Via Wired: Maybe you and your nerdnificant other really are on the same wavelength!

Serious stuff from BG’s alterego, capeless, on GritTV.

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Further/background reading here.

It’s sort of a “spa day” in hell: a new store in a Chinese mall where women — only women — can go to vent their rage by literally picking up a bat and breaking sh*t. Apparently their frustrations are mainly job[lessness] and economy-related, but of course we can imagine (though perhaps not support) the grand opening of their sister store, Break Your Ex’s Sh*t. I do have some questions, though:

1. Where are the men, going, then? (Naive, probably: I’m guessing that women have fewer societally-sanctioned alternatives for letting all hella loose.)

2. Do we have such places here? According to the comments at Jezebel (h/t for the story), the answer is yes.

3. If you were to open such a place of business, what would you stock it with and why?

(via Jess3 blog)– New plugin The Ex-blocker, designed by the Jess 3 agency, gives jilted lovers the opportunity to create a Spotless Mind, or at least a spotless internet environment, free from any triggering exposure to their exes.

The app, which works with Chrome and Firefox, can not only remove your ex’s name from Twitter and Facebook, but from the entire intertubez if you so desire.

Is such an obliteration of reality healthy?

Melysha Jane Acharya, author of  The Breakup Workbook: A Common Sense Guide to Getting Over Your Ex opined to BreakupGirl.net: “The internet can provide an open window into an ex’s life. Choosing to use this app means you’re making an active choice to get over your former love and move forward with your life.”

Sounds good to us. We may apply it to certain other popular terms we need a break from: “vuvuzela,” “Lindsay Lohan,” “Post-T-Vac,” etc.

In an astute piece for the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Austin Grossman poses the question Wonder Woman’s New Costume: Superhero Fail? He’s all in favor of a makeover, and even cheers the ditching of the stars and stripes on Independence Day, but gets to the heart of the matter here:

More importantly it’s not even a costume, just kind of an outfit. There’s a reason why superhero costumes aren’t regular clothes – they’re trying to stand for some kind of symbol or invented identity. … It’s as if the people designing her new look didn’t want to make a decision about who she is as a hero.

Agreed!

Now, what DC should have done is called Alex Ross. Ross designed future versions of the Marvel characters in Universe X and the DC characters in Kingdom Come (highly influential); he redesigned the Better Publications characters for Dynamite’s smashing Project Superpowers; and to top it off, he was the go-to guy after The Death of Captain America when Bucky Barnes took up the mantle with a new uniform (which was beautifully retro AND modern). I just got my first look at Ross’ take on The Phantom (for Dynamite’s The Last Phantom) and I was blown away. How do you bring something new to the oldest costumed hero in comics, while making sense of a purple-tights-wearing hero in the jungle? SyFy couldn’t do it. Billy Zane didn’t even try. Check this out.

Where was Ross when Diana Prince needed him? He’s such a fan, I bet he didn’t want to change a thing.

And he would be right. As a cartoonist and comics reader, people ask me what I would have done. I would have kept everything from the old costume and just replaced the starred shorts with black tights. Maybe added shoulder straps to the bustier. If they forced me to do a complete overhaul, I would have played off the Amazon roots (duh) and given her more coverage with some ancient battle armor, which has been done very successfully in many different story arcs since the Eighties.

Meanwhile… Flavorwire has put together a quick rundown of 10 superhero makeovers. This is worth a read because the failure of Spider-Man’s black costume always springs to mind first, and we tend to forget that Iron Man and Daredevil’s current costumes are actually replacements.

Eeek! I hope this new contempo-casual Wonder Woman doesn’t catch on!

UPDATE: Sonia Harris piles on DC’s epic misfire with “Jim Lee’s lack of Wonder” at Comic Book Resources. Great, detailed critique from a female pro.

As an art director, the idea of simply throwing away 70 years of strong brand recognition of this first lady of super powers is an absolute horror story.

I know the authorities think otherwise, but I’m sorry — REALLY SORRY — to say: this woman (PDF) seems pretty credible. (We do not know for sure what happened, of course. But this is highly unsavory on its face.) Crikey, who is left?!

For the love of God, Franken, keep it in your pants.

“No other journalist brings the seriously hot, vaguely bi-curious baby-making energy strategy talk like Brian Williams.”

Huffington Post reports:

Sara Carbonero, a beautiful sideline reporter and girlfriend of Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas, is being blamed by some fans for Spain’s shocking World Cup loss to Switzerland on Wednesday.

The Guardian reports that the gorgeous sportscaster is accused of distracting her boyfriend by being so close to the field before and during the crucial match. Casillas allowed the game’s only goal, and Spanish fans are worried that Carbonero could be to blame.

See! We told you relationships weren’t just a “women’s issue” but an “everyone’s issue” with the power to topple mighty empires. First Helen of Troy, and now this? Oh, and this:

Casillas is not the only World Cup goalkeeper whose performance is said to have been affected by romantic complications. English goalie Robert Green may have been torn up by his split with a young lingerie model when he allowed an infamous goal to the United States.

You know that charming but not TOO charming, witty but not TOO witty, flirty but not TOO flirty back-and-forth you’ve struck up with that guy at CouldThisBeTheOne.com? You might actually be flirting back not with that guy himself, but with virtual-virtual him: a correspondent hired to take care of the pre-meeting nitty-gritty online half of online dating.

The Washington Post reports that more and more singles (roughly 80% men) are getting some very personal assistants — whether their own secretaries or via a new cottage industry of ghost writers — to manage their online dating correspondence for them: creating their profiles and handling all  correspondence up to but not including the actual, real-life date. Why? Mostly, they tell the Post, because they’re busy. Really busy. And yes, to be fair, the online part of online dating — while efficient — can indeed be time-consuming. Then again, so can explaining why it was not actually YOU that they’d been flirting with the whole time. So.

Part of me wants to say “Hey, we’re all ‘busy.’ Make time, hosers.” But part of me can summon a little more rachmones than that. I mean, they’re trying. They’re not giving up. They’re not getting all Up in the Air and letting “busy” be an excuse for not searching at all. Tacky, maybe, but there’s some hope there, too. And I can always get behind hope.

What do you think? Acceptable compromise, or Cyrano-no?