View of the lodge from across Otter Lake. Love the leaves this time of year.

This comic book cover has got to piss some folks in the bible belt off. This was from the holiday special of this comic series.

I have a lot of comic books scanned, some where around six thousand, and I tend to sort them into different categories and folders. Well, I got bored and decided to make my own folder icons. Figured I would put some of them up here in the event any one else wanted to use them. These are full sized icons, all the way up to 512 x 512, although I can’t image why anyone would want icons that size buy hey, they look good.

Click here to download the icons.

The image to the left shows what the icons will look like. They are screen captures of actual comic books that appear to arrange as if sitting on a table. Covers were selected at random for some of the icons and along a central theme for the others. I may produce more in the future to help, maybe character themed icons.

Saw this earlier this week and thought it was humorous but the main reason for posting this message is to test integrating Skitch more tightly with my blog.

So let’s get on with the first review, the Modiano 4 Color Poker set. This is a four color deck. These decks are more popular overseas than they are here in the U.S. but are starting to catch on here so don’t be surprised to run across a deck in the near future. Spades are still black and hearts are still red but the clubs in this deck are green and the diamonds are blue. I purchased these cards (a red and blue deck) online for approximately $10 USD and they are manufactured in Italy. After shuffling and dealing a couple of hands I noticed they are a little thicker than the other plastic cards that I have. They also have a very nice texture to them. While plastic, they have a paper feel to them which I attribute to the texture more than anything else. Here is the back of the blue deck…

The back of the blue deck, Modiano 4 Color Poker Deck

This is actually the second deck of this set of cards. There was a problem with one of the cards in the first set. When I contacted Modiano they happily replaced the deck with a new set. I was very pleased with their customer service. I should point out that the back design was different in the replacement set than the one I originally purchased so I can’t be sure what the backs will look like should you purchase your own deck. Overall I am very pleased with this set of cards. I have several plastic decks and this one is first on my list. (Copag, Dal Negro, Gemaco being some of the other manufacturers. I will review these decks in later posts.)

The colors in the face cards are better than other decks I own. The Copag Fall edition comes to mind. I didn’t care too much for the abundance of green ink they used on the face cards of that deck. The colors are more balanced on the Modiano deck in my opinion. Take a look here at the Queen of Clubs.

The Queen of Clubs

The blue on the diamond cards is a little lighter than I would have personally chosen but still looks good. Here is the jack of diamonds.

The Jack of Diamonds

The red used for the heart suit is more or less the standard and the color most have come to expect. I am including the picture below more or less to give you another look at the face cards for this deck. The ace of hearts also bears the company’s name as well as the place where they are manufactured. Trieste, Italy. I’m not sure what the significance of the stag logo but it appears on every set of Modiano cards that I own so I am assuming it’s a company logo.

The Ace of Hearts

So, to sum up this short but hopefully helpful review of the Modiano 4 Color deck, this is a set of cards that I am very pleased to have purchased and have no reservations on recommending it to others. I like the thickness of the cards, the texture and the classic feel of the paper deck I get when using them. If you don’t already own deck of plastic cards then this is definitely the one to start with and an excellent first purchase. If anyone has any questions about this deck or plastic cards in general, please feel free to post a comment to this post and I will be happy to answer your questions if I can.

One last parting image and one I intend to leave the reader with in every deck review I do, the ace of spades from the deck. The ace of spades is the signature card for any deck of cards produced the world over.

The Ace of Spades

I hope you enjoyed this review and remember to post any questions you might have in the comment section below. Cheers!

Posting this link to explain to people why I detest the Red Cross and their business practices. Have you noticed how, if you are a blood donor, that they call you constantly with the zeal of a deranged telemarketer? You think they do this because for some holy, altruistic drive to help people?

You are delusional. They are doing it to make money. That’s their drive, to fill their pockets.

I could go on and on about this topic but I think you should do the research yourself. Spend 5 minutes with Google and see if you don’t come to despise them as I do.

To get you started I will list a few links for you to peruse at your leisure.

Bad Blood

Billion Dollar Greed

If you are like me and can’t stand YouTube annotations because most people use them way too much you can turn them off by following the instructions in the image above. You can turn them back on using the menu on the YouTube player but this will allow you to watch YouTube videos with the annotations turned off by default.

This setting will only work while you are logged in. You will have to do this all over again the next time you log in. Annoying, yes? Send them a letter letting them know what a monumentally stupid decision it was to make users do this each time they log in.

YouTube, LLC
901 Cherry Ave.
San Bruno, CA 94066
USA
Phone: +1 650-253-0000
Fax: +1 650-253-0001

Came across this annoying little quirk this evening while working in Photoshop. I was constantly rotating the canvas of my image accidentally using the trackpad on my MacBook Pro. Now, I love the multi-touch track pad but in this instance it was getting a little out of hand. If you have run across this your self, click the image above or the link below to download a plugin that will disable this feature while using Photoshop.

Adobe – Photoshop : For Macintosh : Adobe Photoshop CS4 Disable Canvas Rotation Via Trackpad plug-in