Author: DOuG pRATt

Spam, spam, spam

The past few weeks have been brutal for spam floods, both in e-mail and blog comments. The Akismet service for WordPress does a great job of filtering out spam comments, but when the volume is bad, some slips through, especially when there are multiples of the same message. Here’s one example:

Name: best motorcycle insurance | URI: http://www.fullsizeinsurance.com/
| IP: 86.96.226.14 | Date: March 4, 2008

This is why I have to moderate comments. It’s not because any of the legitimate comments need censoring, it’s because I’d have to delete spam that would have already found its way to the RSS feed for comments.

Charlie Brown Bulks Up

An editorial cartoon last week, by Jeff Stahler.

Jeff Staher - 2/22/08

Personally, I think Congress has no business investigating steroids in Major League Baseball. Another waste of time and taxpayer money was the 1954 Senate investigation into comic books and their claimed cause-and-effect influence on juvenile delinquency.

The Return of Eric’s Anime Pick

If I were to select one Anime title to show someone as an introduction to Japanese animation as it’s done today, it would not be something by Hayao Miyazaki. It would be Makoto Shinkai’s The Place Promised in Our Early Days. I consider this film to be an exemplary work of the highest quality and artistry, exploring elements of science fiction, fantasy, technology, politics, romance, and friendship, with deftness and subtlety. I blogged about it many months ago, but the pre-Flash video embedding no longer works, so I’ll have to do a fresh transfer of a choice scene.

Shinkai’s follow-up to Place Promised is 5 Centimeters Per Second: a chain of short stories about their distance. Eric has wanted me to blog something from it for a while, and now that the DVD is about to be released in America, I will. The final part of the movie includes this musical montage of flashbacks. Seeing it shouldn’t spoil your enjoyment of the movie. I transferred this video from the Japanese DVD.

[flv:/Video/2008/MAR/FiveCentimeters.flv 448 252]

The Dubuque View of ‘Schulz and Peanuts’

Progress! Schulz and Peanuts by David Michaelis has been read in Dubuque, IA. The Telegraph Herald has a review. Now that the book has received attention in Dubuque, perhaps this means we’re getting closer to the end of its lifespan. The reviewer questions nothing in the book, and in fact he concludes that the book had a positive effect on his view of Schulz.

I gained an even greater appreciation of the man who drew each and every one of the 17,897 “Peanuts” comic strips. He was a genius, yet filled with anxieties and insecurities. As one of my personal heroes, there’s something reaffirming to know that even people like Charles Schulz are only human.

He also says,

Perhaps the biography’s greatest controversy comes through a revelation that Schulz had an affair near the end of his first marriage.

A little more online research would have led him to realize that Schulz’s affair is actually one of the less controversial aspects of the story, because it was on the table for inclusion from the outset. I would have added a comment to the review, but it required an online account, and I have enough online accounts.

PETition Home Stretch

We’re getting close to March 12! That’s the last day for UK citizens and residents to e-sign Irene Seaton’s PETition for Prime Minister Brown to recommend Petula Clark be awarded the title of Dame.

Petula Clark on the BBCPetula Clark today

Today the post (to use the UK vernacular) brought quite a surprise. A large envelope from The International Petula Clark Society in England. Thank you, Terry Young and Bonnie Miller! The contents include a lavish program book from Pet’s appearance at Theatre Royal on November 26, 2006 with the BBC Concert Orchestra. November ’06 was also when the BBC broadcast Petula Clark: Blue Lady. You can watch it at this link.

My wondering eyes also beheld an autographed 8×10 glossy photo. These days, images developed on photographic paper are becoming increasingly rare, and this scan just doesn’t do justice to the image quality of this lovely, suitable-for-framing portrait.

Autographed Petula Clark Portrait

Here’s a Petula Clark song from 1967 that you may not have heard in a while. I remember it from listening to WABC in NYC.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/FEB/CatInTheWindow.mp3]

Radio station am740 in Canada featured Petula on its Applause show shortly before her birthday. Here it is.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/FEB/PetulaApplause.mp3]