furlough n.

» Is everybody enjoying their weekend???

Saturday July 15, 2006 10:04:41 AM #

» Pee Wee doesn't seem like the best person for an anti-drug PSA.

Let's Go Surfing

» How to make a macro photo studio/box

» Cat Stair Shelves

» Linticular Spider-man 3 Movie Poster Changes from Black to Red and Blue. (not in the image however.)

» Joe Quesada, Editor in chief of Marvel Comics, will be on the Colbert Report on July 27th.

» Dig this incredibly cool Motorcycle tank.Looks like a fun ride.

» Completists might want this JLU Doomsday giftpack, but for regular collectors, seriously how many of that Batman, Superman, and Wonderwoman figures does a JLU collector have already.

» Neat LED light that you can mount inside your patio umbrella right on the stem.

» 2 second self-pitching tent. Cool.

Friday July 14, 2006 8:56:22 PM #

» A friend of mine today really wanted to check out this furniture store, Stonesthrow, on Plainfield just outside downtown Grand Rapids. Nice store, sortof a Design Within Reach type vibe. Anyway I found and purchased ($35) this Torre&Tagus (fairly worthless, flash based, businesscard style website, but there is an email contact address) magazine rack that happens to be even more perfectly scaled for comic books. Neat.

» There was a very nervous raccoon that wandered itself up to my office building yesterday. (I don't think the groundskeeper who walked up to look at him with a chainsaw by his side help it's nervousness any either.) He made quite a travel too, because there aren't any woods or trees within two or so football fields of the building. Poor little guy

» A past co-worker and occasional lurker on my blog pointed me in the direction of the absolutely fabuloso zefrank, the show video blog Every weekday zefrank posts a new 3 minute video blog, with commentary on his travels, commentary on the comentary on his vblo,g odd songs, and Daily Show style news updates. He's not for everyone, and the video blog is incredibly self referential (you really got to watch a bunch of them to start getting all the in-jokes) but it's now one of my favorite internet things.)

On today's show (Click on the big baby), zefrank started the voting on his "I knows me some ugly, myspace contest." and also did a nice 'rant' on design and the masses. (no news today though... bummer.)

I've been finding his catchphrases infectious and have added: "hard chargers", "League of Awesomeness", "bobo twins", "som-som-someth-something from the comments" and "bonesaw" to my personal lexicon. (I've also started having his particular style of saying "assholes" occasionally run through my head as well lately, but that's another story.) Don't worry if during the show you get lost, because you can check out the wiki being maintained, and search for alot of the stuff you need to know.

» In case the guy from the chatroom who left the question about the Toyfare Marvel Legends spread comes back, here it is below:

Monday July 10, 2006 8:11:02 PM #

» Tomorrow is the 11th of the 7th month (7/11 doncha know). Celebrate by picking up a Slurpee at your convenience.

» Nice Apple PC Guy/Mac Guy Ad Parodies:

» Neat little flash app-- ant simulator.

Sunday July 9, 2006 9:18:06 PM #

» Time to get my blog geek on with more toy pics! Below, Old figure but new purchase, Kraven the Hunter! you've got to love a Supervillian with the b@lls to wear Leopardskin pants!. Couple of Bat Villians thrown into the shot for the h=ll of it.

Next up, rockin the the new 80's Crisis figures: Brainiac (Robot Style), Anti-Monitor and Power-Suit Lex Luthor. Tremble before their 80s villiany!

Darwyn Cook New Frontier Figures, Green Lantern. Nice Retro costume, and dig that stand. Also, Blackhawk (shown here with Sgt. Rock.) Picked-up Green Arrow too, but it looks like I've forgot to snap a shot, shucks.

Finishing Up Up and Away, with Earth-2 and Earth-1 Supes. No "Just For Men" on Earth-2 Supes, he's got the grey temples going.

Sunday July 9, 2006 11:14:54 AM #

» Yoda's Got Moves! (Humor)

Saturday July 8, 2006 11:57:29 AM #

Random Non-Sequiters

» I downloaded a neat little one-man-programmer-freeware app off the internet today. It required the dot.net framework. I didn't have that installed on my laptop, where I wanted to run the app, so I went to Microsoft and downloaded the dot.net framework. No problem so-far.

When I went to install the dot-net framework, it required that "Windows Installer" be installed. Annoying.

When I went to install "Windows Installer" from Microsoft's site, it told me that "Microsoft Genuine Advantage" needed to be installed first.

