Is it any wonder that after another weekend love-fest with Python (I chose to use Python to read Javascript's native format) that I'm totally delighted with this awesome xkcd comic?

My favorite April Fool's Joke this year?

Ben Templesmith's "30 Days of Night: Blood of Christ" For a split second I thought it was real, and was ready to call Lee's and ask them to put it in my saver.

Also, welcome back Lex! Lex's original Beyond The Sea blog was taken down by WordPress.com, but he's back at beyondthesea2. Lex maintains the best J-Pop review blog I've seen.  I missed all the drama because I let my rss feed do the polling. I thought Lex was just being inactive for a while.

Today's XKCD stopped me in my tracks.  I wonder how many of its readers stopped what they were doing to further investigate the problem in panel four...

Thus endeth a significant era in my life. I've collected individual translated comic issues of (some) manga from the first issue of Viz's Mai, The Psychic Girl to the last issue of Dark Horse's Blade of the Immortal.

That era extends from my early college years at UCSB to this month.  (That is: a long freakin' time.)  Dark Horse just ceased publication of BOTI in comic format, and will now only release it trade paperback.  (In a format that doesn't quite match the tankoubon releases, but are pretty close.)

I don't know if there are any manga that are still published in single issues of comics anymore.  It doesn't bother me one way or the other.  I like the trade paperbacks, too, and I'll continue to support Hiroaki Samura any way they let me.

I framed my signed Armadeaddon poster, and it's here at work hanging above my desk.  It give me joy just to look at it.  (Not because it's signed, although that's cool.  I loved the story arc.)

I try to be professional here at work.  But the desire to talk about the poster is making that nigh impossible.  It doesn't matter if a VP or Director of Your-Division-Here comes into my cube.  I'm all:  Look!  It's the Fruit Fucker!  A bloodied cardboard tube!  And he rolls 20s!  Isn't that awesome?!

Somebody at Wired has Gunnm's blade.

Nny's logo and the logo for Where Is The Love.  Yes.  Nny can help you find the love.

My car was rear-ended two weeks ago, and it's back from the body shop today!  Whee!

And I just found out that Google's headquarters is about two blocks from my favorite comic book shop!  Who knew?  I foresee an excursion!

Why yes, the latest Blade of the Immortal TPB did come out.  And it's as gorgeous as ever.  I highly recommend re-readed the previous two TPBs before reading this one, to bring oneself back up to speed on the plotline.

Oh?  Yes.  My wiki does now support autosave.  There was a new release and I upgraded, and got the cool new features and plugin set.  All hail Anreas Gohr and Esther Brunner.

That?  That's Wordpress 2.1.  I'll be updating when I get home.

Over there?  That's Habari.  I've been keeping my eye on that one.  It's not released yet.  I guess development makes me happy, too.

Apparently we can now read a page of David Mack's Kabuki a day.

I'm a huge fan of David's watercolor and mixed media work. This gives me the chance to see his early work and decide if I want to own it. I wouldn't be surprised if this effort increases sales of Kabuki.

You know what I want? I want a rockin' black CBGB style shirt with the letters ABCB instead, and other subtle references to Orange Road in it.

Oh, and despite all the corporations whose initials actually are ABCB, how cool is it that abcb.com is a site named after the very cafe I was thinking of?

Just today, literally stranded on a remote pacific island, do I learn that Mike Mignola is premiering a new show on the SciFi channel. And that later today. I cannot miss this.

So, it's a race of technology against the clock. Minutes before making this post, I ask Yahoo to ask Tivo to schedule a recording of The Amazing Screw-On Head. The next time my Tivo calls the mother ship, its todo list will be updated. But is it still calling home? Will it call home before the show airs?

Tivo, hurry, please call.

Tomorrow will see the release of the last Hellboy TPB fully illustrated by Mike Mignola.

It's all well and good that Mike's a great writer, and has been doing more writing than illustrating. And that Hellboy is such rich source material that others have collaborated/written/illustrated their own Hellboy stories. More power to them all.

But this is likely to be the last Hellboy TPB I buy. (Except maybe the next, since Mike does some of it, even if not all. And of course, maybe the ones after that. Aw, dang it.)

Also, how could I resist the recent issue of Kabuki with a cover by Mike, and art by Dave? I'd love to see an artists' collaboration between those two with segments of work from each.

I still want a Gally/Alita UFO Catcher doll. And I'll pretend that Last Order didn't happen. I'll pretend that Ghost in the Shell:Man Machine Interface, and Dark Knight Returns 2 didn't happen, too. (Although Frank Miller is forgiven for Sin City.)

Thanks to halophoenix, over the past week, I've been reading every issue of MacHall since the beginning.  I've been reading a few months at a time, and it's been really fun.  Today, thanks to Penny Arcade, MacHall got wanged, so I guess I'll have to take a break from my reading, until their server recovers...

A couple of nights ago I woke up from another vivid dream about imminent death. The scene was probably influenced by the ending of Fight Club.

I was near the top floor of one of the tallest buildings in San Jose. Let's call it, oh, the Adobe building. (It wasn't necessarily Adobe, but it may have been.)

It was a nice summer day, and I was looking down on the smaller buildings and churches around me. Then I see the effects of bombs going off. Big car bombs. For some reason, I'm on my cell phone with Ted, and we're discussing the coordinated terrorist attack I'm watching in San Jose, of all places. Dirty, house-sized cotton-ball clouds blossoming every couple of blocks.

We both reason that the building I'm in is certainly targeted, and that I'm not going to make it out. As I tell him to let my wife and children know that I love them, I feel the floor, relatively intact, begin to tilt and descend.

Today, at Free Comic Day at the local comic book store, a couple of the employees were talking about a certain movie:

"Yeah I can't wait to see it."
"You're gonna hate me."
"Why? You haven't seen it yet, have you?"
"There was an advance screening, I had to sign a non-disclosure."
"Ooh, I hate you!"
"All I can say is, you're not gonna be disappointed."

So, I get all excited, and I ask, "What movie are we talking about?"

"Episode 3 of Star Wars."

Imagine my disappointment. I was hoping they were talking about Serenity.