[space] Astronomy Pictures of the Year for 2007 — another end of the year list from the always worth visiting APOD.

[blogs] Best Blogs of 2007 That You (Maybe) Aren’t Reading — an end-of-year list from Fimoculous.

[vids] 2007’s top 10 online videos — this video of 1500 prison inmates in the Philippines performing Thriller is worth checking out … [more…]

[london] Evening Standard Headline Crisis 2007 — another years worth of headline boards from the Evening Standard – just try not to think about the stories behind them too much…

Click on the images for the full set

[comics] On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, My True Love Gave To Me… — a Christmas Special from Chris’s Invincible Super-Blog.

[blogs] Top 10 Tips for New Bloggers From Original Blogger Jorn Barger — Jorn’s the Daddy of link-blogging so very little I can add here but I’ve always felt pull quotes and some nice visuals from what you’re linking to is important as well – it’s the great weakness of delicious and Tumblr’s great strength … ‘If you spend a little time searching before you post, you can probably find your idea well articulated elsewhere already.’

[funny] Porn For Girls By Girls.com — another spoof website from The Internet Now in Handy Book Form …

[funny] Important question of the day: How Many Five Year Olds Could You Take in a Fight? [via linkbunnies.org]

[kipple] Philip K. Dick on Kipple — brief 43 Folders post on Kipple … ‘I think kipple is the main problem with my computers. It’s not just adware (on the Windows box), but the weird little things that wind up in the nooks and crannies. Installers for demoware. Photographs of children. Zipfiles loaded with mp3s… of songs that I already have in other directories, or on other machines, or on CDs on the shelves on my walls.’

[movies] Blade Runner: Final Cut Review — nice comprehensive review of Blade Runner: Final Cut … ‘Back in 1982, actress Joanna Cassidy wasn’t allowed to do the stunt where Zhora crashes through the window panes. But if you watch the film closely, especially now in high-definition, it’s painfully obvious that it’s a stuntwoman in those shots. So Cassidy was brought back in, dressed in her original costume, and was shot on a greenscreen stage, going through the same movements as the stuntwoman. Her face and body angles were matched to those of the stuntwoman’s frame by frame. Cassidy’s head was then digitally inserted over the stuntwoman’s, and the resulting image was blended, color-corrected and matched seamlessly. So now, when you see Zhora crash through the glass, it’s actually Zhora all the way through. The result is amazing.’

[comics] Interview with Brendan McCarthy … ‘I’ve got about seven new pitches out with various comics companies at the moment, but I’m not working on an actual comic at the moment… ‘

[xmas] Santa putting children’s information at risk, warn experts … ‘Data protection laws lay down strict conditions for the use of personal data and there is no evidence that Claus has an adequate compliance programme in place. Children across Britain who write letters to Claus with a list of gift requests are not told for how long that data is kept, or if it will be used for other purposes such as marketing by third parties.’

[wrestling] The Ring Cycle — Jon and Joel Ronson investigate WWE and the Chris Benoit double murder and sucide … ‘Bodybuilders beat each other to a pulp. Women in bikinis beat each other to a pulp, sometimes with midgets on their shoulders. From time to time the wrestlers lay out their philosophies for the camera. My favourite philosophical wrestler is John Morrison, who says, “Join me in the palace of wisdom or continue to be slaves to society. I am a portal to the infinite. You are temporary, a fleeting footnote to an average reality.” His palace of wisdom seems to involve hammering opponents’ faces into the floor.’

[movies] What’s new in Blade Runner: The Final Cut? — contains some spoilers … ‘In the scene where Batty confronts Tyrell, the line, “I want more life, fucker” has been replaced with “I want more life, father”.’ [via linkbunnies.org]

[comics] Another weird comic guest-star: Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen meets Don Rickles … ‘Kirby’s early 70s run on JIMMY OLSEN was his first work for DC after leaving Marvel, and DC let him go hog wild with the book. Kirby used it as a springboard to introduce his “Fourth World” concepts like Darkseid, the New Gods, etc. Oh, and famous insult comic Don Rickles’ twin, “Goody” Rickles.’

[comics] Scans of Daredevil #133 — from 1976 – oddly guest starring Uri Geller … ‘Daredevil, Wait For Me — I’m a Mentalist, not an Acrobat!’

[spam] Inside the “Ron Paul” Spam Botnet — facinating behind-the-scenes look at the methods and tools spammers use … ‘Reactor Mailer operates with a software-as-a-service model. Spammers are given accounts on a Reactor server, and use a web-based interface to manage their spam tasks.’

[funny] Arnold Shares his Deepest Feelings — yet another of those amusingly weird YTMND pages. [via linkbunnies.org]

[comics] 50 answers — fifty funny comic strip question and answers …

[comics] Comic Letterer Todd Klein takes a look at 68 years of Batman cover logos: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 – ‘…essential elements that seem to work well for Batman: large, art deco letters in front of a bat shape with menacing, mysterious elements.’

[comics] The Ha Ha Ha Times — nicely done viral promo site for the new Batman film. Metafilter has more links: Marketing the Bat.

[comics] Watchmen Movie Blog — a blog of the film production of Moore and Gibbon’s classic comic series.

[shopping] Complete Receipt Defeat … ‘I recently bought a four-pack of Play-Doh – big plans for the weekend – at my local Toys R Us and received, along with my purchase, over a foot and a half of receipt. That comes out to almost an inch of paper for every dime I spent. Here it is, broken down by height in inches…’

[comics] The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings — I try to keep it positive about comics but let me be clear here – Rob Liefeld is utterly shit. … ‘The most important thing you need to know before reading about all the terrible things Rob Liefeld has drawn is that he has never seen or talked to a woman in his life and has no idea what they look like or how their bodies operate. If you asked Rob Liefeld to draw a diagram of the uterus he’d put on a pair of gauntlets and punch the shit out of your chalkboard. This is how the man operates…’ [via Do You Feel Loved]

[comics] Rare Viz comic auctioned for £950 … ‘The mint-condition “number one” edition from December 1979 had a guide price of £350-£400, and is one of only about 500 printed. But it went for double its estimate under the hammer at Anderson & Garland auctioneers in Newcastle.’

[tv] Adam Curtis : an Audio Special — audio from Andrew Orlowski’s Adam Curtis interview.

[comics] Scans_Daily: Science says you’re Wrong if you Believe That …

[funny] This Much I Know from Ken Campbell …

I selected a random address in Barkingside as a setting for a script. It was the first script Frank Muir bought when he was setting up the comedy department for LWT. He rang up and said, ‘Bute Road, Barkingside? I once had sex there.’

[radio] After Our Time — a blog about Radio 4’s In Our Time.

[comics] Kevin O’Neill Interview — O’Neill discusses the LoEG: The Black Dossier … On Alan Moore’s scripts: ‘…when I tidied up my studio, it was the first time I’d put all the scripts into one place, because it’d been written over a number of years. And the finished “Dossier” was bigger than a telephone directory, it was a monster of a thing. If that had all arrived at the same time, I doubt if I could’ve started the book, it would have been so formidable.’