The sixth and final volume of Narbonic by Shaenon Garrity, covering the last year of the strip. New bonus story by Garrity and Andrew Farago, introduction by famous writer-type Gail Simone, cover art by Tiff Hudson, published by yours truly.

Now available at Shaenon’s web site for $14, so go forth and purchase. (She’s also selling them at Wondercon this weekend, if you’re in San Francisco.)

NY Times has an excellent flash app charting the rise and fall of housing prices in 20 US cities. It’s interesting to note cities like Denver and Charlotte, which somehow avoided both large boom and bust, and Detroit, which never boomed but is in freefall anyway. You see the biggest roller coasters from the usual suspects — LA, Vegas, Phoenix. Seattle and Portland boomed later than everywhere else and busted later, too.

The one that annoys me is New York, my new home, which went along for the boom ride, but has had only half the average drop during the bust. That means homes are still artifically overpriced here, which jibes with our recent real estate searches. We make pretty good money combined, yet even a modest home in the area is out of our safe monthly price range.

Since the financial industry is centered here, you’d think NY’s drop would be larger than average, not half. But I suppose it makes sense once you realize that the industry was hit as a result of foreclosures elsewhere — ie, afterwards — so NY’s bust may be lagging the nation for that reason.

I wonder, too, if the massive transfer of government money to the banking industry is helping keep prices afloat…

Oh, I had forgotten I entered this — Daily Kos posted the complete results of its 2008 election prognostication contest. I landed at #703 out of about 9000 entrants, which is not too shabby considering my House numbers were a total guess.

I did better than every dKos editor except brownsox at #653. Kos himself was #5,378, but I think he was being intentionally over-optimistic in his predictions.

I want to punch an 82-year-old man in the face.

Some of you may be upset at me for that. (Others may be turned on, in which case I say, keep it to yourselves.) In my defense, the octogenarian in question is Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan, whose disastrous tenure as Fed Chairman helped cause the current economic crisis that is costing us dearly in lost jobs, new debt, and general misery, and may lead to a Global Depression.

The quotes from Greenspan that inspired this current round of impotent rage can be found in this interview excerpt. For those of you who aren’t interested in another economic rant, I’ll hide the rest of this blog entry after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a pretty accurate depiction of Trader Joes, or at least the ones on the West Coast that are stocked full of Charles Shaw and Sir Strawberry. (And apparently Smirnoff’s vodka, although I’ve never seen that before.)

This reminds me of the three weeks I spent getting my Tivo to work…


Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work

This weekend was New York Comic-Con, the much younger sibling of the big show in San Diego, having begun only in 2006. As an east coast neophyte, I had never been to NYCC, and I was curious to see how it compared.

Unfortunately, I managed to turn the experience into a case study in how NOT to plan for a con. I scored a free weekend pass from Transcontinental, the Canadian company that prints Narbonic collections, and figured I would buy a Saturday ticket for Kristie on that morning. Unfortunately, the night before, the Saturday tickets rose to $50 and then promptly sold out. Dammit.

So then I figured I’ll just drop by the show for the afternoon before meeting with friends for drinks in the evening. Apparently, I showed up exactly when the con floor became crowded to the point of claustrophobia. The hallway to the panel auditoriums was blocked by a wall of humanity. Friday and early Saturday? Plenty of space to walk around and peruse the booths, from what I’m told. I lasted all of two hours before escaping the con.

The only panel I would have gone out of my way to see was Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse screening, but that was on Sunday, and I couldn’t imagine making the train commute into the city again just for that.

The upsides? The Javits Center’s food court absolutely rules over San Diego’s convention center, and Transcontinental’s “pros only” area was pretty sweet, with water, popcorn, and (most importantly) empty chairs. Not a fantastic show, but I can see trying it next year, with proper planning — tickets in advance and a day off on Friday, for example.

All is forgiven. Let’s never fight again. Sincerely — me.

John Rogers is circulating the idea for a phrase that means “unjumping the shark,” ie, when a TV series appeared to be creatively dead only to come back better than ever. That phrase is “going back to the island,” in reference to how good Lost has been since the boring lows of season 2 and early season 3.

Assuming it ends well, I put forth that Galactica jumped the shark with the Dylan-fueled revelation of the Final Four, then went back to the island with the current crop of season 4.5 episodes. (Without spoiling for those who watch on DVD.)

Note that both Lost and Galactica are rare series that now have definite endpoints in mind (31 and 7 more episodes left, respectively). Coincidence?