The 40th anniversary of Sesame Street is being celebrated in various ways, including Google’s use of custom logos this week.
First Lady Michelle Obama paid a recent visit to Sesame Street. She was five years old when the show premiered, so she belonged to the program’s first generation target audience.
But what does Big Bird really think about Barack Obama being President?
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/NOV/MichelleObamaBigBird.flv 480 270]
By now, the Beatles Weekend in Ouistreham, Normany, with Prue Bury as a guest of honor, must be winding down. I hope somebody has been taking pictures. I would love to get hold of some.
I found thumbnails of other photos with Prue and Pattie from “A Hard Day’s Night,” seen nowhere else, that apparently are sealed in the Disney Vault.
I found this “Hard Day’s Night” dress on the Beatles Web site, which looks as though it were made for Prue:
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.dograt.com/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/bea45757.jpg "\")
When I pointed it out to her, Prue replied…
“That is a great dress!! Can’t think why I haven’t got one!!”
I’m in the middle of helping Prue with a Christmas project she has in the works, by trying to secure performance rights for songs that aren’t in the Public Domain. So far I’ve found only limited success, but I’m hoping for better results this week. I would like to thank Mr. Lawrence S. Kartiganer for his help. He is a Hollywood attorney in the great and grand tradition, and a true gentleman. If there were more like him the world would be a better place.
Do my cataract replacement lenses deceive me, or is that D.F. Rogers hanging out at the home of none other than Marvel Comics legend Joe Sinnott?
Dennis spent some time with Joe this past weekend, and of his brief stint at the drawing board he says,
“Joe let me airbrush some drawings. The only thing on the brush was air!”
Even I, who once could handle a #2 Kolinsky Sable dipped in Higgins Black Magic with some confidence, wouldn’t dare dab so much as a dot on a piece of paper that the great Joe Sinnott had touched. To do that would be a sin as well as a crime!
Here are a couple more snaps of Den with Joe. Maybe Dennis can add a comment to fill in some details about his visit. The thing about Dennis is, he is very knowledgeable on two of Joe’s favorite subjects: Baseball and Bing — Bing Crosby that is, not the Microsoft search engine. I’m not qualified to keep up my end of the conversation on either of these topics.
This picture of Joe and his son Mark (the tall guy), was taken last February in New York. Standing between Joe and Mark is Mike Uslan, one of the producers of the Batman movies, including The Dark Knight, and on the right is Chip Cronkite, the son of another legend, Walter Cronkite. I’ve featured Chip before, at this link.
The Beatles, June 22 or 23, 1961
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2009/NOV/AintSheSweet.mp3]The Beach Boys, September 15, 1961
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2009/NOV/Surfin.mp3]
Well, another Halloween has come and gone. We had a good crowd show up, yet we have more leftover candy than ever, because one of our neighbors dropped some off so we could cover for them while they went to a party. There’s plenty for me to leave in the break room at work on Monday!
Here is what I posted last Halloween ,and the year before that, and three years ago. This year I added the video projector to the decorations, in rear projection mode with an old sheet hung from the garage door for a screen. I played the 1953 movie “War of the Worlds,” and the original “King Kong .” It was very windy tonight! On the video you can hear the wind, and some kids up the street.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/OCT/WarOfWorlds.flv 512 384]
I was pleased that ABC -TV ran “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” twice this week. Being the fan that I am — Great Pumpkin is my favorite “Peanuts” cartoon — I watched it both times, and the commercials too. There was a loud hum in the soundtrack towards the end that I don’t recall ever hearing before. And I had to think of the promo in an ironic way, because I refuse to accept it as a sincere attempt at updating Charlie Brown!
[MEDIA=70]
Whether it’s called Video on Demand, IPTV, streaming video, or whatever, once you’ve seen it you know it’s eventually going to take over television. At our house we take Netflix Watch Instantly for granted, on Eric’s Xbox 360 that’s hooked up to the video projector via component video, and on the Roku HD player that’s in regular composite SD video on my beloved Sony 32XBR100.
Last summer I wrote about a Doctor Who episode called “Love and Monsters” (the YouTube video I’d embedded was pulled). Another memorable installment, one of the most enjoyable hours of TV I have ever watched, is called “Blink”.
Recently, the whole family watched “Blink” on the Xbox 360. It wasn’t in HD, but it wasn’t supposed to be. The quality of the highly compressed widescreen picture was, to borrow a line from The Doctor, a bit “wibbly wobbly,” but it was serviceable.
Funny thing, though, because last night, on a lark I put the Roku player on the projector with an HDMI cable. “Blink” was in HD! There was no doubt about it.
This left me wondering if there’s a setting that needs changing on the Xbox 360’s Netflix software, or if Netflix upgraded the Doctor Who files without adding an HD logo. I’ll see tonight, when I have Eric play a bit of “Blink” on the Xbox again.
This video clip has a few minutes of “Blink” in HD on the Roku player and taken with the Canon digital camera sitting on top of the projector. I add to the suspense of the scene by sticking my fingers into the left of the picture at 1:45, so you can get an idea of the image size.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/OCT/WhoBlink.flv 512 384]
