• Wizard Entertainment: [NYCC] Jhonen Vasquez Spotlight Panel
  (tags: nycc jhonen comics)

I hit up the NY Comic Con yesterday, and returned home with sore feet, an awesome hat, and Jhonen Vasquez’s signature on the hardcover copy of the JTHM Director’s Cut that I’ve had since high school. I bought it at a little comic shop in Beverly with some of my hard-earned Dunkin’ Donuts money, and it’s one of the only things I own that has travelled with me through all four moves I’ve made in the eight years since then. So I’m quite happy to finally have it signed, even if poor Jhonen looked less than thrilled to be stuck in an ugly little booth surrounded on all sides by people mostly younger and stranger than you would think possible. All in customary black, of course.

I do not yet have photos of my hat. But if you browse the NYCC or NYComicCon tags on Flickr, you’ll see some of the characters with whom I spent my many, many hours of line-waiting. The line to get into the con itself, for example, stretched from 34th St all the way to 39th St and well around the corner of the block. There were many Boba Fetts (Bobas Fett?) and an especially alarming Pikachu.
 

• New York Times: Grades Rise, but Reading Skills Do Not
  It showed that the share of 12th-grade students lacking even basic high school reading skills — meaning they could not, for example, extract data about train fares at different times of day from a brochure — rose to 27 percent from 20 percent in 1992.
  (tags: education news)

• WP: China treats Internet ‘addicts’ sternly
  Led by Tao Ran, a military researcher who built his career by treating heroin addicts, the clinic uses a tough-love approach that includes counseling, military discipline, drugs, hypnosis and mild electric shocks.
  (tags: mmo games news)

While we’re on the subject of people who can go eat some dicks, add StickerHavoc.com to that list. Why? Hmm, I wonder:

• There’s no place like home:
  Thinkgeek |
  StickerHavoc
• Binary people:
  Thinkgeek |
  StickerHavoc
• No, I will not fix your computer:
  Thinkgeek |
  StickerHavoc
• SQL:
  Thinkgeek |
  StickerHavoc
• Caffeine molecule:
  Thinkgeek |
  StickerHavoc
• Twenties:
  Thinkgeek |
  Dieselsweeties |
  StickerHavoc
• Life:
  Thinkgeek |
  StickerHavoc
• RPG:
  Thinkgeek |
  StickerHavoc
• Wanted:
  Thinkgeek |
  StickerHavoc
• Not my fault you suck:
  Thinkgeek |
  StickerHavoc
• Pixel skull:
  Dieselsweeties |
  StickerHavoc
• Rock out:
  Dieselsweeties |
  StickerHavoc
• Ten ninjas:
  Dieselsweeties |
  StickerHavoc
• Jesus helps me trick people:
  Dieselsweeties |
  StickerHavoc
• Japanese girlfriend:
  J-List |
  StickerHavoc
• Green linen shirt:
  Jinx |
  StickerHavoc

And that’s not all, just the first few I recognized. Here are some more, and I’m sure the rest of the shit on their site is stolen as well.

Joining Home Depot, Chase Manhattan, and Amazon in the Hall of Worst Fucking Customer Service on the Goddamn Planet (yes, the esteemed HoWFCSotGP) is 1800Flowers.com.

You may have been aware that yesterday was Valentine’s Day. It’s not traditionally a day of great importance to Chris and I, in that neither of us is really big on oversized pink teddy bears or jewelry, but being the sweetheart that he is Chris nonetheless ordered me some flowers. Shucks, right? Who doesn’t like flowers on Valentine’s Day?

Except that they were never delivered. Yeah, it’s not even that they were delivered early - they just didn’t show up. The order status page indicates nothing about a delay or a delivery failure, and nobody contacted him to let him know there was a problem. In fact, his email to the site has generated only a single automated reply, nothing useful or generated by a human. And the crowning glory is that he’s continually been trying to call the customer service number, only to have them hang up on him. Yes, that’s right:  he calls the number, and it just plays a recorded message about high call volume and disconnects the call. So between the non-working number and the lack of email reply, there’s nobody he can even talk to in order to demand a refund.

In conclusion: it’s now the afternoon of the 15th and 1800Flowers.com still has both my flowers and his money. We hope they rot in hell.

• The weatherman throws up his hands (kottke.org)
  We had this same conversation in my office. I prefer “wintry mix” to “unknown precipitation.”
  (tags: newyork nyc)

Happy ValentiOH MY GOD IT’S SO FUCKING SHITTY OUTSIDE. All of you who have been praying for more snow should tell me who you are so that I can hire someone to punch you in the face. There is a layer of semi-frozen death about four inches thick covering the sidewalk, and more coming down. While trudging through that shit this morning I saw no fewer than three people fall on their ass because nobody has bothered to break out the goddamn shovels.

Anyhow, there’s that.

• Wouldn’t You Like to be a Pepper Too…
  Awesome collection of Dr Pepper knockoffs.
  (tags: awesome)

• Juhll, Inc. Online Advertising
  The designer responsible for the dancing cowboy mortgage ads. A+++ WOULD MOCK AGAIN !!!!!!
  (tags: hilarious web)
• Welcome to Cancerland
  “For me at least, breast cancer will never be a source of identity or pride…. What it is, along with cancer generally or any slow and painful way of dying, is an abomination, and, to the extent that it’s manmade, also a crime.”
  (tags: science health)