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Just To Let You Know

I mentioned bluelines earlier.

Bluelines are full-color photographic proofs of the magazine's pages. We use them to make sure everything is just as everything should be before that last wild miracle happens, and the book comes back to us all bound and beautiful and you know you love it, you know you need it, don't even think of denying it. We check cutlines and bylines, photo credits and page numbers, headers and footers...

And, of course, we check ad placement. We can't, for instance, allow an ad for Outlaw Audio's very cool-looking new receiver [Man, I want that thing!]…

The Science of Superman

Here's a shock: There ain't all that much. For example, imagine what would happen if Supes did attempt to lift a car by grabbing its roof. Maybe it would have worked back in 1939, but these days?

Excerpt from the book The Science of Superheroes. I suppose it's going to tell me that there's no scientific basis for Spider-Man next.

New Take on an Old Joke

The best blonde joke ever.

Panoramic Tourism

The idea is simple: Stand in one place in a great city and look all around you. The cities I know here look pretty good, I think. Not much besides the "wow" factor, but that's a pretty big "wow."

British Library Treasures

The British Library has posted 15 fabulous titles to its interactive website. Naturally, I'm kind of partial to its Mozart musical diary, but all of 'em are worth looking into. And you can look into 'em—you can "turn" the pages.

Is Caffeine an Aphrodisiac?

For rats, apparently. I've always found liquor quicker—but perhaps I'm only attractive to the inebriated.

The New and Improved Godchecker

I devoured mythology when I was a young'un. I remember being shocked when Marvel began publishing the adventures of the mighty Thor in Journey Into Mystery #82, since the Thor I knew from Norse myths was kind of a dim lout—smart aleck that I was, I identified more with Loki, completely missing how malevolent the trickster god was.

Now that I'm a Neil Gaiman fan, I need a resource like Godchecker just to keep up with all of his pan-cultural references. New and improved, Godchecker now includes the gods of Oceana, Mesopotamia, and a brand new pantheon of "Chinese gods that will knock your…

The April 2006 Edition of Our Little Darling

Okay, now that we've sent the March issue off to become beautiful and real, it's time to move on to the April issue.

"Do we have to?" JA asks.
"Sure, why not?" we reply.

April, of course, means [Shh! Don't say it!] "Recommended Components" [Oh, damn, he said it!].

I sigh. That's right: "Recommended Components," the issue people love to love and love to hate and hate to love and and and. For you, it may be a guide or a resource; for me, it's something much different. For me, it's a mission. A mountain to climb, a wall to knock down, a song to compose, a story to…

The Evolution Store

Believe it or not, I once had a cow-orker say to me, "You know this kind of stuff, where can I rent or buy a human skeleton?" She was right, upon reflection I did know. When we called, the shop asked, "Does it have to be real or will a teaching replica suffice? They're a lot cheaper."

Boing-Boing's Cory Doctorow links today to a Spring St. store that goes one further, it sells reproductions of the fossil remains of early hominids in both teaching quality and museum quality. Want to contemplate Lucy in your own home? How about gazing deep into the eye-sockets of that old fraud, the Piltdown…

How Nerdy Were You in High School?

This is definitely an example of what Alan in Victoria dubs "hard-hitting fluff." Fun though.