*Happy 4th Birthday, Newt!*
(Link above goes to a pic of him from the first couple of days I had him at work... about Oct 21, 1999, I think)
Most recent shot of Newt to his B-day
AVENGERS #71 - NOW RATED MATURE READERS
This morning, Marvel notified retailers that the next issue of Avengers, #71, originally due to be in stores next Wednesday will be delayed until October 15th, and its normal “PSR” rating changed to “MR” or Mature Readers due to adult content.
Marvel’s notification to retailers reads:
At this time, Marvel has decided to delay the ship date of Avengers #71 by one week. The book will now ship on October 15, and will be returnable. Please treat this issue of Avengers as a Mature Readers issue.
While a PSR rated title, this issue of Avengers contains mature content in the story (specifically a sexual situation, and domestic violence) which warrants an even stronger warning. The book was inadvertently not labeled as containing mature content.
Marvel Comics respectfully requests that all Marvel First Look retailers use discretion when deciding to display First Look copies of Avengers #71 (JUL031474D4).
Marvel apologizes for any inconvenience or difficulties that this situation may have caused.
The sexually suggestive scene in question relates to a scene with Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne in bed, with the strong suggestion made, as a moist Pym is miniaturized and crawling up Janet’s body from under the covers that he used his shrinking powers in a manner that was most certainly not related to crime fighting.
The issue also contains a scene where it is revealed that long-time Avengers enemy Whirlwind beats up a prostitute dressed as the Wasp (Van Dyne’s alter ego), confesses that he has always been sexually attracted to her, and then licks her face while she’s unconscious.
This is the first time a mainstream Marvel Universe title has been rated for mature readers, prompting some retailers to voice concerns that, if they are to be conscientious in the retail community, they cannot sell the issue to buyers who are under age, even if it means leaving a gap in their collection.
As one retailer expressed to Newsarama, Marvel assured retailers that when they abandoned the Comics Code they would maintain a consistency within their in-house ratings on a given title, ensuring that there would be no variation in ratings between issues.
The pages of the first scene are below. Click on the thumbnails for larger versions.
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Scientists have discovered fossils of the world's oldest genitals -- belonging to a 400 million-year-old arachnid -- in ancient rocks in Scotland.
The penis of the ancient harvestmen insects, commonly known as a daddy-long-legs, was two-thirds the length of the body and remarkably similar to the modern-day species, New Scientist magazine said.
"The discovery of the world's oldest genitals proves that little has changed over the last 400 million years -- at least for daddy-long-legs," the magazine said.
Jason Dunlop and a team of researchers from Humbolt University in Berlin, Germany, who will present their findings at a conference in Aberdeen, also uncovered a long egg-laying organ called an ovipositor from a female.
"As well as genitals, the fossils have the oldest known arachnid respiratory system, suggesting harvestmen's ancestors had long since crawled out of the sea and learned to breathe," the magazine said Wednesday.
Harvestmen arachnids are sometimes mistaken for spiders but they are more closely related to ticks or mites because they do not spin webs.
The previous oldest penis, which dated back 100 million years and was found in Brazil, belonged an ostracod, an early crustacean related to crabs, shrimps and water fleas.
A new world record has been set by Jim Hager, 47, of Oakland, California. Jim ate 115 M & M Candies, using chopsticks, in 3 minutes. (that's pretty impressive.. but still seems beatable. I wonder how far the bowl has to be from your mouth?)
Marcelo Torres, 22, was riding the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad when the roller coaster derailed inside a tunnel as it was climbing a steep grade. An "unknown, blunt object" caused "blunt force trauma" to his chest and fractured his ribs, leading to laceration of his lungs. Marcelo bled to death before help could arrive. Ten other passengers were injured.
The animal most often hallucinated by someone experiencing drug withdrawal (including alcohol) is a black or gray dog.
Dendrophilia is sex with trees.
Bees are more likely to sting on windy days.
The newest semagic client allows you to download your journal to disk and search it, comfortably. I just finished dumping all 6100+ entries and (comment grabs are currently disabled) to my hard drive. That'll teach me to download the prior update the night before. They're going to use a built-in spell checker rather than word's soon, too.
D&D monster of the moment... in perhaps more in honor of Blackie than of Newt's Birthday, a Displacer beast. Newt's more of an anti-displacer beast, considering that he's generally when I look for him, and easily petted. He does attack well with his teeth and front strikers, though for no appreciable damage.
The displacer beast is a savage and stealthy carnivore that resembles a puma with six legs, glowing green eyes, and two muscular tentacles growing from its shoulders.
