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.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/SEP/YogiBear.mp3]

McCloud Computing

Scott McCloud

Scott McCloud, creator of the independent comic book series ZOT! and author of the book Understanding Comics, has created an online comic book for Google, explaining the new Chrome browser.

Chrome sounds interesting, mostly because of its independent tabs, but I’ll wait a bit before jumping on it. Computerworld’s review of Chrome is very good. Ever have a page in one tab lock up, resulting in a crash of the whole browser, or forcing you to crash it? Sure you have, so if you have at least a gig of memory you will like independent tabs.

McCloud, who grew up in Massachusetts, changed the spelling of his name from McLeod when he started working in comics. I know this because his mother’s apartment happens to be around the corner from my mother-in-law, in the retirement community where they live. I assume Scott wanted to avoid confusion with comic book artist Bob McLeod, who was already established in the business at the time McCloud came on the scene.