Will Hines Dot Net

One of my favorite web sites: Astronomy Picture of the Day, not just for the incredible photographs, but for the sparse web layout. Nothing fancy. You can “view source” and see a clean web page the way 1996 intended it. Yeah, yeah. All right.

Also, I never really was aware of this, but Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes signified two different types of cartoons for a while. Also, the rings around the WB logo at the start of those cartoons indicated what year it was. I love CODES!

Mark Evanier’s “Incessantly Asked Questions,” linked in the previous paragraph, is a fun page all by itself.

Hello, folks. I had the privilege of starring in “Sexual Intercourse: American Style,” the epic show written and directed by Mitch Magee for Channel 102. The videos are on YouTube if that’s the medium you prefer:

http://www.youtube.com/mitchmagee

The show was canceled one episode before it ended. So Mitch made the final episode and is having a screening/party to show it (edited to add: he’s gonna show all 8 episodes, ending with the new one):

Thursday at 9:00
Union Hall, Park Slope Brooklyn
702 Union Street at 5th Ave.

If you like the show, check it out.

Uploaded an old video to YouTube. Mitch and I made this with Jeff Blackman in Sept. 2002 for our UCBT sketch show “Citizen Nuts.”

[youtube 0DOkfDnNesg Nuts Punched]

In honor of the release of Spider-Man 3 — let us discuss Steve Ditko, Spidey’s original artist and co-creator who remains virtually unknown outside of the comics world. He is a giant to comics geeks for creating Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, but he’s also famous for essentially dropping out of mainstream comics in the mid-1960s, refusing to give interviews to this day. He’s kinda the J.D. Salinger of superhero comics.

Spider-Man debuted in 1962. In those issues Stan Lee is credited as writer and Steve Ditko as artist. Knowing only this, you would conclude that Stan was the idea man, and Ditko merely a draftsman. But at Marvel Comics in the [...]

The best part of working in midtown Manhattan: never having to wait in line for a long time at the deli. These delis have the most impressively fast set of sandwich-makers and cashiers I’ve seen. It’s oddly satisfying to see a long line of people be processed quickly, and they have it down to a science. Places where lines move fast: Dunkin’ Donuts, License Xpress at 34th street, Whole Foods at Union Square. Place where lines do NOT move quickly: Duane Reade, Gristedes and most Starbucks.

These conclusions drawn on pure anecdotal hunch, with zero actual research to back them up.

One thing that I don’t need to test in order to prove: how irritated I get upon seeing a bank [...]

Last night, I lifted the seat to my toilet to see an enormous cockroach floating in the basin. One quick shriek later I wondered how it GOT there? Did it swim up from the sewer? Did it crawl up the outside of the toilet and squeeze its appalling self through the crack under the seat? Was it that desperate for water? Since it was enormous and I rarely see roaches of ANY size in my apartment I assume it came from the outside.

Separate point: I am Freedying on “Steppin’ Out” by Joe Jackson.