We start out being distracted by fond memories of those giant JC Penny’s magazines that used to come right about now and start the Xmas madness for us as kids. Not to mention the underwear section when we were a little older…

I’m foolish to want a BluRay player when I don’t even have an HDTV, but I’m forward-thinking, obviously. I figure now that I have a 360, it’s only a matter of time before I get a PS3. And then an HDTV will fall into my lap somewhere along the line!

Webcomics.com is the new site by the guys from Half-Pixel. We fully support 3/4 of that crew.

Yeah, my love for Matt Fraction is wildly inappropriate. Don't tell Kelly Sue.

Wizard of Oz was fantastic, but tonight (Monday the 27th), we’ll be heading to Penn Cinema to see Ghostbusters, and you’re all welcome to join us. We loves us some Penn Cinema!

HappyJack (& his crew) have been busting their asses over at Leadslinger Studios, and they’ve got a ton of new projects coming out. 2009 is going to be the year of Leadslinger!

I want to contribute a few stories to Leadslinger, but I’m really haunted by the failure to really gain traction in the mainstream of folks like Jason Becker, DJ Coffman, Jeff McComsey, Jorge Vega and so many other creators we’ve gotten to know. These are folks that put out fantastic work but never really seem to get the accolades they deserve. While they’re certainly not toiling away in obscurity, they’re not the Names that people look for they way they do for Fraction, Slott, Ellis, etc. It’s disheartening to see people whose work I really admire and who I could only hope to be nearly as good as do poorly - it makes you wonder what chance at all you would stand getting into the fray. Or at least it makes ME wonder about MY chances.

And speaking of Becker - if you didn’t already know, there’s a masked vigilante running around his town. So if you were thinking about committing crimes there, be warned.

It’s true - we do now have a bang bus. The thing’s MASSIVE, befitting the status of a vehicle tasked with hauling our asses around. But it’s got a power lift and plenty of room for Kwipette to get her shiny new power wheelchair in without any problems, so we’re definitely giving it a thumbs-up, even if it does consume more gas than a race car. We have dubbed it the “Leviathan” (or Levi for short).

Finally, don’t forget - this Friday, the 31st, is our HaLOLw33n party broadcast! Join the N3RDs & friends as we discuss the scariest movies, comics, books & stories that we’ve come across. Mike from ReelSplatter films will be joining us, and we might hear from a couple special guests. It will be broadcast right here LIVE via our Stickam channel, so you can join in the chat room. We start at 9pm and run till midnight, when we’ll be summoning the dread lord Cthulhu!

Titles we spoil this week include: DC UNIVERSE HALLOWEEN 08, FINAL CRISIS #4, INVINCIBLE #54, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #574, CAPTAIN AMERICA #43, DAREDEVIL #112, NEW AVENGERS #46, NEW WARRIORS #17, SECRET INVASION #7, SECRET INVASION AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #3, THUNDERBOLTS #125, and X-FACTOR #36.

Music included today:

Bare Naked Ladies - “Celebrity”
ElectroLord - “Over the Rainbow Techno Remix”
Bobby ‘Boris’ Picket - “Monster Mash”
LazyBoy - “We Only Read the Headlines”

DJ Coffman served up Kurtz a big bowl of bitch slap, and we painfully discuss it. Painful, because I really did like Kurtz, but he’s just been acting like SUCH an asshat that it’s impossible for me to either like him or approve of how he’s been behaving. It’s one thing to be ridiculous for the sake of being funny, but this arrogance - I just don’t know where the sense of entitlement comes from. But the tshirt is pretty damn awesome.

Leadslinger Studios finally updated their site. Still no naked pics yet, but we’ll keep on them.

We do abuse Zac to no end, but it’s hilarious.

Dr. Sexy found this great article about Dan Slott. I would have read it, but Dan and I spend all night talking on the phone (what with being BFF), so I figured I know everything he had to say.

Titles we spoil this week: FABLES #77, FLASH #245, JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #19, SPIRIT #22, SUPER FRIENDS #8, TITANS #6, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #573, ASTONISHING X-MEN #27, DEADPOOL #2, MIGHTY AVENGERS #19, MOON KNIGHT #23, UNCANNY X-MEN #503, GHOSTBUSTERS THE OTHER SIDE #1, GRANT MORRISONS DOCTOR WHO #1, PRESIDENTIAL MATERIAL BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENTIAL MATERIAL JOHN MCCAIN, GEORGE R R MARTINS WILD CARDS #4 HARD CALL, MARVEL ZOMBIES 3 #1, DEADPOOL #3, WALKING DEAD #53, DEADWORLD #1 SLAUGHTERHOUSE.

Also, I offer oral to Matt Fraction, because his X-Men is THAT GOOD. Seriously. (Which is different from when I normally offer it to him just cuz he’s such a cutie.) If you were a fan of the Chris Claremont X-Men days, you really need to be reading this book (Scott, I’m looking RIGHT at you!).

We’re only hinting at it now, but make sure you clear your calendars for Halloween night. We’ll start our live broadcast at 9pm, and it will be an all-horror show (and by that I mean, at some point, we’ll show our asses on the webcam). We’ve got a bunch of folks coming for the show, and it’s gonna be a real hoot. Seriously. HOOT.

