So I'm sitting here at a friends house, leeching off of their internet connection. We're three days into our power outage at CDX HQ. We had an ice storm Thursday night that knocked out power to a good portion of New England. Over 300,000 homes in Massachusetts were without power. It's Sunday now, and they are now telling us that we may not have power back until Tuesday.

We've been keeping warm, we still have power, but we have no heat. We have a fireplace that has been keeping us warm, and we should have enough wood to last us the duration.

It's amazing how much we rely on technology. I went into laptop withdrawl while at the house, so we ended up folding a lot of laundry. Our cel phones worked, but thats about it. We went scrounging at local stores for batteries and candles...

We were really unprepared. Looking forward we may invest in a generator to keep the heat and lights on. Where we are in town is not exactly on the list of priority places to restore power.

Please bear with us if the site goes down, or news and content isnt updated much this week..

I love Plaid Stallions. It's such a fantastic blog, each day is a trip back into my childhood. Today they had a great sale ad from JC Penney.. from 1978. This takes me back to a happier time...

Image via Plaid Stallions

How old were you in '78? I was FIVE.

So I just got back from seeing Twilight. In case you live in a cage, Twilight is the new book sensation. It's what Harry Potter fans are now reading now that their hormones have kicked in. I've heard the books are pretty good (comparatively speaking) and to me anything that gets kids reading is a great idea.

But I have to tell you, the movie sucks balls.

Spoilers within.....

You know, sometimes we lose sight of what the true purpose of toys are, and how some companies are really in touch with that.

I just read this article on CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/11/20/autism.fire.hotwheels/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

"(CNN) -- After the fire, all that was left of Jonathan Reyes' massive Hot Wheels collection was a piece of metal that once was part of a toy car.
Jonathan Reyes shows off his new Hot Wheels cars sent by Mattel after they heard his own toys were lost in a fire.

But on Wednesday, the arrival of two cardboard boxes at his grandparents' house sent 7-year-old Jonathan flying to the door, said his mother, Jan Reyes.

Mattel, the company that makes Hot Wheels, sent racetracks, play sets, stickers, folders, T-shirts, hats and hundreds of toy cars.

"He was speechless," Reyes said. "He didn't say anything. He just smiled. He opened it up. It was like Christmas. All of us were bawling, crying. He was so happy."

Saw this on BoingBoing

"From Hell

It's hard to think of an office-based comedy more different from The Office than this. Graham Linehan's absurdist sitcom feels nearer in spirit to The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin: off in a mad world of its own, yet uncomfortably familiar, even at its maddest. The IT Crowd even used to have its own "CJ"-type figure in Denholm Reynholm, the overbearing boss of Reynholm Industries played by Chris Morris. Although Reynholm jumped out of a high window in the last series, his playboy son Douglas (Matt Berry) shows every sign of carrying on the family name (plundering the pension fund, putting flakes of gold in the drinking water, etc) and more or less takes over tonight's very funny opening episode. That leaves our IT-department trio of geeky Moss, lazy Roy and uptight Jen slightly overshadowed. But the sweet scene where Moss and Roy try some role-play to help Moss deal with park bullies just about makes up for it. "

Every year some group you never heard of comes out with a top 10 list of dangerous toys. Usually that list is filled with products you never heard of, and never would buy anyway. I thought that some of the reasons these were bad toys were not quite accurate so I took a stab at them.

Not a huge Naruto fan, but I thought this was kind of neat. It appears the new Naruto Anime will air in the US just days after its Japanese release.

"VIZ Media will begin streaming NARUTO Shippuden - just days after it's release in Japan....FOR FREE on the Ultimate Destination For Anything NARUTO - The Official NARUTO website ----- www.Naruto.com !

(A new English-subtitled episode will be added every Thursday thereafter)"

So instead of going to TV, they are going straight to net with almost instantly subtitled episodes. How cool is that? If only more anime came to the states like that.

I Know, I know, you are waiting for all the juicy details on Comic-Con, but I tell you, the trip took so much out of me. I'll start uploading pictures and video tomorrow (Tuesday), so be patient, we have a lot of great stuff to show you! You won't be disappointed!

- Josh