Kurt Busiek's Astro City

“There are people in this world who don’t like Astro City. Those people we call Communists.” - Comics Should Be Good I don’t know about Communists, but Kurt Busiek is one of my top three in terms of comics writers. He could write the phone book and still make the setting and characters interesting. My best Ebay find, other than the first issue of Lobo, was a full run of Astro City (so far). I purchased the collected Astro City: The Tarnished Angel first, and was hooked on the atmosphere created in Busiek’s tale of a down-at-the-heels villain who investigates a string of killings. Of course, it helps that the character is based on Robert Mitchum. It’s just as hard not to watch Mitchum on the printed page as it is during a movie. ...

July 28, 2006 · 1 min · shanethacker

Greensboro makes 40 Best Cities for Singles list...barely

Forbes Magazine did the list, which should really tell you something right there. They listed Raleigh at #6?!? I don’t know, Greensboro’s okay, but not as good a place to meet a woman as grad school in Blacksburg, VA. Ain’t that right, sweetheart? :) Link courtesy of Automatic Writing, which also brings up the subject of the parties I didn’t go to while I was still in Greensboro.

July 27, 2006 · 1 min · shanethacker

Logos 2.0

Famous logos, if they were created for Web 2.0 sites. Link courtesy of Good Morning Silicon Valley

July 25, 2006 · 1 min · shanethacker

Words fail Fergie

Or perhaps “Fergie Ferg” fails words. Fergie, from the Black Eyed Peas, in her first solo video. I didn’t think anything could compare to the lyric “lovely lady lumps,” but she somehow surpasses it with this song. At least people could pretty accurately guess what the lyrics meant in My Humps. In this song, what the heck is her “London Bridge?” Update: YouTube pulled the video. Of course, someone uploaded it again immediately here.

July 21, 2006 · 1 min · shanethacker

Ubuntu: Not Fully Cat-Proof

Matt Cutts installs Ubuntu Linux on his computer, and finds the only pitfall walking around behind the computer desk.

July 10, 2006 · 1 min · shanethacker

UNC's Jackie Manuel playing again

Looks like he’s on the Chicago Bulls summer league team, with Luke Schenscher and Not The Jason Williams. Go, Jackie! Update: Jackie scored 7 points in 9.5 minutes yesterday against the Pacers.

July 10, 2006 · 1 min · shanethacker

Soothing Sounds from Nature

Something Awful comes up with some really relaxing CDs. :) My favorite is probably lightsabers. If they were real lightsabers, you’d never go to sleep. Link courtesy of Best Week Ever

July 7, 2006 · 1 min · shanethacker

Gunkanjima, the Abandoned Island

No, it’s not anime, despite the title. It is, however, a ghost city on a small Japanese island, abandoned in 1974. A photographer took some amazing pictures. Link courtesy of Metafilter.

July 7, 2006 · 1 min · shanethacker

Polish Movie Posters

Something in me loves these Polish movie posters…it must be something very dark. Of course, if I actually walked into a theater and saw a wall full of them, I might never go out again. The originals are for sale at PolishPoster.com.

July 7, 2006 · 1 min · shanethacker

Bad ColdFusion coding

Raymond Camden solicits some examples of bad ColdFusion code. My personal favorite is when the logic for a simple application is split into a dozen files, none of which are ever reused anywhere else, and that have no comments or other documentation indicating their actual use. I just love searching across all of the files in a directory to find where one variable is being set, or, better yet, where the end of a table tag is located. :| ...

July 6, 2006 · 1 min · shanethacker