[comics] The Morrison Method (for optimal Seven Soldiers Appreciation) — sensible readers may wish to read the trades! [Seven Soldiers Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3]

[comics] Alan Moore to Appear on the Simpsons … ‘[Moore] features in a sub-plot which sees a new ‘cool’ comic shop opening in Springfield in competition with the Android’s Dungeon, run by Comic Book Guy who is voiced by Hank Azaria. The new shop has persuaded Moore to make a public appearance.’ [via Progressive Ruin]

[firefox] Paste and Go — useful time saving Firefox extension which allows you to paste a URL into the address bar of Firefox and then immediately to that website without clicking the Go Button or pressing return.

[comics] Election Day 2006 – Whose Side Is Your Favorite Superhero On? — Dave’s Long Box wonders what the political affiliations are of various notable Superheroes … ‘Batman is a true independent, a man of solid principles and baffling contradictions. This may be because he is mentally ill…’

[comics] Come fly with me — the Guardian previews the film Hollywoodland – includes an interview with Ben Affleck on playing George Reeves … ‘When the actor George Reeves died in 1959, the headline ran: “Super hero, out of work, kills Self”.’

[google] Searchmash — Google 2.0 or Google’s Playground… You Decide. [via Google Operating System]

[net] The Guardian’s Web 2.0 Feature — an article and interviews covering Web 2.0 (the interviews are with people like Matt Mullenweg, Evan Williams and Joshua Schachter) … ‘Sit someone at a computer screen and let it sink in that they are fully, definitively alone; then watch what happens. They will reach out for other people; but only part of the way. They will have “friends”, which are not the same thing as friends, and a lively online life, which is not the same thing as a social life; they will feel more connected, but they will be just as alone. Everybody sitting at a computer screen is alone. Everybody sitting at a computer screen is at the centre of the world. Everybody sitting at a computer screen, increasingly, wants everything to be all about them. This is our first glimpse of what people who grow up with the net will want from the net.’

[wikipedia] My Wikipedia Contrail: Peter Falk … ‘Falk wears an ocular prosthetic (“glass eye”). His right eye was surgically removed at the age of three because of cancer.’

[comics] ‘The Ways of Women are a MYSTERY to me!’ — a panel from Avengers #35 spotted on scans_daily …

[metaverse] Goodbye, Cruel World — an Observer journalist spends a week in Second Life … ‘The simple genius of Second Life is that it combines elements of Big Brother culture with the spirit of eBay. It plays to the contemporary urge to project ourselves into every story, to write our own emotions larger than anyone else’s, to perform rather than to listen, to blog rather than read. And it also offers unlimited opportunities to shop.’ [thanks Sasha]

[wikipedia] Wikipedia’s Lamest Edit Wars … Avengers (Comics) vs. New Avengers (Comics): ‘Should there be a separate page for New Avengers (comics)? Is the name of the team now the New Avengers or is it just a new Avengers? Is it a new comic entirely or just a continuation of the old one? Following a positive merge vote, a series of reverts occurs when an editor “merges” the two by simply pasting the merged information into the article, creating two articles in one. The slow nature of the revert war means that, technically, nobody violates WP:3RR, and requests for help from other admins go unheeded because, well, it’s lame. After a series of exchanges on the talk page questioning people’s command of English as well as their sanity, the issue appears to have been settled with the creation of New Avengers (comic book) (note the oh-so-subtle distinction)…’ [thanks Alisterb]

[books] My Mother and the Dahlia — James Ellroy on the Black Dahlia and his Mother … ‘I wrote six good novels and crashed Betty and Jean with The Black Dahlia. It was a salutary ode to Elizabeth Short and a self-serving and perfunctory embrace of my mother. I acknowledged the Jean-Betty confluence in media appearances and exploited it to sell books. My performances were commanding at first glance and glib upon reappraisal. I cut my mother down to sound-bite size and packaged her wholesale. I determined the cause of my ruthlessness years later. She owned me…’

[comics] Brian K. Vaughan interviewed on BBC Radio (requires Real Audio) — the comic writer was interviewed on the Today Programme this morning about his new graphic novel about the Iraq War, Pride of Baghdad.

[movies] 40 Things That Only Happen In Movies … ‘Anyone can land a 747 as long as there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.’

[comics] Love that Dracula — what Jack Chick’s comics would be like if he had a massive nervous breakdown. The original: The Devil’s Night …

[film] Good Day, Mr. Kubrick! — in 1984 Stanley Kubrick placed an advert in Variety asking for audition tapes from unknown actors for his next film Full Metal Jacket – Brian Atene’s amazing tape has been posted to YouTube along with an update from the actor in 2006. Go watch, you won’t regret it… ‘D’You Wanna Know Somethin’!? I Scared. I Scared.’ [more…]

[space] Ask Metafilter: What happens after you’re tossed out of the airlock into Space? … ‘I agree with the mummy idea. Slow leatherizing of the skin and a very very slow loss of moisture over many years. It would end up in 10 or 50 years a shrivelled (and by how much is a debatable factor) mummy, burnt or burnished on the outside and frozen-ish on the inside. It could take thousands of years to be obliterated completely.’

