Here are this year’s pumpkins, with great designs by Eric. I admit I’ve done better carving jobs. Sorry the pictures are fuzzy, but this old 1.3 megapixel camera is very motion sensitive in non-flash mode.
Author: DOuG pRATt
Post-Pumpkin Post
As a follow-up to my post on “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” click here for a brief NPR feature about the cartoon.
Note: Lucy is shown holding what didn’t exist 40 years ago — TV Guide the size of a magazine, and not a digest.
Raspberry Heaven
There’s lots of Azumanga Daioh on YouTube™, but as a follow-up to a previous posting, here are the end credits, framed by the commercial break outro and intro. The “Raspberry Heaven” catch-phrase is very catchy.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Movies/Wordpress/Anime/azumangadaioh.flv 320 236]
It took a couple of episodes to see past the underlying wackiness. Something I didn’t realize at first is the show deals with some very contemporary themes about growing up that in previous generations were simply not presented.
Feeling Pekared
If the space above is blank, blame YouTube™!
It took some years for me to warm up to ‘alternative’ comic-book writer Harvey Pekar. But my friend Morris Hyman is a big Pekar fan, so I gave him a copy of the DVD American Splendor, which is a very good movie.
An interview that Pekar did with Terry Gross on the NPR show Fresh Air has been re-run. It’s at this link.
Candy, Candy
Here’s this year’s candy pile, atop my drawing table. There’s a bag of Heath Bars in there, hidden from view. That’s because I want them! Tuesday night I’ll take an “after” picture.
Here’s some musical candy. The Beau Hunks from Amsterdam performing Leroy Shield’s “Candy, Candy.”
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/OCT06/CandyCandy.mp3]There aren’t as many younger kids in the neighborhood as when we moved here 8 years ago, and traffic is light anyway, because we live on a dead end street — excuse me, a “not a thru way” street. “Dead” is, apparently, a word the DPW is no longer allowed to use.
That framed picture on the table is of me hauling Eric in a backpack, on a Sunday hike a long time ago. Now he’s almost as tall as I am!
The View From Iraq
As my father has pointed out many times, UK coverage of Iraq is quite different than it is here in the US. There is notably less attention paid to Elephant vs. Donkey racing, and many more non-American opinions.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/OCT06/BBC.mp3]Here are 8 minutes of the BBC call-in show “Have Your Say.” Brigett Kendall moderates between Georgetown U. professor Robert Lieber, and a caller in Iraq. This provides clear contrast between an academic expert and an actual resident; who, I should note, doesn’t want American troops withdrawn.