A friend sent me a bunch of mini-posters that came from a relative who’s far right of center. I’m always amused by these things, because they’re all so outrageously stupid. Here’s one that made me roll my eyes.
Even ignoring the fact there are a lot of gay soldiers in the military, it’s way too easy to turn this sentiment on its side. Here’s my edit.
There was a 2-day comic book con in Boston this weekend. Three stalwarts of MAD Magazine were there — Al Feldstein, Al Jaffee, and Paul Coker. After writing and/or drawing many memorable stories for Bill Gaines at EC, Feldstein was MAD’s editor for almost 30 years, throughout its heyday.
Jaffee is famous for his fabulous back cover fold-ins. Click here to see some interactive Jaffee fold-ins, presented by the NY Times. Jaffee is also known for his Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.
Prolific Paul Coker’s unmistakable drawings appeared in many pages of MAD, but he’s perhaps best known for designing the animated Frosty the Snowman cartoon.
I spent most of my time at the convention today sitting at Joltin’ Joe Sinnott’s table, helping with requests for autographs and sketches, while his son Mark made the rounds and Denro procured old comics, including one from 1951 that he found, with Joe’s second ever appearance in a Marvel (then Atlas) comic book. This scan is of Joe’s inking on Steranko’s famous centerfold splash page in Captain America #111 (March ’69).
Friday on WBUR in Boston, Robin Young talked with legendary session drummer Hal Blaine, who is himself from Massachusetts.
[audio:http://audio.wbur.org/storage/2012/04/hereandnow_0420_musicians-wrecking-crew.mp3|titles=WBUR – Robin Young on Here and Now]There’s a new book about the Hollywood studio musicians of the 60’s and 70’s who were collectively and informally called The Wrecking Crew.
http://youtu.be/jvXvTySfWMU
Elsewhere, at the same time that Blaine & Co. were plying their trade, in another recording studio there was a totally different but equally good sound being created. Having been a kid in the Sixties I’m prejudiced, but no other period of time has ever approached, let alone equaled, its variety and quality of music.
http://youtu.be/cu023iV_atg
I’ve been very busy and distracted lately, so a tip of the ol’ Dograt toupee to Samjay, for spotting this item about an upcoming special event at movie theaters. It’s the complete video of the Beatles’ first live concert after their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The concert was at a rather shabby venue, the Coliseum in Washington, D.C. on February 11, 1964. It was taped by CBS and shown in movie theaters over closed circuit TV the following weekend.
As I wrote in late 2010, iTunes had the complete concert video available for viewing, and this new presentation is a return to the original intended format. Regarding the concert video having been lost, there is more background at this link. I don’t know if this alleged master tape was the source used for this latest presentation, but it seems possible.
http://youtu.be/t-pBqLGhMU0
Engadget says the end may be near for quirky little Chumby. We have a Chumby in the kitchen, and wouldn’t it be nice if the service is maintained somewhere, so all those little Web radio alarm clocks keep working for a year or two more?
Update: From Venture Beat – “CEO Derrick Oien told The Verge that Chumby’s assets, which include widget technology, patents, and the platform, are being shopped around by a corporate trustee. The content and apps platform, however, will stay operational for the immediate future.”
Last week, while thinking about my nice federal tax refund, a buddy was rushed off to the hospital with heart trouble and I had a “life’s too short” moment of weakness. I bought a flat panel TV for the sun room (calling it that sounds fancier than saying “porch”). Amazon sent me a notice that Panasonic had a deal on a 42-inch plasma HDTV with a free Blu-ray player, and thanks to some Amex reward points it cost me only $470 out of pocket.
The TV arrived, I set it up, made some adjustments, and my initial reaction was quite enthusiastic and positive, but after a while I noticed something odd. Strange yellow-green streaks. Then TCM showed Casablanca and the streaks were everywhere!
On the Roku player I looked at portions of more black-and-white movies, and every one of them had raging yellow-green trails to the left of objects and there were blue trails on the right. Even with stationary scenes, all I had to do was move my eyes and I’d see flashing colors. They reminded me of the notorious rainbow effect in single-chip DLP projectors.
I did a Google search and learned that the problem is called phosphor lag, and it’s built into every plasma display, as explained at this link.
How could I not have known about this?? I keep up with most of the tech sites and blogs, I watch Tekzilla and its HD Nation segments, etc., and I thought I knew all of the advantages and disadvantages of plasma vs. lcd/ccfl vs. lcd/led, but obviously I didn’t.
Consumer Reports warns about DLP rainbows, but says nothing about plasma lag, so I added a comment about it on their Web site. Maybe it’s true that the effect is seen by only 1% of people, but to me it’s so relentlessly bothersome that black-and-white material simply isn’t watchable, and I watch a lot of stuff in black-and-white.
I’ve never returned anything to Amazon before, and when I called them I was pleased they immediately agreed to take the set back and pay for shipping. I’m waiting for the freight company that dropped it off to call and arrange a pickup. Once it’s been returned to the warehouse and my money has been refunded, I’ll look into getting a 40-inch LCD HDTV.
