I am in two minds over this.

On one hand, this is awesome.

On the other hand, this seems to have been so deliberately designed to make people like me say "This is awesome" that I feel compelled to say something snarky about it. I hate the thought that I'm part of some market segment.

They're a non-profit tutoring organization focusing on creative writing skills. This is one of their fundraising methods.

http://www.826la.org/about/

So it's designed to make me say "this is awesome" twice. That's really manipulative.

If nothing else though, it's a well executed "this is awesome" generator. There are too many shoddy "awesome" executions out there.

Example: this http://schadenfreudepony.blogspot.com/2009/03/gay-star-trek-...

is just trying too hard.

Those who set out to make something awesome for profit often fail because they only have a superficial understanding of what it is that makes something awesome. It’s all facade and those who get it will be disappointed and feel icky after their close encounter with the supposed awesomeness.

That’s probably why you (and I) are immediately suspicious when we encounter something that looks quite awesome. We have to be careful, though, of not overextending our skepticism. Something that is awesome in every way is still awesome in every way even if the creator of the awesomeness set out to target specifically you or to make tons of money or whatever else.

You just repeated verbatim my review of "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World."

This place is in my hood and is great. My buddy Eli Stonberg shot these performances there, and I think they nicely spotlight the uniqueness of the place: http://dublab.com/labnotes/tune-yards-visionversion-2/

I love these 826 stores. I've got a set of time-travel travel posters from Echo Park and some cans of immortality and omnipotence from the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company as well :).