Author: DOuG pRATt

Eric’s non-Anime Pick — Train Man (Densha Otoko)

A highly-popular recent manga/movie/TV series in Japan is Train Man or, as it’s known there, Densha Otoko. It’s a romantic comedy that is supposed to be based on a true Internet bulletin board thread about an ultra-nerd who helps a girl that is accosted by a drunk on a subway.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/JUN07/TrainMan.flv 425 240]

This movie is all heart, with none of the mean-spirited macho posturing tone that afflicts The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Another nod to honorable Eric from his humble parents!

Advice for Would-Be Bloggers

Unless you’re into technology for its own sake, I strongly recommend using a blogging service, such as WordPress.com or Blogger.com, rather than maintaining your own Web site, as I am doing. I started blogging as much for the learning experience as for the blogging. Well, sometimes learning is painful. But I have to admit, the hardest lesson I’ve learned is an old one — the absolute necessity of adhering to the rules that are followed where I work:

  1. Do daily backups
  2. Do a weekly database analysis
  3. Do test restorations of backups

Repair Reminder

Yes, the blog is back! You’ll find my notice about it about 10 posts ago. Those “new” posts are quickie attempts at re-doing a small portion of what was lost. I’m starting to recover psychically from the stress of an extremely tense session of dealing with the database and various iterations of backups.

It Was 40 Years Ago That Day

Sgt. Pepper's

Back on June 2, before The Bad Thing happened to my database, I had noted the 40th anniversary of the American release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and compared the audio quality of an American LP on the Apple label, and a pressing from the glory days of British vinyl, using “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.” Hmm. Y’know, I’m not sure myself now, which is which. I’ll have to click back-and-forth to figure it out. Just did it. Oh, it’s obvious, which is better.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JUN07/LucyInTheSkyWithDiamonds.mp3]
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JUN07/lucyskydiamonds.mp3]

Folk Festival at Newport 1959

Pete Seeger, 1959The posts from the missing month of May that represented the most work were the transcriptions from the 3-LP set of the 1959 Newport Folk Festival. I’m not going to try to redo all of the text and HTML tables that I did, but here is all of the audio:

Volume 1, Side 1: Pete Seeger, Martha Schlamme
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAY07/Newport59_1A.mp3]
Volume 1, Side 2: Leon Bibb, Tom Makem, Pat Clancy, Pete Seeger
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAY07/Newport59_1B.mp3]

Volume 2, Side 1: Odetta, Joan Baez and Bob Gibson
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAY07/Newport59_2A.mp3]
Volume 2, Side 2: New Lost City Ramblers, Barbara Dane, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAY07/Newport59_2B.mp3]

Volume 3, Side 1: Earl Scruggs, Jean Ritchie, Oscar Brand, John Jacob Niles, Frank Hamilton, Frank Warner,
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAY07/Newport59_3A.mp3]
Volume 3, Side 2: Earl Scruggs, Oscar Brand, Cynthia Gooding, Ed McCurdy, Earl Scruggs
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAY07/Newport59_3B.mp3]