Last night, as I looked at all the photos tagged “iphone” rolling in on Flickr, I wanted to capture all the iconic first photos people would inevitably take with their new iPhone once they got it. At the same time, I wondered, can an iPhone buy happiness*? So I started two competing groups at the same time: Photos of me with an iPhone, and Photos of me without an iPhone. Here are some of my favorite photos posted in the last 12 hours so far:

The Haves

Xeni Jardin covered the line for BoingBoing with Sean Bonner, a Have-Not.

Andrew Mager, who covered San Francisco.

Elsie Flannigan

vernhart, trying to decide whether to open the box or not.

The Have Nots

Dana Robinson’s photo inspired me to start the pool.

Micki Krimmel is perfectly happy in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Josh Leo’s happy enough in West Michigan.

Action Girl’s got the old-skool bling.

Paul Dateh, and gorilla can not has iPhone.

Lots more great ones in there. Got a photo with or without? Please add it to one of the pools: Haves | Have-Nots

*For a little extra fun, check out the first episode of Technology Show Internet, where they see if anyone in the Fifth Ave Apple Store line can really say, “iDeserve iPhone.”

A Comicbook Orange is really hitting its stride now, so I’m embedding it again. I honestly don’t know what more comic book fans would need. Girl in Wonder Woman costume? Check. The same girl talking straight in the next segment about why a new comic sucks? Check check. Go, Casey! Everyone else, spread the word. If you’re trying to make your limited comic-buying funds stretch and only get the good stuff, if you want to find out why people like comics, or if you just want to be entertained for a few minutes — you should be watching this show.

Mind you, so does everyone else. But I need something to make you click and come to shey.net. Please don’t hate me.

At any rate, David Pogue and Walt Mossberg have both done video reviews of the new iPhone. The Pogue review is exceptionally good — I can’t understand why it’s only been viewed a couple hundred times on YouTube, but that may be a very short-term thing.

I can’t help but notice all the smudges on the screen, which I’ve imagined will be the main drawback of an iPhone — people like me who aren’t at peace with the fact that we are greasy animals will be carrying around little bottles of cleaner and chamois cloths and maniacally cleaning these things. The other drawback Pogue mentions in the best and most straightforward quote from his review: “you can get online in a wireless wifi hotspot, which is fast and satisfying, or via AT&T’s cellular internet network, which is slow and horrible.” My current phone has 3G and a very decent web browser, and I’ve adapted pretty well to doing most everything I need to with it.

On that note, despite having bought nearly every major Mac product of the past few years as soon as they came out — the Newton, the iMac, the original iPod, every Powerbook / MacBook since the G3, the Apple TV, even the Cube (boy, did I love the Cube) — I’m going to be sitting this one out for a little while. Why? I can’t bear right now the compromises I know will come of this being a first generation product. Despite the beauty of the interface and OS, it’s just bound to have some major limitations that are going to become apparent to me in the first few days of heavy use, and I just can’t bear to think of the iPhone as anything less than perfect. I’d rather wait a little longer until it truly is perfect, like my beloved iPod and Nano both are (in my opinion).

That doesn’t mean I won’t drool and make smudges all over my business partner Emil’s iPhone, as I’m sure he’ll get one this week.

Here’s Mossberg’s review. It’s great, also — I just don’t have much more to say.

Considering my past experience, this is somewhat embarrassing to admit, but I haven’t gotten a text message since June 16th. So if anyone reading this has tried to text me, and I haven’t replied, it’s not because I’m a jerk, although that may be the case — I just literally am not getting SMS messages. Apparently, they’re getting eaten somewhere between “The New AT&T” and my phone. Two fruitless thirty-plus minute troubleshooting calls with their customer service have gone nowhere — the only thing I know is that it started happening when my phone’s network stopped reading “Cingular” and started reading “AT&T,” and that one of the technicians made an obscure reference to the point that I was an AT&T Wireless customer who switched to Cingular, and some of those customers (read: the longest and supposedly most loyal) are getting the shaft.

If there’s any bright side to this, the whole experience has made me a lot less likely to stand in line for an iPhone. But at this point, I’m forced to declare SMS Chapter 11 while I seek reparation for the problem. If you’ve sent me a message, I probably won’t be able to return it. Please go ahead and give me a call instead.

OK, I’ve completely stopped blogging, I think. But we’ve watched this at least four times tonight, from Flight of the Conchords…

(cross-posted from the NNN Blog)

A Comicbook Orange is a comic book review show on Pulp Secret by our friends Casey McKinnon and Rudy Jahchan (Galacticast), which I blogged about the other day. Feedback on the first episode so far has been great, and Rudy and Casey have been really building some great word of mouth — you can join an official Facebook group, find A Comicbook Orange on MySpace, and they’ve even built a cool site for the show where people can submit their own reviews.

Check it out below, and if you’re looking for more good comics to read, let us know what you’d like to see more of on A Comicbook Orange.

On a side note, this is also the first time we’ve put out an episode in a widescreen ratio — if you try to view the show fullscreen on the site, or download the iTunes-compatible file, you’ll see what we mean. It’s the little things that sometimes get us pumped.