I just played with the new Skooba Skin laptop sleeve/totes and I'm impressed. At first, this is just a well-designed, padded canvas laptop sleeve with a simple velcro closureBut the closure folds up and coverts to a handle, turning the sleeve into a tote -- a handy trick for those days when you're just carrying your laptop-sleeve, rather than a larger bag.

The sleeve comes in a bunch of different colors, including an undyed, unbleached white canvas that is meant to be decorated with markers, fabric pens, and anything else you've got hanging around (alas, the surface wouldn't take the stickers I tried on it).

Skooba is the new brand-name for the accessory company Roadwired, whose products I've long admired and used (especially their ingenious RAPS electronics sleeves). Along with the Skooba Skin, Skooba have also launched a shoulder strap called the Superbungee that includes a shock-absorbing ring of bungee cord in the shoulder-pad. I've long used elasticated shoulder straps (mostly the ones from Victorinox, which only last about six months before the metal on the attachment clips gives way catastrophically). They make an enormous difference, converting your computer and books from dead weight into something that moves with you, supporting itself in time with your stride. The Superbungee is going on my bag today, and I'll be taking it on the road with me next week. Link to Skooba Skin, Link to Superbungee Strap

See also:
Joys of RoadWired and Zip-Linq
RoadWired's Skooba Satchel
RoadWired bags kick azz

Giant Robot Warriors, a graphic novel, is a masterful comic allegory for world's military build-up and stand-offs. In a cock-eyed alternate reality, giant robot warriors -- REALLY giant robot warriors -- are the ultimate weapon, capturing the imagination of ever fierce-hearted patriot of every land. Nations that attain GRW capacity are able to handily conquer their neighbors, and that is the scenario that propels this story.

Rufus Hirohito is the playboy scientist in charge of the current-generation GRW program, and his life is inverted by the news that Paraqan, an oil-rich middle-eastern dictatorship, has attained its own GRW and plans to destroy its neighbors. The US has no choice but to intervene -- even if it means sending an untested GRW behemoth into the field.

There's obviously a lot of manga influence here, but the story is pure American, a masterful take on the funnybook hero stories about America's destiny to police and govern the world. The writer, Stuart Moore, describes the book as having been written during the brief flare of post-9/11 optimism that ended when the US squandered its international goodwill on pointless oil wars and security theater.

Five years later, circumstances are still similar enough that Giant Robot Warriors still has political weight (unfortunately). Link