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3 December 2005
2 December 2005
[comics] The Dawn of Dilbert — online version of the original Dilbert submission package which Scott Adams sent to various cartoon syndicates – includes 50 Strips … ‘Synopsis: Dilbert is an engineer. He is about thirty, and works at an undisclosed high-tech company in Northern California. He lives with his dog, Dogbert, who bears a striking resemblance to Dilbert (including glasses and the ability to speak). Dilbert is very intelligent and kind-hearted, which makes him particularly ill-suited for life on this planet. Dogbert is also intelligent, but with a cynical edge. In contrast to his master, Dogbert has such a simple, yet keen understanding of human nature that his perceptions seem ridiculous to Dilbert.’1 December 2005
[comics] Where’s Barry? — Barry Allen isn’t Dead. He’s just Resting… ‘Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash, has been called “DC’s first official saint.” He died saving the entire universe, after all, and to avoid cheapening that sacrifice he is likely to be one of the few comic book characters whose death will actually stick. However, his virtual sainthood has led to Barry being sighted as often as Elvis…’
[tags: Comics][ permalink][ Comments Off on Barry Allen – the Elvis of the DC Universe?] 30 November 2005
[myspace] The Hit Factory — Wired on MySpace … ‘[MySpace] encouraged creativity to the point of chaos. For MySpace’s mostly young demographic, their pages were multimedia outgrowths of their jackets, lockers, and notebooks – a place for band stickers, poems, personality quizzes, R-rated photos, and anything else HTML allows.’29 November 2005
[comics] I’ll Thank You Not To Call My Collection Of Sequential-Art Erotica ‘Dirty Comics’ — a classic Onion: ‘…your familiarity with comics is so limited, you couldn’t identify Aquaman’s wife without recourse to the Justice League FAQ! To think I believed you capable of appreciating the works of the finest erotic artists working in the medium today!’
[celebs] Finding Stalking Billie Piper — a Blogger’s Odyssey in search of Billie Piper … ‘Previously: Triforce decides it wants to find Billie Biper. Uses Google. Tracks down approximate location. Decides to go drinking and find her. And keep her.’28 November 2005
[bbc] BBC pulls plug on Dalek Lesbian Romp Flick — DVD pulled from eBay … ‘The director of Terry Nation’s estate, Tim Hancock, told the paper: “The reason the Daleks are still the most sinister thing in the universe is because they do not make things like porn. They weren’t ever intended to be sexual creatures. It’s simple, Daleks do not do porn.”‘
[microsoft] Use Excel? A couple of good blogs from Experts: Daily Dose of Excel and Andrew’s Excel Tips. 27 November 2005
[distraction] The Scribbler — fun, web doodling toy (which has just reminded me to link to Doodleblog) 26 November 2005
[ebay] Bayraider — a blog about eBay from Shiny Media … ‘You Flog It. We Blog It.’25 November 2005
[football] The Long Goodbye — George Best summed up by Gordon Burns … ‘It seems remarkable, given his career of drunk-driving, philandering and domestic violence, and his multiple addictions to alcohol, gambling and sex, that Best only went to prison once. That happened in 1984 when, after failing to appear in court on a drunk-driving charge and resisting arrest after the police cornered him in a girlfriend’s flat, he served two months. But it’s an exchange that took place in the canteen at Southwark crown court before sentencing that has entered Best lore. His friends and defence team were staring into the bottom of their coffee cups, with nothing to say. Then George glanced across at them with a smile. “Well, I suppose that’s the knighthood fucked,” he said.’
