Huge primary colored blocks tiled all over the screen instead of nice wallpaper and the forward thinking (and highly functional) “Super-Taskbar” of Windows 7 seems like a very large and very silly step BACKWARDS to me. And yes I do realize that the desktop is still there and usable….but the silly pre-school looking Metro Start Screen being the first thing you have to look at after login is enough to make this pixel loving Windows guy fear for the future of the platform. As much as I hate to say it Metro is making MAC OSX look better and better.

His cover art for 1981′s King Conan #6 is one of my favorite’s. I love the bold colors and perspective with all the bodies and the over turned wine jug in the foreground as Conan stands warily dripping broadsword in hand with the conniving Thanara hanging from his neck. I wish I would have had a copy of THIS book with me when I ran into Walt at the convention! (click below for 1920×1200 wallpaper)

After 3 issues of Marvel Feature they got their own book in 1972:

The Defenders were always Marvel’s odd-ball team – if you can call them a true team at all. In fact they were referred to as the “NON-Team” -ONLY called together when something really big/bad threatened the earth. The original core members were Dr. Strange (more or less the leader of the group), the Hulk and Namor the Sub-Mariner. A little later Norse beauty the Valkyrie joined as well as Nighthawk. Over the years many different super-heroes quit and joined some officially and many non officially, a partial list would include Power Man (Luke Cage), Hell-Cat, Tigra, Silver Surfer, Son of Satan, Gargoyle, Moondragon & Daredevil. In contrast to the more main-stream Avengers book many of the Defenders story-lines involved the supernatural and various demonic beings. Several of the early issues tackled racism and actually had the team fighting white supremacists (ya gotta love Steve Gerber)!

Now that I have them all I’m reading them straight through in order. I’m about 30 issues in now and I stopped to read Giant Size issue 1 and the title’s 1st (and only) King-Sized Annual. 1974′s Giant Size #1 is a 68 page square-bound volume that reprints some material from Incredible Hulk #3, Sub-Mariner #41, Strange Tales #145 & Fantastic Four Annual #5. Stringing the reprinted stories together is new material where Dr. Strange’s protege Clea brings up images from the character’s past to help Valkyrie understand her team-mates better. It’s a clever idea but the coolest part for me was getting to see some early art by the great Jim Starlin. Check out this panel (click for larger scan)for a sample:

Clea and Valkyrie never looked more voluptuous!

So it dawned on me a couple of weeks ago that I haven’t been able to find barbecued flavor Fritos anywhere in what must be 6 months or more. So I did a little Googling and one of the first hits was this Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-WANT-MY-BBQ-Fritos/164702786899903

It turns out that for some bizarre reason Frito Lay has this weird “distribution black-out” with that one specific flavor. Whole or partial states are completely left off the deliver list but ONLY for that flavor. It’s very strange. Like for example around here (47714 zip, Evansville, IN) ALL you will find in stores are: Original, Chili-Cheese and those silly Honey BBQ Twist things. Frankly I don’t even count the twists as “real Fritos”. And the Chili-Cheese are good for about 5 crunches and then they start to make kinda nauseous. For me it’s gotta be the BBQ! So clearly I HAD to find the BBQ. I wanted some before but now that I learn some “blackout” is keeping them from me….well it was time for a Quest! So naturally I first hit the web. I did find a few online vendors that would sell me a case at an “OK” price. But a case isn’t really what I wanted as I do eat healthy now on all but two days out of the week. Eventually I ended up here:

http://www.fritolay.com/our-snacks/where-to-buy.html

My first trip I tried the closest hits on the map and they had ZERO of the elusive BBQ variant despite Frito Lay corp saying they did. I was not happy! Yesterday I expanded the search to include Owensboro, KY. And I am happy to report success! I scored 6 full size bags at the following location:

“Hometown IGA store #21″ 201 Carter Rd, Owensboro, KY 42301

It did take a 40 minute drive but they were on sale 2 for $4.00.

I just wanted to share my find for any more BBQ Frito starved souls out there! They DO still make ‘em -you just may have to take a drive depending on where you live.

My big awesome HP LP2475w 1920×1200 24 inch LCD monitor started having a strange black streak faintly visible on the right side of the screen image but only against certain pastel colors. Well this is no cheap TN LCD panel so I figured it would have some warranty left. So I called HP.

Well after a LOT of back & forth over the phone with about 6 different HP (and HP subcontractor) reps they finally managed to get the replacement monitor too me. Although this was a Business Level Warranty deal three out of the six folks I talked to over the phone were quite obviously in some third world nation & I could barely understand ANYTHING they said. And don’t get me wrong I’m NOT one of those people that always say crap like that and revel in making fun of “foreigner speak”. I can normally understand VERY thick accents. After all I did grow up on Monty Python and Morecambe & Wise. Also my first boss at the TJX Distribution Center back in 1986 was Peruvian and virtually none of the local workers here in Evansville, Indiana could understand him. I was (not exaggerating here) his “translator” at the start of each shift. He would tell everyone what to do and then the group would look at me and Jacinto would say: “Larry – you tell them”. Seriously.

