How Many Calories in a Cup of Coffee?

Over at CoffeeCupNews.org they have a quick run down of the calorie content of the most popular Java based beverages.

Why do Teapots Dribble?

Did you ever notice that when you poor a cup of tea that the first and last little bits end up splashing all over the table and not in your cup? Well so did researchers in France. Luckily they've cracked the code.

One of the funniest things I've ever seen had to do with the predicament. A friend mentioned they could solve this issue by pouring the tea faster. Only to have the teapot open and all the tea rush out at once all over the table.

Does Coffee Boost Brain Functions?

A survey of a number of studies asking if long term coffee consumption can boost brain function or protect your brain against disease.

Friday Book Review: The Ten Cent Plague

If you were a fan of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay the Pulitzer prize winning novel by Michael Chabon then you will want to pick up David Hajdu's The Ten Cent Plague.

In this book Hajdu explores the years leading up to the establishment of the comic book code authority which basically neutered the comic book industry. Before the establishment of the code comics sold close to 1 millon copies per month for the best sellers and over 400,000 for the top titles. Nowadays the best selling comic book barely tops 100,000 copies.

Back in the 1950's comics were available in a wide variety of genres. Not only could you find your super hero books but you'd see books on crime, horror, romance and sci-fi.

However, during the 1950's the public was concerned about the growing rates of juvenile delinquency. Commissions were formed to look into this problem and in my opinion and easy scape goat was found in the comic book industry.

As a result of these hearings, the establishment of the comic book code and a book called Seduction of the Innocent by Dr. Frederic Wertham the diversity in the comic book industry was devastated. Gone were the horror, crime and romance comics. Only the super hero ones were left and they were in a watered down form. See the 60's Batman TV show to get an idea of the tone of comic books at the time.

The book does a great job of relating to you the story of the nascent origins of the comic book up to the great comic book hysteria and I'd rate it a buy for any comic book fan. If you are not a fan of comics I'd give it a borrow rating.

Giving Up Coffee Increases Concentration?

Let it never be said that I don't provide a fair and balanced look at the coffee world. Thanks to Boing Boing for this story on a guy who's concentration has gotten better since he's given up coffee.

Is Your Coffee Fresh?

Lifehacker and eHow give you some tips on how to test for coffee freshness.

Friday Book Review: Super Spy

Okay apparently Matt Kindt's book Super Spy came out back in 2007 to much fan fare and I missed it. Luckily as I was attending this years Windy City Comic Con I was introduced to Matt by Jeff Lemire. I had just recently heard about Matt's new book 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man but for some reason I was drawn to Super Spy instead.

This book is about the lives of spies in World War II. That alone should be enough to convince you to pick up this book. The narrative is interwoven through a number of non linear short stories each with their own protagonist. Each character has their own arc that occasionally crosses over with the other spies. Thankfully all of the concluding threads take place in the latter half of the book to tie everything together.

I absolutely could not put this book down once I started reading it. I was on my way back to the hotel on the day of the con taking the red line to Roosevelt where I needed to transfer over to the orange line. I was so engrossed in the book that I mistakenly got on the green line ending up in, literally and figuratively, the wrong part of town. This did cause me to miss the after con party but at least I did get to finish the book with all the extra time I spent on the train.

The one negative I will point out is that my books cover immediately fell off the book once I started reading it. It seems like the glue was too brittle. However this minor problem did not detract me from my enjoyment of the book.

With this review I'm borrowing a rating system from the Comic Geek Speak podcast. The buy, borrow, pants system to be exact. A buy rating means that I think the book is worth the money, a borrow rating means go get it from the library and a pants rating means leave it alone.

To that end I rate Matt Kindt's Super Spy a solid buy!