Less than a month before the 60th anniversary of the introduction of Peanuts by United Feature Syndicate, there is the announcement that the strip will leave United Media for Universal Press Syndicate, now called UClick.
Author: DOuG pRATt
Remember the 90’s?
Denro pointed out this Boston radio tidbit:
This weekend, Mix is bringing you back to the 90’s with music that will make you say Oh Wow! You’ll hear some old favorites like Marky Mark, Hanson, Spice Girls and more! We can hear you saying “Oh Wow” to yourself right now! It’s all weekend on Mix 104.1!
This can’t be right. Having a weekend music mix celebrating a decade that’s only ten years ago, as if it were the distant past, would be ridiculous, like having a Doo-wop tribute band at Woodstock!
Meet the Beetles
Saturday was the 60th anniversary of Beetle Bailey, created by Mort Walker. The comic strip was introduced before Peanuts, and unlike Charlie Brown the premise and setting changed. For most of its run Beetle Bailey has been on an Army base, but it started out with Beetle in college.
There was a series of Beetle Bailey cartoons produced in the 60’s by Al Brodax. Brodax’s next project was to produce another batch of cartoon Beetles, but they were Beatles.
Boston eats
Recommended: Johnny’s Luncheonette, just off of the notorious Heartbreak Hill, along the course of the Boston Marathon, in Newton Centre. We took Eric there tonight for dinner.
A friend of a friend
One of Prue Bury’s best friends is in this video clip, a montage-homage to the film Carnal Knowledge. I’m in the middle of reading her memoir, which has almost nothing to do with modeling, or acting, or anything glamorous.
A cool experiment
My son wanted a small refrigerator in his dorm room. A freezer compartment was neither needed, nor wanted. Another consideration was compressor noise. I took a chance on Haier’s NuCool, which technically is a cooler, and not a refrigerator, because it doesn’t have a compressor. The NuCool uses thermoelectric cooling, which has limited effectiveness compared to conventional refrigerators that circulate a coolant.
At home, with an ambient temperature of 68 degrees, the NuCool did fine, and even went below 37 degrees, according to a thermometer I had placed inside. But in the dorm, without air conditioning, where the room temp was over 80, the NuCool managed only 50 degrees. This morning it was in the safe region on the thermometer, but considering NuCool’s inability to maintain a constant temperature, my inclination is to return it to Target and buy Haier’s conventional cube fridge.
Follow-up: The NuCool is a success, assuming it holds up. It seems to manage a 40-degree difference in temperature, and when it was up to 50 the room was probably 90. Since then it’s held at 35 degrees, even with the thermostat turned down a notch.