Author: DOuG pRATt

A Walt Disney Adventure in Art

It’s my opinion that Walt Disney is, so far and by far, the greatest CEO of all time. He wasn’t perfect and, yes, I know about the strike and his testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and, no, I don’t believe the exaggerated “dark side of Disney” allegations. The breadth of Disney’s accomplishments remains unmatched, and I feel that no other entrepreneur before or since has achieved his level independence, originality, and creativity.

Disney was supposedly uncomfortable being the host of his own TV series, but you wouldn’t know it from watching him explain how artists need to each develop their own style in order to be proficient at collaborating on creating art the Disney way. It’s interesting that Marc Davis’ rendering of the tree is the most conventional of the four paintings. Davis was primarily an animator, not a background artist.

They report, I decide

I now have 115 miles on my new 2015 Honda CR-V EX, and with that mileage I suppose it’s redundant to say that the car is new. Here’s what Consumer Reports has to say about it.

They’re right about the on-screen audio console. It really sucks. Not only that, the MP3/WMA player has a buggy file manager, and there’s no pause control. It would be nice if Honda comes up with a software update to fix the screen controls. On the plus side, with ear-level tweeters on the front doors the sound quality is outstanding.

I can’t say if the ride isn’t as good as it was over the past several model years, but I know that on our 2011 CR-V the ride improved greatly after replacing the original equipment Bridgestone tires with Michelins. Something that I miss compared to the 2011 is the tray under the passenger seat. There’s now a center console, but it isn’t very useful for storage.

Of greater concern is a possible weakness in the operation of the all-wheel drive feature on the 2014 CR-V, as demonstrated in a Swedish magazine review. Watch the video, and if you’d like to read about the controversy it’s at this link. Who knows if the 2015 AWD models behave the same way? Obviously this didn’t stop me from buying the car, but I’ll sure be watching for any problems driving uphill in snow.

Snoop-y Dog 2015

Christmas 2014

Santa came through once again with the latest box set of “The Complete Peanuts”. It’s been ten years since Fantagraphics began publishing the collection, and they’re now up through 1994, which means the next two-volume set will leave only 1999 and the nine strips from 2000 to be done. Yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the final daily “Peanuts” installment.

"Peanuts" - January 3, 2000
“Peanuts” – January 3, 2000

Next Christmas will see the premiere of the first “Peanuts” animated feature in many years. It’s spear-headed (not block-headed!) by Craig Schulz, and I think the final look of the computer animation is very appealing. Here’s hoping the movie will do well in theaters and on video, so that the Peanuts gang — a perennial favorite in TV rerun ratings — will gather new generations of fans and continue to be popular when the characters are 100 years old, in 2050.

Special K3

Kristel Verbeke, December 20, 2014
Kristel Verbeke, December 20, 2014

HAPPY NEW YEAR from Kristel Verbeke, Karen Damen, and Josje Huisman!


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The British are coming to Boston… again!

British Invasion

HAPPY NEW YEAR! “One if by land, two if by sea, three if by music!” Andrew Sandoval‘s British Invasion Tour is coming to Boston! Thursday, February 26th. Denro and I will be front and almost center at the Wilbur Theatre to see and hear Peter Asher, Chad & Jeremy, Billy J. Kramer, Denny Laine (is in my ears and in my eyes) and members of the Searchers and the Hollies. This is going to be a fab show, for sure!

Retreating from Roku

I was not late getting into streaming video. The day Netflix said I could stream on my PC in early 2007 I installed the browser app. Roku introduced its first player in mid-2008 and, once I saw it was going to hang in, I bought one in early 2009 and put it on my Sony 32″ SD TV with an S-Video cable. After replacing the TV with a 40″ HDTV Samsung in the sun room I bought a Roku 2 XS and moved the Roku player to the projector, where the receiver accepts only coaxial and optical digital audio. And that is one of the reasons why, as of this Christmas Day, I am saying goodbye to Roku.

The XS has been good, but Amazon’s pre-release offer of $20 for the Fire TV Stick was too good to pass up. So that’s on the Samsung now. Downstairs, on the projector, I used the old Roku player until getting a new Sony Blu-ray player a year ago. The Roku is extremely slow and only goes up to 720p, so I streamed Netflix and Amazon on the Blu-ray, but the Sony network is very annoying because there are often lengthy delays in starting online playback, and sometimes the connection fails to come up altogether.

So, acting on a $70 deal from Amazon, there is now an Amazon Fire TV downstairs. I have no interest in updating my Dolby Digital receiver to one with HDMI switching, and the XS doesn’t have optical audio, but the Fire TV does. As an early and enthusiastic supporter of Roku I don’t feel good about leaving them, and if they hadn’t dropped optical audio I would have bought a Roku 3. But circumstances, and pricing, being what they are, I am now deeper than ever in the Amazon ecosphere.