The BBC points out something I thought was pretty obvious in this headline:

Oh, they mean the birds! I knew that….

Via Cronaca

I missed this incident during the weekend series with the Pirates, sounds serious. We can only hope this convinces them to more careful in the future.

A new contender in the Summer of Fear challenge for 2008, the Coyote. His plot foiled by a Nanny, that is a big come down from being foiled by the Road Runner in my opinion.

Super Villains Inc. Comic Store, originally uploaded by gleefulgecko.

This is the boy out in front of Super Villains Inc. Comic Shop in Nottingham, MD. where we celebrated Free Comic Book Day 2008. We got some comics autographed by Jeff Parker, one of our favorite comic writers and I got my hardback of Agents of Atlas signed and a nice sketch put in it as well. Jeff Parker was great with kids and got my son talking, normally he tries to hide when meeting comics pros as his shy side comes out. We both got a healthy pile of free comics and I bought some comics I missed when they came out as well. You can see some of our other photos from the celebration at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gleefulgecko/sets/72157604863503738/ . How did your Free Comic Book Day go?

Ok, Last reminder that tomorrow is the greatest of American Holidays, Free Comic Book Day. For a good review of the comics on offer check out (postmodernbarney.com) which has a nice wrap up and gives you an idea of the variety of comic books on offer. If you can read, there is a book for you. For some shop recommendations near the Washington D.C. area click on.

Read the rest of this entry »

Nationals Park, originally uploaded by gleefulgecko.

OK, I did the Orioles the other day now it was the Nationals turn for a great baseball game. The game was great, tied 1-1 into the 12th when the Braves went up 2-1, The Nats came back and won the game 3-2. Very fun. My first trip to the new stadium and I think it is pretty nice. Easy walk from Metro, good seating layout and overall a nice feel to the park. It was pretty quiet, it was an afternoon game with a smallish crowd but everyone seemed to pull for the team and we got to see the Braves fans leave early after their pitcher walked in the tying run in the 12th.

Ballpark food was pricey and the service was pretty poor, but hopefully they will get better as the season goes on. I was unaware of how difficult is really is to get a hot dog into a bun, apparently a team of three was needed. Who knew?

Overall I still prefer Camden Yards, but I have to say Nationals Park is pretty nice. Thanks to John and Mattie for having Charles and I along.

I have been lax on the recent spate of shark attack stories in the news and I apologize. At first it was because the stories were reasonably written, no hysteria and Summer of Fear is all about hysteria. Anyhow, I slipped up so here is a shark eating a guy off the coast of Mexico. There, I feel better now.

They are teaching bears Kung-Fu in Japan. We are doomed.

Via Mightygodking

Also When Celebrity Bears Kill

So lets say you are a principaled music fan, you only buy legal music online and the whole Digital Rights Management thing never really bothered you. You bought a ton of music from Microsoft, they are the biggest guys in town so you know you are risk free right? Right. Microsoft is about to turn off the servers that have to authorize your music, they cost money to run you know Microsoft doesn’t have any of that, and once they are off you are out of luck the next time you change computers or a hard drive your music is dead forever. Don’t take it badly though, they really appreciate your business. Sucker….

Edited to Add: Microsoft explains, its just too hard and we didn’t really want to do it in the first place and it only effects a few people and you can just make lousy copies and yadda yadda yadda. Sucker.

This is an interesting story I missed in the Guardian, but Cronaca didn’t, about the stone circles of Gobekli Tepe which have been dated about 7,000 years earlier than Stone Henge in pre-agricultural history. Nothing that sophisticated has been found from that far back.

Compared with Stonehenge, they are humble affairs. None of the circles excavated (four out of an estimated 20) are more than 30 metres across. T-shaped pillars like the rest, two five-metre stones tower at least a metre above their peers. What makes them remarkable are their carved reliefs of boars, foxes, lions, birds, snakes and scorpions, and their age. Dated at around 9,500BC, these stones are 5,500 years older than the first cities of Mesopotamia, and 7,000 years older than Stonehenge.

The Wikipedia article has some more good info as well as some pictures.