Trevor, Dr. Sexy and I sit down to discuss some of our questions about Warhammer. Listening to the questions I have, you’ll surmise that I have never actually played Warhammer, but honest, I have a couple characters I can display as proof. Granted, none of them has made it past (or to, at this point) level 10, so obviously I don’t know wtf I’m talking about.

I was puzzled as to why Magii seem to get targetted so often, but Trevor and Sexy clarified it for me: because I’m an easy kill. That actually makes me feel better - I’m getting killed just because I’m an easy target, not because there’s something effective I should be doing but have no idea how to do.

I really love Public Quests and think that they are completely brilliant, but damn, some of those bastiches are hard. But that’s good - it makes them a lot more challenging. I just wish they could scale so that they were HARD but not IMPOSSIBLE when I’m the only one there.

Speaking of Public Quests, Dr. Sexy brought up a good point about the loot bags. I didn’t even know they were randomly assigned - I thought each scenario always produced the same ones, but Trevor sets us straight.

None of us know how to leave scenarios, however. Is it even possible?

And speaking of scenarios, has anyone heard that there are bannable exploits in them? Or at least, ones as lame as banning people that climb on the barracks in Nordenwatch? If that’s a bannable offense, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard - you can still hit people on those barracks, and if you don’t want people to be able to get on them, MAKE THEM IMPOSSIBLE TO GET ON. Is it really that hard? Are they banning people that climb on the walls in the fortress? Dumb.

Dr. Sexy has a collection of talismans, but apparently isn’t able to use any of them. I haven’t even seen one of them yet, so I certainly aren’t any help, but Trevor again stepped up with the answers.

If you haven’t heard about it yet, check out Raptr.com. I know at least Dr. Sexy, Tathas, Bini and I are all on it, so if you’re there, give us a /friend.

The gang got back from The Field of Screams, so everyone piled on the Kwiplings bed to join in the hilarity of taping a N3RDCast. So that means there’s about five conversations at once going on, but lots of good laughs as we discuss Renn Faire plans, Dr. Sexy getting moist, drugged out 15-year olds and men climbing into Kwipette’s uterus. Fascinating stuff, really. I’ll never go with Kwipette to the female parts doctor again. Which spawns more obgyn stories. Josie gets pretty shrill, so be warned. It’s pure horror, so it’s appropriate warm-up for the Halloween story.

We all have the sniffles, too. That makes for good radio.

We also briefly touch on DJ Coffman and his new best friend, Luigi. What a strange, strange tale.

Geek Savants have been doing a really cool series on their favorite Halloween monsters, so check that out.

KomicsKast finally got off their duff and did a new BoP. About time! Honestly, Bruce…

Dan Slott’s taking over the Mighty Avengers, so we’re pretty excited about that. What with me being Dan’s BFF, of course.

Dr. Sexy brought to our attention one of the worst navigations ever.

Matt Fraction is awesome as everyone already knows, but this is a great article.

Oh! Bonus points for me bringing the show to a screeching halt by using the dreaded “C” word on Kwipette. You can actually hear Caitlin turning bright red right in the recording, it’s awesome! Apparently nobody found it as hilarious as Kwipette and I did. But we’re weird like that, what can I say.

If you haven’t watched the Max Payne trailer, you might want to check it out, I really love the looks of it. Which means it’s probably gonna be horrible.

Goon on soda pop bottles is pretty damn cool.

We wind up with a VERY brief recap of our trip to Faire. The Sexretary scored us tons of free Renn Faire tickets, so she won’t get called nasty names.

We interrupt our regular time-flow of the progression of the apocalypse here to address a worst-case scenario: the zombies have spotted you and broken into your house. What can you do to hold them off? Are you automatically doomed? Are there any ways out of a zombie-crowded house?

SHOULD YOU HIDE IN THE BASEMENT?

Redwalker and I lend our formidable wisdom towards this scenario and give you advice on your last hope for survival when your home is being overrun. For starters, you better live in a two-story house!

After a long period of seclusion, we finally come together to face the shame and embarrassment that resulted from our behaviors at the 2008 Baltimore Comic Con. Well, not so much “our” behaviors as MY behaviors. I got EMBARRASINGLY drunk in Baltimore. Truly shameful. Even worse, I videotaped some of it to ensure I’ll always remember what an idiot I can be.

I can’t say enough good things about the folks we were hanging with. The gang from PLB Comics are ALWAYS great to hang out with, and really made for lovely dinner company (after we chased poor Dave Kellet and his friend). They also displayed MUCH more common sense, because THEY returned to their hotel room and had a nice, restful evening.

Jorge Vega, Dominic Vivona, Jeff McComsey and L. Jámal Walton - along with the guys from Digital Pimp - were our unfortunate subjects later that night. I can only hope they had a good time and we (well, I) wasn’t as horribly obnoxious as I’m afraid I was. Well, at least Dr. Sexy was mostly sober, and HappyJack was actually talking business with them. My role was to laugh uproariously and headbutt the wall. Important job, that one.

Dr. Sexy also finally managed to get through Dave Dwonch’s Special Education, which he picked up at the CGS Super Show. Dave’s part of the Geek Savant crew, so read his book AND give them a listen - I promise if you like us, you’ll like them.

I was pimping CBQ and Q!PaW for the Podcast Awards, but nominations are over, so never mind. Whoops. I’m such a good friend!