A displacer beast has luxurious, blue-black fur and a long, feline body and head. It is the size of a Bengal tiger, about 10 feet long and weighing about 500 pounds. The tentacles end in pads equipped with horny ridges.
Displacer beasts favor small game but will eat anything they can catch. They regard all other creatures as prey and tend to attack anything they meet. They have a deep-seated hatred for blink dogs, and the two attack each other ruthlessly when their paths cross.
Displacer beasts rake opponents with their tentacles and bite foes that get close.
Displacement (Su): A light-bending glamour continually surrounds a displacer beast, making it difficult to surmise the creature's true location. Any melee or ranged attack directed at it has a 50% miss chance unless the attacker can locate the beast by some means other than site. A true seeing affect allows the user to see the beast's position, but see invisibility has no effect.
Ok. Off to do my laundry. Until later, dear journal.
Ahh. Lovely. Laundry done, Newt happily doing doughnuts on the fresh, warm, taut sheets on the bed, and I've got supper in the oven a-cookin'. I need to go back, and update my daily eats entries when I'm not feeling so lazy.
The 'mat was a fine place for me to finish writing a nice long letter to my brother... i was surprised to see that my letter containing magneto returned to me, for insufficient postage. it was launched 10/1, so the circuit was a little slow, considering the distance traveled wasn't too far. If I was *smart* I'd have put his address as the return addy, too. I don't know if that old trick still works.
Ugh... Rick Sanchez is back. I'll be boycotting any channel that has him on it. He ran over a guy while driving drunk, and paralyzed the person... not to mention the whole Elian / 9-11 nightmare / wsvn tabloid TV deal. He is, to my mind, the epitome of what's wrong with "news" today.
Speaking of loopy news and striped cats, hatless mentions More Tigers in the News
Emboldened, perhaps, by the one that landed Roy of "Siegfried and.." fame in the hospital, tigers are on the attack in America's cities. The New York Times checks in with this dispatch from the Bronx:
What the tiger, along with a four- to five-foot reptile called a caiman, was doing inside a cluttered apartment in the Drew Hamilton Houses at Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and 141st Street remained a mystery yesterday.And so continues America's drift into the Third World.
In a news conference at the scene, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said the police became involved in the case on Wednesday when the apartment's resident, Antoine Yates, called to say he had been bitten by a pit bull...
Getting to the tiger, a male, was no simple task. From an apartment on the fourth floor, the police first eased a pole-mounted camera out the window to keep track of him. Meanwhile, on the seventh floor, they prepared a team to rappel down so they would have a clearer view when firing tranquilizer darts to subdue him.
Police Subdue a Tiger in Harlem Apartment
By ALAN FEUER and JASON GEORGE
Published: October 5, 2003
To the sounds of enormous jungle roars, a police sniper rappelled down the side of a Harlem apartment building yesterday and fired tranquilizer darts through an open fifth-floor window to subdue — seat belts, please — a 350-pound Bengal tiger.
The daring, and creative, bit of sharpshooting helped end an episode in which the New York Police Department, unaccustomed to bagging big game, nonetheless managed to sedate the beast. Officials planned to send the tiger, temporarily being held at the Center for Animal Care and Control on 110th Street, to a conservancy in Ohio.
What the tiger, along with a four- to five-foot reptile called a caiman, was doing inside a cluttered apartment in the Drew Hamilton Houses at Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and 141st Street remained a mystery yesterday.
In a news conference at the scene, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said the police became involved in the case on Wednesday when the apartment's resident, Antoine Yates, called to say he had been bitten by a pit bull. When the police went to investigate, Mr. Kelly said, Mr. Yates met them in the lobby. He went to Harlem Hospital with bites on an arm and a leg.
On Thursday, the police got an anonymous tip saying a wild animal was somewhere in the city. On Friday, another call directed them to the exact address. On Friday night, the police found no one home, but talked to a neighbor who complained of large amounts of urine and a strong smell coming through the ceiling, Mr. Kelly said. The neighbor said her daughter had seen the tiger.
Yesterday, the tiger's existence was confirmed. After a hole was cut in the apartment door.
Mr. Yates checked out of Harlem Hospital early yesterday, prompting an inquiry into his whereabouts. But investigators said last night he had been located in Philadelphia, where he was being treated at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. How Mr. Yates got to Philadelphia and the nature of his injuries were unclear. The police said he faced charges of reckless endangerment.
The caiman also was taken to the Center for Animal Care and Control shelter, the police said.
"This is an only-in-New-York story," Mr. Kelly said.
Getting to the tiger, a male, was no simple task. From an apartment on the fourth floor, the police first eased a pole-mounted camera out the window to keep track of him. Meanwhile, on the seventh floor, they prepared a team to rappel down so they would have a clearer view when firing tranquilizer darts to subdue him.
