Brainstorm Celebrates X-Men (By Rebecca "Bonks" Rothschild)

Take a great shop like Brainstorm, add a few fun local artists and you get a wonderful afternoon.

X-men has been nothing but hectic with "Second Coming" and the highly anticipated restaffing of " X-Factor" not to mentions Liu's X-23 to come out in September. Brainstorm hosted some great local artists such as Dave Lossso, Ryan Browne, Nino Mesarina along with his talented son 'Lil Nino, and Alejandro Rosado.

Our own Sugar Momma splurged on a few books, from purchasing Slott's (Hi Dan!) "Initiative," to Losso's Sandwich Detective and Browne's "God Hates Astronauts." She even gifted me a Rosado style Wolverine sketch which is cute as a button and now hanging up in my kitchen.

The staff at Brainstorm are great, knowledgeable but not to a fault and really looking to help enrich one's collection. You truly get a full experience with Brainstorm. This was a great event and we wanna remind all our comic book reading friends to get a little sun and fresh air and support events like this to keep your local spots thriving.

Thanks guys, stay cool.

HTC Premiers its Hottest Devices in Style (By Rebecca "Bonks" Rothschild)

New York, L.A, and our own Chicago all served as showcases for HTC's lattest phones. The Aria, the HD2 and the 4G device putting Sprint back in the game, the EVO. HTC set up shop at Chicago's Enclave complete with a decent DJ and Guitar Hero.

There were three lucky winners who took home phones from the raffle, the last winner had to dance for it (not advisable for a party full of tech geeks).

AT&T made a brilliant move picking up the Aria, considering the latest iPhone has hit a few speed bumps already. Meanwhile T-Mobile snapped up the the HD2 showing once again T-Mobile understands the public demand for hot phones. But the star was no doubt the EVO. Sprint will be giving everyone a run for their money with this incredibly capable phone.

All three are compact with big beautiful screens and a decent amount of durability. Sleek display and touch screens for all. HTC not only makes handsome phones, but makes them very accessible with reasonable pricing. The event was staffed with more than enough reps and PR to answer any and all questions, I consider their job pretty light as the party was mainly tech fans and these phones had practically sold themselves. However the staff were helpful and clearly passionate about their product. The night was conducted very much more like a celebration than a sales pitch which is why the event a great success. Thank you HTC for a lovely evening.