Isn't that a bit much to get a home-brew dot-net app to run? My Laptop is a couple years old, it has Windows XP on it, which it came preloaded with. It's legit and all, but something about "Microsoft Genuine Advantage" is just a little to big brotherish for me. A little too "Mother May I?" It doesn't set well in my stomach, and I'm not going to download it.

» OMG. Richard Simmons on Whose Line is it Anyway

Let's Go Surfing

» Make a Chewbacca Puppet. Go Ahead, laugh it up with this fuzzball.

» Zombies wth backpacks?

» Otter with a Bud Light via Cuteoverload

» Very Cool Door Concept. Would be great for a Studio.

» The July 6th episode of Amazon Fishbowl had Kevin Smith as a guest. Alot of times Bill Marr tries to ask his guests very direct questions in order to throw them off balance and generate an interesting interview. This didn't seem to work well with Kevin Smith since Smith has no problem answering very direct questions. Marr seemed at a loss as to how to apply his usual shtick. Not a great interview, but hey, it's Kevin Smith.

» Want to keep a simple diary/journal on some topic or other? Have a PC with Windows? Try this trick:

1. Open a blank Notepad file

2. Write .LOG (in uppercase) in the first line of the file, followed by Enter. Save the file and close it.

3. Double-click the file to open it and notice that Notepad appends the current date and time to the end of the file and places the cursor on the line after.

4. Type your notes and then save and close the file.

5. Each time you open the file, Notepad repeats the process, appending the time and date to the end of the file and placing the cursor below it.

» Amusing little anecdote on Social Customer Manifesto:

I've been on hold with "The New AT&T!" for about ten minutes now. The hold music? An enless loop of a horrible cover of the Doobie Brothers' "Minute By Minute."

Yes, as I sit here on hold, I hear a loop of

Minute by minute by minute by minute
I keep holding on...

That's the only part of the song that's playing. On a loop. Indefinitely.

» Loooks like there is going to be an Indy Legends/DC Direct compatible line of Superheroes/Comic Characters from Shocker Toys. The first four 6 inch figures (20 pts of articulation) are slated to be: Witchblade, Madman, Shadowhawk and Judge Death. Other future licenses include:

--snip--
...Indie Spotlight include 2000AD, Top Cow, Classic Media, Image, Troma, AAApop, Blue Water Productions, King Features, The Freshmen, Solar:Man of the Atom, Magnus Robot Fighter, Judge Dredd, Dick Tracy, Lone Ranger, Jack Staff, Moonstone, Honor of the Damned, Madman, Deadworld, Strangers in Paradise, The Atomics, Witchblade, Darkness, Lullaby, Lions Tigers & Bears, Nexus, Popbot, Shark-Man, The Moth, Retro Rocket, Zoomsuit, The New Toxic Avenger, Slayer, The Phantom, Ninja High School, Warrior Nun, Sachs & Violens, Ant, The Wraith, Scud the Disposable Assassin, Isis, Jack The Lantern, Bushido, Bounty Killer, Victoria Secret Service, Judo-Girl, Shadowhawk, OZF5, Grim Jack, Fallen Angel, Buzzboy, Badger, Cyberforce, Jetcat, Atomic City, Smoke & Mirror and God of Thunder. There will be more additions as the line progresses so keep watching!

» Custom Star Wars Republic Attack Cruiser-- Large (I mean F'ing sofa/couch table large!) Custom Star Wars Star Destroer-like playset. Neat.

» April 2006 Copper Cartoon I catch-up with this site fairly irregularrly since it only posts once a month. Often the cartoons are philosophical. The one above is pretty good.

» Clerks "Inaction Figure" Shorts/movie commercials:

Wednesday July 5, 2006 8:54:33 PM #

» Look across the field of green grass and walk toward the hill. When you get to the top of the hill, build wings and fly. When you reach the edge of the sky, build a rocket to the stars. When you reach past the last star and stare into the nothingness that is before you, think back to the field of green grass and the way it squished between your toes as you looked over the hill, through the night sky, at the distant twinkle of a universe full of stars.

Let's Go Surfing

» Quikmaps.com, neat site that lets you draw on and place your own markers ontop of Google maps.

» I think I'd really be into this Spinvox Voicemail to text message concept if it was provided directly by my cellphone company. You can wathc their little slideshow at the link above, but basically when you get a voicemail, they convert it via voice recognition to a text message and send it back to you for situations where it is easier to glance at your phone's screen and read a message instead of listening to it.

» eHub

eHub is a constantly updated resource of web applications, services or sites with a focus on next generation web (web 2.0), social software, blogging, Ajax, Ruby on Rails, location mapping, open source, folksonomy, design and digital media sharing.

