Stamps for 'American Scientists'. via boingboing

Everyone bitches about customer service, but people rarely champion amazing experiences. Today may be a rough one for the company, what with Andy's Mojo really being gone, let me say this -- God bless American Express.

The story starts with your average car service company screwing your average consumer. A1 Elegant Limo of Summit, NJ, overcharged me $20 back in June. I called the day I realized it and was promised a quick refund. July came and went. I called again in early August. Lots of promises, no luck. Last Friday, we had a long conversation. I was again assured immediate satisfaction. Again I was fucked.

Today I violated my "no screaming obscenities at work" policy in another call to A1. On the advice of a very wise man named Claudio, I took my complaint to American Express. Within 5 minutes, my account was credited, and AmEx took over the role of harassing A1 Elegant Limo. I feel like such a fool for not calling in the AmEx dogs two months ago. But at least now I've got my $20 -- and my mojo -- back.

Now this dude has style.

Via WMMNA

Dorking Out has a proposal to rebuild New Orleans as a floating mega city. A little tongue-in-cheek, but still thought-provoking.

Advantages to floating megacity

- Now flood-proof, this won't happen again in 25 year intervals
- Becomes a port city, handles more importing/exporting
- Practice for future waterworld cities after ice caps melt
- Riverboat gambling laws apply to entire city!
- Take that Japan! We get the future city first.

There ain't room in this square for two neked singin cowpokes.

Via Gawker

This week's comic to look for is Ultimates 2 Vol. 1 by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch.

When the first "season" of Marvel Comics' The Ultimates came out it hit the comics world with shock and awe. With Bryan Hitch's impressively detailed and cinematic artwork, it gave us a retelling of the classic superhero group, The Avengers, that read like the best superhero movie never made. It's decompressed pacing took the time to set its stage and introduce it's interestingly flawed cast of characters so that when the action came it felt abrupt, violent and real.

Season 2 (the final outing by the original creative team) is halfway through and the first six issues are collected in this volume. Set in a world much like our own, the story begins with Captain America being air dropped into Iraq to free a group of hostages. As a team of super soldiers working for S.H.E.I.L.D., a CIA type organization, the Ultimates work for George Bush's government and writer Mark Millar uses this to comment on the current global balance of power. When the Ultimates invade a foreign country to disarm them of their nuclear weapons, the parallels to the real world and the U.S.'s current standing in it are pretty clear.

The most interesting character in the Ultimates finally gets the spotlight in this volume. Thor in regular Marvel Comics is the Norse god of thunder, but here in the Ultimates (part of Marvel's new Ultimate line that updates their characters for a new audience) you don't really know if Thor is actually a god or a delusional mutant suffering from a nervous breakdown who only thinks he's a god. Thor is an environmentalist peacenik who acts as the liberal 'conscience' of the team. When his teammates eventually turn against him it is nearly heartbreaking.

The Ultimates is smart, contemporary and beautifully illustrated. It also contains a bit of a mean streak in regards to some of its characters so don't expect to find your usual comic book do-gooders here.

For a pretty in-depth description of the book and its characters check out the Wikipedia entry for the Ultimates.

Check out your local comic shop today. If you don't know where your local comic shop is, find it here: http://www.the-master-list.com

In other tennis news, Serena Williams has been criticized for wearing a pair of $40,000 diamond earrings (one of which fell out during the match) while playing Taiwanese star Yung-Jan Chan on Monday.

ESPN and WASHINGTON POST analyst MICHAEL WILBORN says, "(They cost) almost twice as much as the career earnings of the opponent."

Can you say jinx?

Although I've been to New Orleans a handful of times, I still always think of Angel Heart as New Orleans. Yeah, yeah, I know The Big Easy is the easy choice (and who doesn't love Ellen Barkin?), but it's just a bit sanitized for my taste. Also high on my list of favorites are Pretty Baby, Cat People and Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

Please tell us your favorite New Orleans movie in the comments.

here's a good list of films set in Louisiana (strangely missing Cat People and Jezebel) from LSU. Last updated in 2004, so it doesn't include Runaway Jury or The Skeleton Key.

here's a great post on bad movies set in New Orleans.