Author: DOuG pRATt

Closing the Gates

I’ve watched the new Microsoft commercial a couple of times, and to me it falls flat. I fail to see the entertainment value of one of the world’s richest men talking about shoes with a rich comedian who’s been given $10 million to be in the commercial.

Aren’t both Gates and Seinfeld essentially retired anyway? In that context, I guess having them pal around like a couple of old men makes sense — they’ve got nothing better to do.
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What really gets me is that somehow the subtext of the commercial is supposed to be Windows Vista as a cool alternative to Mac OS X. Well, it isn’t. Click here for one reason why. Thanks to tastewar for the tip. This article explains why it’s a waste having more than 3GB of memory installed for Windows XP and Vista.

Everybody’s been wondering about Steve Jobs’ health, but does Bill Gates look all right to you in that commercial? He doesn’t look well to me. Oh, by the way, what do Gates, Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the Worldwide Web) — and myself — all have in common? Well, we’re all in the computer biz, but I’m not rich and famous. We were born in 1955. Unfortunately, so were Mark David Chapman and John Hinkley, Jr.

Choosing Sides

I’m amused by how Republicans insisted it’s the Democrats who made an issue of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, which simply isn’t true. It’s yet another straw man they’ve set up to knock down.

The Daily Show’s Samantha Bee, mother of two, was at the RNC. She did the best job I have ever seen of getting average Republicans to consider the implications of saying that teen pregnancy is a private, family matter that shouldn’t be politicized.

Doug Pratt is not DOuG pRATt

Of the numerous Doug Pratt’s out there, the best known is the Doug Pratt who edits and publishes The DVD Newsletter, which he started as The LaserDisc Newsletter. When I first got on the Net from home, almost fifteen years ago, I was on Usenet a lot, and I posted comments to LaserDisc newsgroups. Because I was very knowledgeable about the format, everybody assumed I was Doug, so I added a disclaimer insisting I wasn’t him.

Doug can be heard in a recent 90-minute conversation on Blog Talk Radio, at this link. Maybe later the host can figure out how to level-match the loudness of the phone calls.

Tropical Storm Hanna-BarBEARa

Mark Evanier tipped his readers to Boomerang, the cable channel, showing the 1964 feature cartoon ‘Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear.’ It’s recording on the FiOS DVR right now.

Hey There, It\'s Yogi Bear

I never saw ‘Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear’ when I was a kid, but I sure do remember listening to the record promoting it that was offered on Kellogg’s cereal boxes. The song was written by David Gates, who I assume is the same David Gates that later wrote the Monkees song ‘Saturday’s Child,’ then formed the group Bread, but I can’t say for certain.

It’s been over forty years since I’ve heard this record. Side two is badly banged up, but it plays all the way through.

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