[comics] Amazing Heroes #176 Cover — in an interview Grant Morrison points out the Greatest Ever Line in Comics: ‘It was really a traumatic period, crammed with adolescent horrors. But all the stuff in St Swithins Day has come out of that time. The whole strip is lifted from my teenage diaries. I actually found the greatest ever line in comics in one of those diaries. It’s the first time that a character has ever just sat down and said, “Why am I such a wanker?” That came from the 1979 diary, some tortured moment on the M6.’ (from Feb 1990) 24 November 2005
23 November 2005
[graffiti] The Writings on the Stall — website of writings found on toilet walls … ‘This toilet paper is like John Wayne. Tough as nails and don’t take shit off nobody.’22 November 2005
[science] An Appraisal of the Utility of a Chocolate Teapot … ‘Events started to diverge from the course expected of a standard teapot in a very short timescale. The first evidence of loss of containment was observed at approximately T+5s, in the form of a major leak in the vicinity of the handle. By T+10s major structural failure was clearly in progress…’21 November 2005
[travel] Blogjam in North Korea — Fraser visited the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea and produced some great reports… From Day Four: ‘…[We are] taken to the Arch of Triumph, built in 1982 and (as we’re repeatedly told) three meters taller than its more famous Parisienne counterpart. The construction is dedicated to “the home return of the Great Leader Kim Il-sung who liberated Korea from Japanese colonialism”. To be honest, there’s not much that this fella didn’t do.’20 November 2005
[music] 99 Luftballons, Side by Side Comparison — a comparison of the German and English Translations of Nena’s 99 Red Balloons … ‘If you have some time for me… Then I’ll sing a song for you… ‘ vs. ‘You and I in a little toy shop… buy a bag of balloons with the money we’ve got…’
[tags: Music][ permalink][ Comments Off on Translating the 80’s song 99 Red Balloons…]
[shops] Your Life in their Hands — The Observer goes behind the scenes at Muji. ‘…here on the second floor of the Yurakucho store I’d stumbled across a neat display of Muji Earthquake Emergency Packs. The black, 6,300 yen, zip-up cases open to reveal a wind-up torch/radio (in violently bright orange – not very Muji), a white towel, two small bottles of water, wet-wipes, a candle, plasters, a collapsible water-collecting bag, a roll of packing tape and, lastly, a pair of folding slippers…’19 November 2005
18 November 2005
[books] Blink: The Movie — Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink to be turned into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio?! ‘…we were curious to hear what [Gladwell] had in mind for the movie. He tells us, “It takes a single character from Blink — Silvan Tompkins — and fashions an entirely new story around him, about what it means to be someone who can read other people’s thoughts.”‘17 November 2005
[blogs] The New Commentariat — the Guardian on the UK’s Political Blogs … ‘Britain’s bloggers are divided not just by ideology, it turns out, but by their perception of their own importance: while Samizdata proclaims that blogs are the future, for example, Oliver Kamm insists they are an essentially parasitic medium, that can only exist insofar as it feasts on the output of traditional media.’
[comics] Grant Morrison’s Six Rules for Writing “All-Star Superman” … ‘PLAY CLARK AS A ROLE WITH A GOAL – We’re playing Clark as a big, clever country guy who’s used to wide-open horizons and who can’t seem to move in a confined space without knocking something over. The real wizardry is in Frank Quitely’s art, which captures a lot of physical nuances and subtle body language that previous Superman artists have often overlooked in their portrayal of Clark. He’s not just Superman with glasses on. He’s a performer. He allows Superman to experience humility, among other things.’ [Related: Official Preview from DC] 16 November 2005
[comics] The Killing Joke Script — the first 40 pages from Alan Moore’s script … ‘As far as the characters themselves go, I’ll describe them in detail when they make their appearances, but my only general note would be that like the landscape and the various props, they have a sort of timeless and mythic quality to them which doesn’t fix them firmly in any one age-range or time-period. The Joker looks either old or badly depraved, but then he’s always looked that way. The Batman is big and grim and older than we are, because as I remember the Batman he’s always been bigger and older than I am and I’ll fight any man that says different.’14 November 2005
[blogs] Diary of a London Cokehead — another UK Blog … ‘Soooo, Benny scale of Fuckedness = 900… Well done that man!!’
