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Where to find The Beat at New York Comic Con:

Please note, if I catch anyone spoofing a comics professional or another poster, the spoofer will be BANNED. The spoofing does not include ISPs, so you will be caught very quickly.

Hey kids, apparently I lost my camera at SPX. I think I must have set it down on someone's table and then just forgotten about it in all the excitement of love and comics. It's a Canon Powershot A570is from 2007. I had downloaded about 95% of the pictures on it, but I'd like to get the SPX ones back. No questions asked!

Well, the RSS spam crisis seems to have passed. We called the web host and after a hold of a mere 45 minutes they ran a clean-up program and found the offending files which had been embedded in the theme folders. Not sure how the original hack occurred, but there are a lot of WordPress vulnerabilities that still exist.

We are still having problems where people's private emails are visible on the site. It's a very, very weird problem, evidently related to our use of Supercache to alleviate the GPU problem. We're actually in the process of moving to a new server. I tried turning off comments, but that doesn't work either. What I would recommend to people who don't want their private emails available to the next few posters is to use a dummy email for now. The way the controls are presently set, there is no technical reason to post a working email. I will of course continue to monitor comments and remove asshats, so this is not carte blanche to go nutso.

A lot of you have been emailing me about the comment glitch wherein the previous commenters information is still in the commenting box, and some bogus posting has resulted. Unfortunately, I've had to disable comments until we can figure out what's going on.

With the slow news cycle, we've been doing some much needed maintenance around Stately Beat Manor -- trimming unread email lists, pruning RSS feeds, and so on. We've also been pondering our commenting system. We've recently put a few posters on "time out" because they were basically rude, insulting brigands, and we don't like their kind. Biting wit and a droll put-down is fine. Name calling and invective is not. Frankly, we're always amazed when we go out and meet all the smart, talented people who read the Beat daily -- we'd love to get some of those folks to comment more but it might require a complete overhaul of the commenting system. Also, it's always been our observation that the better the modding, the better the commenting, and we don't have the time it probably requires.

Can you believe The Beat is on the move AGAIN? It's true! This time...it's a WEDDING.

I have had numerous reports recently that my RSS feed isn't working. This is due to improperly setting up Feedburner, as far as...

Traditional post-San Diego activity: Waiting for the new Ikea Catalog! The EXPEDIT -- building block of civilization and hoarding everywhere -- is now reduced.

We are working. We are reading up on all the Nerdmageddon posts and douchebag rallies and everything, and working on a con report which hopefully will be up Friday morning. Can't be done sooner, alas. Tomorrow is another travel day. Today, more meetings. We honestly don't think anyone gave a flying frak about Comic-Con by, oh about 4 pm Monday morning. Indeed the entertainment press has already moved on as everyone licks their wounds and starts fretting about getting a hotel room for NEXT year's con. Meanwhile, we've been looking at produce, and the fun piñatas that adorn them. Los Angeles: a world apart.

Okay, we're on the ground and ready to get Preview Night and there are some press events already going on, notably this: We had flight delays and other unpleasant stuff like a server meltdown that near about gave us a heart attack yesterday but it's all over now and the real suffering can begin. Oh, we kid. There was a South Park marathon on Comedy Central that made the flight very bearable, including the classic World of Warcraft episode, the Logan's Run episode and one about sex education where Kyle...oh we can't say but we know you remember. We haven't had time to take the temperature of the town, but let's just say San Diego couldn't be more eager to welcome Comic-Con! There were e-signs up at BAGGAGE CLAIM for crying out loud. The signs at the trolley stop have been made over in Klingon. Signs, banners, parties, breakfast specials...the red carpet hasn't been rolled out, it's been shot out of a t-shirt cannon over the whole city.