grant’s Edinburgh Lecture — Forbidden Planet Blog reports from a lecture the veteran Judge Dredd / Batman writer gave in Scotland. On Dredd: ‘Alan had been re-reading some of his own early work – something he says normal weekly and monthly comics deadlines don’t leave much time for him to do, he rarely re-reads his own work – in preparation for the talk and is still surprised and a little depressed at how much of what he and Wagner wrote ‘as a laugh’, taking then-current social trends and blowing them up to ridiculous proportions (literally in the case of Two Ton Tony Tubbs), has gone from being satirical humour (something 2000 AD and Dredd in particular has always been good at and something I’ve always relished about it) to being rather too close to the bone (the League of Fatties was hilarious in the early 80s, now he reads about childhood obesity epidemics in Britain and America and suddenly the joke’s not as funny anymore…’
31 January 2008
[food] Dip Once or Dip Twice — a food microbiologist examines double dipping at parties as practiced by George in Seinfeld … ‘On average, the students found that three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the remaining dip. Each cracker picked up between one and two grams of dip. That means that sporadic double dipping in a cup of dip would transfer at least 50 to 100 bacteria from one mouth to another with every bite.’ [via Kottke]
29 January 2008
[comics] Alan Moore in the 1982 BJ and the Bear Annual — scans of some early professional work from a UK TV annual.
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