» Hamster into the blue frosting via cuteoverload.

Tuesday July 4, 2006 10:17:17 AM #

» I'm trying out an in-page embeded chat client above that I found on a site called gably.com I get very little traffic on any individual page so I figure the odds of running into somebody in it to be small but it looks like a neat piece of code.

» Digital-Photography-School.com/blog/ Has some pretty basic stuff, but it's a well put together site. Take a look.

Monday July 3, 2006 11:17:38 PM #

» Smart and Sexy (and a whole lot geeky) the Freudian Slip

» This kicks ten kinds of a$$. Wicked Cool. Bush + U2

Sunday July 2, 2006 8:10:25 PM #

» I saw Superman Returns for a second time Saturday in IMAX 3D. While I enjoyed the movie the second time, visually I thought it worked better on a traditionally sized screen. The close-ups of many scenes don't lend themselves well to the IMAX format, and the 3D while a novelty did not add much. Great movie.... but see it on the regular screen.

(I may very likely catch this for a 3rd showing in a couple weeks.)

» Also caught the first three episodes of the third season of Entourage this weekend. Good show. (Would have been even better if we could have seen Vincent Chase actually in an Aquaman costume.)

» How to avoid lame morale events

--snip--

• Inject fun into group dynamic. Good morale events create stories: something crazy Fred did, how Sally kicked the VPs ass at Tekken, or the comeback the boss had for John’s rendition of his boring speech that morning. Create an event that makes stories possible! Those stories live on as a positive force, forever, in your org. Think karaoke, an obstacle course, a scavenger hunt, something with seeds for stories. You have to take risks: even if the day is a complete disaster, guess what? That’s a story! Playing it safe never ever provides stories. We went to the movies. Yawn.

• Experience something new. Crazy, challenging (but non-threatening) morale events work because they force memories - They stand out and define that time for everyone there, giving them all a shared memory unique to their working experience. I can’t remember a single morale event on teams that just took us to the movies (see below) - but I can remember running through every building on campus when Win95 released, the time our team had a manager vs. programmer waterfight outside building 27, and the insane foodfight at the IE4 ship party (I have $50 for anyone who can find that lost photo of me with a pound of guacamole in my right ear).

--snip--

• Three key elements: fun, interaction, challenge. Movies are the worst morale event in history because they are not interactive and offer no challenge. How can sitting in the dark, in silence, with people you don’t know well, raise morale? And who wants to see movies in a packed house at 10am on Friday just because that’s the only time you can rent the place? Good morale events hit the trifecta, giving people a fun way to interact with others in the course of challenging themselves. Going to sports events isn’t as bad as movies, as you can talk to and see each other, but you’re watching other people do things instead of doing things together yourselves.

Saturday July 1, 2006 9:41:44 AM #

» Amusing commercial for An Inconvienent Truth featuring Al Gore and Bender, from Futurama:

» Nice article analysis of Infinite Crisis:

As the story begins, Superman, Superboy, and Luthor sit in what is essentially the universe's basement, watching and critiquing, claiming to know what's best for the DC universe and how things would be different—"better"—if they were in charge. The villains of this massive series, which will affect years of comic books to follow, act like nothing so much as a bunch of stereotypical comic-book nerds.

In Infinite Crisis 4, Earth-Prime's vindictive Superboy, angry over his prolonged incarceration and the loss of his loved ones and homeworld, picks a fight with DC's current Superboy. Like The Simpsons' Comic Book Guy, the villainous Superboy is a whiny, awkward loner, who stammers, "You're ruining me!" as he battles a group of heroes. The fact that Superboy's Earth-Prime represents the readers' world confirms his status as a stand-in for the ugly side of comics' audience.

Readers seem to have largely missed the subtext; indeed, a trip to DC's message boards reveals a fan base validating Johns's characterization with its vitriol. A typical comment reads, "Thanks . . . for making my heroes the most disgusting, childish, nasty, ridiculous people ever."

The portrayal of Infinite Crisis's villains reflects the comics industry's contentious relationship with fans. The readers typified by the evil Superboy are fiercely loyal but resistant to change, much like the art form they love so dearly. DC finds itself forced to serve two masters: these fractious lifers and the children that were, in decades past, comics' target demographic.

I don't spell check and my grammar, sentence and paragraph structure on this site leave alot to be desired. Most times I forget to go back and reread a post to see if it makes sense. Sometimes I type the word "Fnck". Flip the "n" over... I don't have a problem with the word myself, I just type it that way to slip it past overzealous work censorship programs and for the benefit of those that are sensitive to that sort of thing.