[comics] Daily Powers (the story starts here) — Bendis and Oeming’s comic Powers is partially available online. So far they’ve got 73 pages of the first story arc – Who Killed Retro Girl? [via Metafilter]

[politics] Sketch The Naked Truth of a Leader at Bay — another sketch from Simon Hoggart watching Tony Blair at Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday … ‘Claire Curtis-Thomas, Labour MP for Crosby, said to Mr Blair, “you will be aware that at this precise moment I have one hundred rather attractive naked men outside my front door.” I wish I could have bottled the look on his face. It was the mien of one who has no idea how he is supposed to react. Shock? Bafflement? Good humour? What bothered him was the fact that he had no idea where the question was going; there was nothing in his fat fact file that could possibly help…’

[ipod] The Perfect Thing — another article about the creation of the iPod this time from Steven Levy … ‘In August, the team finally got one of the physical prototypes to play a song. A group of people working late at night took turns listening on a set of headphones from someone’s old Sony Walkman. That first song, by the way, was Spiller’s “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)”…’

[comics] Doonesbury’s War — Profile of Doonesbury’s Garry Trudeau. ‘…when you ask him why he decided to take B.D.’s leg, the answer isn’t very satisfying. Trudeau doesn’t regard his characters in romanticized terms, or even as people; “Doonesbury” has always been more about ideas than personalities, so Trudeau thinks of Mike and B.D. and Zonker and Joanie as puppets. He pulls the appropriate ones out of the closet when he has a point he wants to make. In this case, he says, he wanted to make a statement about the suffering in this war. Originally, he was going to kill Ray, but Ray got spared when Trudeau decided that a death would not leave much of a storyline to pursue. So, with a bit of sang-froid, he amputated B.D.’s left leg, on the theory that he’d . . . think of something.’

[comics] For Sale on eBay: Ultimate X-Men, Collected 1-3, 4-8 by Mark Millar and Andy Kubert.

[distraction] Flash Target Shooting Game. [via Linkbunnies.org]

[ukblogs] UK Blogs Search Engine — a Google Custom Search Engine which searches a list of 600 regularly updated British blogs.

[space] Warren Ellis: Amazing Pictures of a Space Shuttle Launch seen from the International Space Station.

[comics] A Life Stripped Bare — an interview/profile of Alison Bechdel about her graphic novel Fun Home … ‘If you cling to the notion that the comic-book format is still the exclusive preserve of superheroes and goofy jokes, you may find your perspectives violently shifted by Bechdel’s account of her dysfunctional family, which has made it to the New York Times best-seller list and has just been published in the UK…’

[tv] Think outside the box — Jon Ronson Visits Deal or No Deal …

‘If anyone doubts the extent to which mysticism has permeated the hitherto secular corners of British society, they should spend a couple of days behind the scenes at Deal Or No Deal. “I wrote to the cosmos that I would like to meet a woman who’ll make me laugh and make me happy,” Noel tells me. “I wrote that I’d like a relationship that’s not too heavy, with an attractive lady, and I’d like her to walk into my life by the end of September 2005. And she did!” There is a short silence. “She wasn’t the person who sold her story to the Sunday People back in July, was she?” I ask. There’s another silence. “Yes,” says Noel.’

[apple] Straight Dope on the IPod’s Birth — Leander Kahney on the creation of the iPod … ‘The iPod name came from an earlier Apple project to build an internet kiosk, which never saw the light of day. On July 24, 2000, Apple registered the iPod name for “a public internet kiosk enclosure containing computer equipment,” according to the filing. “The name ‘iPod’ makes much more sense for an internet kiosk, which is a pod for a human, than a music player,” said Athol Foden, a naming expert and president of Brighter Naming of Mountain View, California. But Foden said the name is a stroke of genius: It is simple, memorable and, crucially, it doesn’t describe the device, so it can still be used as the technology evolves, even if the device’s function changes.’

[comics] Top 7 Comic-Related Videos Online — A selection of comic-related videos on Youtube. [via Neilalien]

[games] The View from the Top — the final confession of a recovering World of Warcraft junkie … ‘The worst though are the people you know have time commitments. People with families and significant others. I am not one to judge a person’s situation, but when a father/husband plays a video game all night long, seven days a week, after getting home from work, very involved instances that soak up hours and require concentration, it makes me queasy that I encouraged that. Others include the kids you know aren’t doing their homework and confide in you they are failing out of high school or college but don’t want to miss their chance at loot, the long-term girl/boyfriend who is skipping out on a date (or their anniversary – I’ve seen it) to play (and in some cases flirt constantly), the professional taking yet another day off from work to farm mats or grind their reputations up with in-game factions to get “valuable” quest rewards, etc… I’m not one to tell people how to spend their time, but it gets ridiculous when you take a step back.’ [via Waxy’s Links]