Anyway these guys I could NOT understand. Clearly HP is behind Dell in the area of “choosing good Bangalore phone clerks” department!

During the initial conversations with HP they actually insisted that I have an in-home Service Tech “install” my replacement monitor!

How does one “install” a monitor???

I thought that was pretty insane but he wouldn’t have it any other way. But over the course of the next few days I got calls from other HP reps and HP delivery reps and eventually I did get one to change the order to a delivery only & this person was also a little confused that the first HP rep wanted to have someone “install” a monitor! It took me a week to get the replacement even though HP sent it down Next Day air to the local HP reps. They could only give me a delivery window during hours that I work my day-shift job when no one is at home so they had to hold the thing until Friday (my day off). Why they couldn’t allow me to come pick the thing up I will never know since the place they shipped it to seemed to be right here in my town. CRAZY.

Equally crazy is the way I kept getting calls from other continents that kept getting my address wrong. They botched the zip code 3 times and wanted to send my replacement to “Sulfur, Indiana” instead of Evansville, Indiana. I corrected them 3 times and three time they continued to give the local delivery people the WRONG address! Why couldn’t the delivery people that are in the SAME CITY as I AM simply deal with me directly? Eventually they did and I did get my replacement screen.

And it’s a beauty! I ran a free app called “Dead Pixel Buddy” to help me look for flaws and I found NONE. My old unit had 7,999 hours on the backlight. The info screen reports 2 hours on this one as of right now -which is pretty odd since It’s been on since I got it unpacked at around 10:00 am this morning (it’s now 5:09 PM). Anyone know why that is? Part of the time it was asleep but still. Does the backlight counter only update after a power off/on cycle? I don’t know. I will have to Google that I suppose.

So here I am switching again. That is dumping the traditional 32 page stapled comic book in favor of hard cover and softcover collected editions. Of course I’m only doing this for NEW comics. I still prefer the original format for the old stuff. But honestly about 95% of everything written in comics today is really intended for the collected format. They read BEAUTIFULLY in nice collected arcs (typically 4-12 issues or 88 to 260 pages). I will continue to complete the great old stuff like Werewolf By Night, Tomb of Dracula, etc. in “real” “comic book” comic form. But as of now I’m out of the 32 pager for $2.99 -3.99 cover price business. It just had to be done. It should save me a bit of space in the ComicBook Room and maybe even a bit of money -but NOT MUCH. Lets take a look at a cost breakdown for the typical newish comicbook run:

Marvel’s Avengers Volume One (2009) this collects the 2009 series issues 1-6. Amazon has it right now for $16.49 (34% off of cover price) Cover price is $24.99. This is for the hardcover. The math on this comes out to about 12.5 cents a page (Amazon) or 18.9 cents a page at standard retail list.

IF you had bought the same story as they came out in 32 page (22 without ads) chunks it would have cost you about 13.5 cents a page (at $2.99 cover price) or 8.13 cents a page (@40% off by PRE-Ordering online).

Another option is the Trade Paperback (softcover) collected format. The math on this is 10.29 cents a page (Amazon) or 15.14 cents a page (retail list).

Just looking at the raw math the 32 pager pre-ordered online from an etailer like DCBS seems to be the clear winner. BUT there are hidden costs (at least for ME) in the form of Bags and Boards. Hardcover books if moderately cared for have a nice long life sitting on a normal shelf. Tradepaperbacks aint so bad either. But “real” comicbooks need a fair amount of “care and feeding”. They need a proper box/lid and they also need a board and a bag. If you use ANYTHING other than Mylar you are just making a bad situation worse and in time (5-20 years depending on various factors) that cheap plastic bag will degrade, yellow and eventually start to destroy your books. I put all my comics in Mylite2s from E.Gerber. I buy in lots of 500. Even at this quantity they ADD about 30 cents an issue or 1.36 cents a page (only counting story pages here).

So the single 32 pager pre-ordered online is STILL cheapest at 9.49 cents a page (this now includes a nice Mylar bag & board). But this does NOT put a dollar figure on the Pain in the Ass factor. I’m talking about the time and labor of messing around with bags and board, boxes and lids and all that jazz. Sure its “fun” for a while but in time it does get old. And let me tell you mylar bags are NOISY. When one is trying to read a comic or two at night when the wife’s asleep you DO NOT want to be rattling a crispy/crinkly mylite bag! Trades and hardcover are virtually silent in comparison!

