Author: DOuG pRATt

SOTU ’07

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Many bloggers who are far more educated, erudite and knowledgeable than myself will have much to say about tonight’s State of the Union speech. So I’ve selected just one minute of it.

Bush refers to the 19 men who “got onto airplanes” and came “to kill us.” Fifteen of those men were from Saudi Arabia.

Tonight, Bush said, “The great question of our day is whether America will help men and women in the Middle East to build free societies, and share in the rights of all humanity.”

I’ve been to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and let me tell you something. Secure it is. Free it isn’t.

Hear any talk of invading Saudi Arabia? Didn’t think so.

Going Out Of Style (Sheet)

Well, that was fun. Wasted too much time searching for a solution to the rendering problem in Internet Explorer 7 that was chopping off the bottom of the title — my name! — that I intend to replace with a picture eventually, anyway.

None of the discussions I found nailed down the problem, so I figured it out on my own. What fixed it was adding some padding to H1 headers in the cascading style sheet:

#header h1 {
/*display:none; This will hide the text in your header */
padding-top:50px; padding-bottom:10px;
}

The “hide the text in your header” comment was an obvious hint!

Pats Taps

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I’m not much of a football fan, but being a Bostonian I’m not happy about what happened in Indianapolis.

Technical note: This is the first video clip I’ve posted that’s been scaled down to 400×300 pixels from 640×480, instead of scaled up to that from 320×240. Bit rate is pushed way up to 1 Mb/sec.

Coldbert

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I’m sure you’re checking out The Colbert Report online for yourself, right? Nobody is counting on me, I hope, to provide highlights, since the show is now available online.

But last Monday’s intro with Jon Stewart was too good to make you go look for it. He can be so cold, even cruel, sometimes.

Wii-ality

Wii Hands

In the Wii hours of this morning Eric’s Christmas wiish came true at last. Those are his hands clutching the Wiimote — that’s Nintendo’s pun, not mine!

Thanks to this Web site, Carol was confident the local Target store would have the Wii in stock. She was number 9 in line for 70 units — by far the largest shipment since the day the Wii was released. If the Wii had kept its original name, the Revolution, Carol would have been Revolution 9!

Sensor Bar

The motion sensor bar fits perfectly on Eric’s TV. The digital camera captures the bar’s infrared light.

Petula Clark – 1954

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Here’s a big 5-year jump from the last post. I wish there were more material available from the years in between, because I’d like to know exactly when Pet was put on the wrong track after she outgrew her singing sweetheart days. Most likely it was the fault of her domineering manager-father.

Everything about the way Petula is presented in this 1954 film, with the unfortunate title “Gay Dog,” doesn’t work. She looks 30, not 21. The dress and the hair were undoubtedly the style de rigueur, but the look doesn’t suit her. Based on this clip alone it’s apparent her movie career was going to stall in England.