[blogs] Rachel from North London … ‘This blog was started to provide a place to continue my online diary that I started after surviving the 7/7/2005 London bombings, when I was travelling in the first carriage of the Picadilly line tube from Kings Cross to Russell Square. The bomb went off in my carriage, 7 feet behind me in carriage 1. 26 people died in that blast and dozens were maimed and wounded.’13 November 2005
[books] If You Haven’t A Clue — profile of Ben Schott … ‘The curious thing about Schott is that, despite his arcane tastes and instincts for privacy, he has a highly marketable persona: the blend of self-assurance and innocence you find in polished talkshow guests, and a nice turn of phrase. (“Google is about as good as going into the street and saying, ‘Does anyone know how much the registration threshold for VAT went up?’ And someone goes, ‘I think it’s 49,000.’ And you go, ‘Oh, 49,000, great.’ That’s Google.”)’12 November 2005
10 November 2005
[comics] Alan Moore on Terrorism, America and Britain: ‘…You have to remember that over here there were teenagers being taken out of cellar bars in separate carrier bags all through the ’70s and ’80s because of the war in Northern Ireland. In that case, the IRA were largely being supported by donations from America. That was why I was a bit worried when George Bush said he was going to attack people who supported terrorism, I thought, oh my god, Chicago is going to be declared a rogue state and they’ll hunt down Teddy Kennedy.’9 November 2005
[books] The Curious Case of Malcolm Gladwell — profile of the author Blink … ‘Henry Finder says that Gladwell’s “real accomplishment is to develop a new genre of journalism — ‘a Gladwell piece.’ Everybody knows what you mean by that — a piece with an argument that is bound together by narrative and character, which often makes you take a second look at things you take for granted…”‘8 November 2005
[comics] The T.M. Maple Memorial Leaf Pit — a website on the King of 80’s Comic Letter Hacks. ‘…a legendary Canadian letter hack who wrote thousands of letters to comic book letter columns through the years. Burke first started writing letters in 1977 as “The Mad Maple”, but Tom DeFalco, in order to get around a new stipulation of the time at Marvel (thanks to Jim Shooter) that pseudonymous letter writers couldn’t get published, shortened it to “T.M. Maple” to sound like a real name. His letters kept getting printed, and Burke liked the new name, so he kept it for the rest of his letter-writing career.’ [via Progressive Ruin]
[tags: Comics][ permalink][ Comments Off on An Appreciation of T. M. Maple – an 80’s Comics Letter Hack]
[war] The Military Applications of Silly String … ‘ I’m a former Marine I in Afghanistan. Silly string has served me well in Combat especially in looking for I.A.Ds., simply put, booby traps. When you spray the silly sting in dark areas, especially when you doing house to house fighting. On many occasions the silly string has saved me and my men’s lives.’ [via As Above] 7 November 2005
[comics] Mike Sterling’s Ten Favorite Scary Swamp Thing Moments … ‘Matt Cable, who has a problem with the drink, finds himself almost certainly mortally injured in a car wreck. Upside down, bleeding to death, he finds himself face to face with…a giant yellow fly. At this point, we don’t know who the fly is or where it came from…but c’mon, we know it’s Arcane…’6 November 2005
[comics] Tamara Drewe — an archive of Posy Simmonds latest comic strip (published weekly in the Saturday Guardian) following on from Gemma Bovery. 5 November 2005
[comics] The Dilbert Blog — Scott Adams has a Blog … ‘Now this bird flu business has me worried. I already circle the parking lot twelve times to find a space that isn’t under a tree and directly in the crapping zone. If birds start getting the flu, they’ll be firing from both ends. There aren’t enough squeegees in the world.’
[flash] Flash Timeline Clock … [via linkbunnies.org
[tags: Fun][ permalink][ Comments Off on Flash Timeline Clock] 3 November 2005
[soundboard] The Shining Soundboard — yet another flash soundboard using clips from The Shining … ‘Does it matter to you at all that the owners have placed their complete confidence and trust in me, and that I have signed a letter of agreement, a contract, in which I have accepted that responsibility? Do you have the slightest idea what a moral and ethical principle is, do you? Has it ever occurred to you what would happen to my future if I were to fail to live up to my responsibilities? Has it ever occurred to you? Has it?!’1 November 2005
[apple] Steve Jobs Quotes — On Bill Gates: ‘I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.’31 October 2005
[comics] Dourdevil: Grit! — Alan Moore and Mike Collins spoof Frank Miller’s Daredevil Run … 
29 October 2005
[web] The Always Amusing Euphemism Generator … ‘Like most guys his age, he wasn’t above whipping the donuts.’ [via The Daily Chump]
[tags: Funny][ permalink][ Comments Off on The Always Amusing Euphemism Generator]
[soundboard] David Brent Soundboard: ‘…it’s not an insult though is it?’ [via linkbunnies.org] 23 October 2005
[money] How ATM fraud nearly brought down British banking — remarkable inside story. ‘…there wasn’t time for the banks to fix the problem if anyone went public with it. Their MTBU was too short. MTBU? That’s “Maximum Time to Belly Up”, as coined by the majestic Donn Parker of Stanford Research Institute. He found that businesses that relied on computers for the control of their cash flow fell into catastrophic collapse if those computers were unavailable or unusable for a period of time. How long? By the late 1980s it had fallen from a month to a few days. That’s not a good thing; it meant that a collapse of the computers that any UK clearing bank relied on would destroy it in less than a week.’