Now all the calculations above were assuming we are dealing with the $2.99 cover price of the typical modern comicbook. Sadly many comics are now $3.99 and many more soon will be. The math on this is:

10.86 (naked without bag or board) pre-ordered online or 18.13 (naked -standard cover price)

WOW

Shipping -lets not forget the shipping cost. Amazon has free shipping for all orders over $24.99. This is easily met so effectively my hardcovers and trades will have NO SHIPPING charge. At DCBS I currently pay $6.25 per month for UPS ground – a good deal to be sure but this adds (averaging book numbers here) about 16 cents an issue or .75 a story page. Not a lot but a little.

And don’t even get me started on how much Pain in the Ass factor is added by having to order all your comics months in advance. Trust me it sucks.

Amazon.com here I come.

The last few days for some reason I’ve been on a mini quest to learn about the Mac. Call me “bi-curious” computer wise I guess!

Anyway I watched a few videos on the Apple site that explained how to do common stuff on a PC and then showed the equivalent on a Mac. So now I am quite knowledgeable on the basic GUI and stuff. I feel like I could now sit in front of a current Mac and go straight into anything I would need. My impressions:

1) GUI -beautiful! That Dock is a work of friggin art!

2) Animations – all the eye candy effects as you open/close/minimize stuff is crazy impressive!

3) The hardware itself is friggin’ BEAUTIFUL. Aluminum. Thin. Nice. Again elegant works of ART.

Then I went to the store side and pretended to buy one. This is where my brief love affair ENDED. That stuff is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over-priced. Of course we have all known this for some time but the price difference doesn’t really hit home until you see it loaded up in the cart staring you in the face. It is in a word – INSURMOUNTABLE.

The cheapest Mac is the Mac Mini at $699.99 for 700 bucks you get:

2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
2GB RAM (LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
320GB HD (Gee I didn’t known they still made many that small)
GeForce 320 graphics

The cheapest Mac portable and also something very similar in size to my Netbook is the Mac Air 11 inch at $999.99

* 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
* 2GB memory
* NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics
* 64GB Flash Storage (No HD I guess)

And one odd thing to note – NO ETHERNET PORT. What the hell??????????? The cheapest Netbook has an Ethernet port but not this pricey Mac?? WHY??

Clearly the specs on the Macbook Air 11 inch are far superior to my Acer 10 inch Netbook. But my Acer only cost $248.00 (+32.00 for an additional 1GB of RAM). At 3x the price is the Mac 3x the machine????????

Much better CPU -YES
Same RAM -NO
Better graphics -YES
Faster but WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY less storage (I have 160GB) -NO

So I dunno maybe the 11 incher IS worth $1,000.00 but if you are a middle-lower classed joe can you afford to spend a grand on a tiny portable?

On the desktop side the Apple Tax is much more apparent as the PC walks all over any thing Apple has to offer when you factor in the cost versus performance. So switching to the Mac isn’t something many people can probably afford to do. But I do have to admit the next time I look at portables I will take a hard look at the Air series. That’s probably all I will do but I WILL look.

http://lrpctech.com/filez/list.html

Now keep in mind the above version is one I did some slight editing to in order to fit more in smaller spaces. I changed the font size and cleaned up a few extraneous formatting bits and that helped a lot. But the resulting file is still a real bitch to navigate on an iPod sized screen.

I’ve tried with various phones and iPods and they all SUCKED. I had the best luck with an Amazon Kindle (and that after running it through a Mobi Pocket creator converter app). But while the Kindle displayed it nicely the eReader’s d-pad control is pretty slow and “clunky”. Next I bought the new Nook Color 7 inch eReader/Android Tablet. This has a gorgeous IPS LCD screen running 1024×600:

I had really high hopes for this but even at 1024×600 the letter navigation bar at the top of my report was pretty unusable (couldn’t accurately click letters). And I made a somewhat disgusting discovery – Touchscreens are NASTY! I will NEVER get used to touchscreens! It’s so gross. My OCD kicks into overdrive with these! I spent more time trying to wipe skin oil and particles of dirt off the screen then I did reading it! I can’t stand someone touching my monitors and I enjoy smearing oils from my own skin on one of these just about as much! It’s just gross. Touchscreens are NOT for me.

So I took back the Nook Color and for the SAME $250.00 I got a 10 inch Acer Aspire Netbook running the same 1024×600 resolution:

Even with the abbreviated screen size this tiny laptop has no problems displaying/navigating my list. I imagine that’s because unlike iPods, phones and tiny tablets it’s running a REAL Operating System (Windows) and therefore can use the proper programs to get the job done. Of course I wouldn’t wanna use something like this for “serious” work or even to replace my 15 inch laptop but for my specific purpose (and I suspect many many other things) it works great. I have Windows 7 Home Premium running on mine (it came with Win7 Starter but I formatted the thing as soon as I got it out of the box and did my own setup) & it even runs Windows Aero desktop beautifully with it’s rather modest specs:

1024×600 on a 10 inch screen
Intel Atom N450 1.66ghz
1 gig of DDR2 RAM
Intel 3150 graphics
160 gig hard drive

And best of all – no wiping grease all over the screen just to use it!