The police also called in animal experts, including Dr. Robert A. Cook, head veterinarian at the Bronx Zoo. Dr. Cook, visibly angry over the cramped conditions in which the tiger prowled, said keeping the creature in such a setting was "crazy."
"If he had escaped it would have been a very bad thing," he said.
It was shortly before 4:30 p.m. when the police sniper, Officer Martin Duffy, armed with a dart gun and a rifle with live ammunition, began to rappel down toward the window. He fired one dart a few minutes later, which drew a knee-shaking roar from inside the apartment.
After a few more minutes it was determined that the tiger had been hit, the police said, but was not yet fully sedated. So Officer Duffy fired another dart.
As hundreds of onlookers gathered on the street, some began to wonder if this urban big cat would get along so well in the less cosmopolitan reaches of Ohio.
"My concern is that the city cat won't make it in the country," said Lynnette Braxton, 49. "He's going to have no jazz, no hip-hop. He's going to miss the Harlem Renaissance."
Help save the Tree Octopus from extinction!
Atlas of the DC universe - Now you can tell where Gotham and Metropolis really are!
Marvel Directory - Welcome to the Marvel Directory, here I am hoping to gather the biggest database that there is on the web. The database will be designed just like the comic book series "The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe." I have the support of the Marvel Fan Site program, this allows me to bring you graphics and Marvel material that they provide and support.
Police offer these helpful tips for those who would engage in the crime of identity theft: First, try very hard not to steal the identity of someone who is a convicted sex offender.
Second, if having stolen and then assumed the identity of someone who turns out to be a sex offender, try very hard thereafter to refrain from domestic disputes that might result in your arrest for disorderly conduct.
That's what James Perry did, police say, and that's why Perry is awaiting an Oct. 10 court appearance on charges of criminal impersonation, with charges of identity theft and forgery pending in a continuing investigation.
In the beginning of the police version of this story, Perry purloined the identity of his neighbor, Raymond Kowalski, in order the obtain a driver's license while living in the state of Florida.
He was motivated to this plan out of skepticism about the possibility of acquiring a license under his own name because of his record of four arrests for driving while intoxicated, police continue.
Evidently, police think, the importance of obtaining a driver's license, and the convenience of Kowalski as a neighbor, outweighed any concerns Perry might have had about swiping the identity of someone he understood was "in some kind of trouble."
Moving to Connecticut about a year ago and taking up residence in the Sunset Motel in Clinton, Perry was able to obtain a Connecticut driver's license and credit cards in Kowalski's name and to carry on a life under the assumed identity of Raymond Kowalski, police say.
The scheme worked well, although Clinton cops who came to know him before his arrest say they always wondered why the guy they knew as Raymond Kowalski was called "Jim" by his friends.
But one day recently, "Kowalski" was arrested for disorderly conduct, after his girl friend dialed the 911 emergency number in the midst of an alleged domestic dispute. Running a routine computer check of his background, police say they were startled to find that "Kowalski" was a convicted sex offender in Michigan and not registered as required with the state of Connecticut.
While every scrap of identification is his possession labeled their man as "Kowalski," the man himself was adamant that he was not a convicted sex offender, police recall.
Finally, a check of his fingerprints with the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed the Clinton "Kowalski" to be James Perry, police said.
As the investigation goes on, police are trying to determine if Perry might have used Kowalski's identification to make purchases in his name, but thus far are unable to interview the victim because the real Kowalski is incarcerated in Michigan.
Perry, initially held on a $35,000 court-set bail after his arrest Wednesday, was released from Middletown Superior Court Thursday on his promise to appear for his next court date.
Asked about the results of his court appearance, a clerk initially couldn't find a James Perry in court computer records. "Does he go by another name?," the clerk asked.
Underwater Vehicle with Muscle Drive - a unique underwater apparatus which is safe, reliable and convenient during operation, which is capable of providing appropriate comfortable conditions of habitation, and allows an unprepared person to undertake an independent underwater voyage without specific risks for him.
An approximate retail price of the UA - 19,000 US dollars. I will really be tempted if this thing ever gets released.
Jack Johnson. His music is 95% acoustic, kind of folksy, and with a hint of Jimmy Buffet. Song samples, videos, and several full-length, live songs. The server seems wonky, but it's worth it when open. I'd heard initially that bubble toes was a sad song, topically, but that turned out to be a rumor. Instead, it's a happy, sweet song that makes me smile.
Victorian Flower Fairy - Mouse Taxidermy
Poor mousie... I hope it had a nice life before being stuffed. Beats being snake food, I imagine.
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