[tags: Crime][ permalink][ Comments Off on The Register on Cash Point Fraud] 22 October 2005
[macs] Mainly Neat Stuff — web site covering vintage Apple Computers and curios like a second-hand Mac IIfx belonging to Douglas Adams … ‘I started up MacWrite Pro and noticed that it was registered to “Douglas Adams, Serious Productions Ltd”.’21 October 2005
[ebay] Crazy eBay Mom (scroll down) – eBay Addiction taken to the outer limits. 20 October 2005
[wisdom] Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies in Flash … ‘Move towards the unimportant.’19 October 2005
[politics] Suits Them, Sir — Simon Hoggart on the Tory Leadership Election … ‘It was one o’clock and the voting was due to begin. Four Tories were hovering outside, like boarders waiting for the dining room to open. “There should be a numeracy test,” said Ann Widdecombe crisply. “If you can read an opinion poll, why are you voting for anyone except Ken Clarke?” “Ann and I have a lot in common,” said John Bercow, once a rightwinger, now a social moderate. “We support Ken Clarke, we like spaghetti bolognese, and we are choppers, not twirlers!” I thought this must be some terrifying euphemism, but it turned out to mean the way they ate their spaghetti.’
[comics] Wally Wood’s 22 Panels that Always Work … ‘Or some interesting ways to get some variety into those boring panels where some dumb writer has a bunch of lame characters sitting around and talking for page after page!’
[tags: Comics][ permalink][ Comments Off on Wally Wood’s 22 Panels that Always Work] 18 October 2005
[comics] Dave’s Long Box on Daredevil: Born Again: ‘That, my friends, is 100% pure comic book gold. You are dead inside if you don’t feel at least a little stirring of sentiment looking at that triumphant image, remembering when you first read that. It speaks to the part of us that still believes in heroes, that has faith in the power of the human spirit. And in the next issue? Daredevil kicks the living shit out of Nuke. He mops the floor with the guy!’17 October 2005
[music] I’m A Genius, Too! The Murry Wilson Tapes — listen to the jealous, drunken father of three of the Beach Boys wreck a recording session from 1965 … ‘Brian, I’m a Genius, Too.’ [via Waxy’s Links] 16 October 2005
[comics] Infinite Crisis Begins Today (Spoilers) — Metafilter discuss DC’s new multiverse reorganising mini-series… ‘Please wake me from my comic free slumber when Infinite Spider Jerusalem Crisis is greenlighted. You know, the one where Spider Jerusalem appears in every DC comic and shoots every DC superhero with his anal prolapse gun.’
[tags: Comics][ permalink][ Comments Off on Metafilter Discuss Infinite Crisis (Spoilers)] 15 October 2005
[comics] Scans Daily [ RSS] — Livejournal Page posting a random assortment of old and new scans from Comic Books. 13 October 2005
[bdj] Weidenfeld & Nicolson Acquire New Book by Belle de Jour … ‘Provisionally entitled THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF BELLE DE JOUR, the deal was closed after a great deal of arm-twisting and financial persuasion…’ [thanks Phil] 11 October 2005
[newspapers] BBC News: How can papers afford to give away DVDs? … ‘The great DVD giveaway is just the latest instalment in Fleet Street’s endless turf war. “It’s digital bingo,” says Greenslade, referring to the period, 20 years ago, when tabloid editors employed prize-winning bingo games to woo new readers.’
[tags: Press][ permalink][ Comments Off on BBC News on UK Newspaper DVD Giveaways]
[im] Meebo.com — firewall-bursting instant messenging from a website for AIM, MSN, Yahoo and GTalk. [via Waxy’s Links] 10 October 2005
[comics] Official Preview of All-Star Superman #1 …  Morrison: ‘I just read – yesterday in fact – the story ‘Superman’s New Power’ which appeared in Superman #125 from November 1958. And guess what Superman’s new power was in the ‘conservative’ ’50s. That’s right – it’s a teeny-tiny little Superman who shoots out from the palm of the big Superman’s hand and does everything better than Superman himself, leaving the full-size Superman feeling redundant and worthless. Holy analysis, Batman! It’s mindbending, brilliant and eerie work. This is what it would be like if Charlie Kaufmann wrote and directed the Superman movie and it’s far from goofy or childish, it’s genuinely affecting and slightly disturbing to read Superman saying stuff like ‘Everyone’s impressed except ME! Don’t they understand how I feel — playing second fiddle to a miniature duplicate of myself…a sort of SUPER-IMP?’ And people think I’M weird? I %$%$^ wish I was weird like this! I wish pop comics today had the balls to be as poetic and poignant and truly ‘all-ages’ again, and a little less self-conscious. I feel a little ashamed for not even daring to think of a magnificent tiny Superman who makes the real Superman feel inadequate every time he springs from his hand.’ 9 October 2005
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