Archive for November, 2006
Toot Toot, Hey, Blip Blip
November 30th, 2006Chek out this funky 1980 commercial for a handheld electronic game called Blip. I started watching it and immediately thought, “Hey, I had this.” The game was kind of like pong, and as I recall the moving blip of light would cause the machine to make little whirring noises. It pretended to be an up-to-date […]
Charlie Brown Music; Asshat Santa
November 28th, 2006I was going to link to the swell NPR story on Vince Guaraldi’s musical contributions to A Charlie Brown Christmas, but Christopher has beat me to it. Rats! Instead, we have to make due with a YouTube user’s demonstration of Santa Claus’ jerkiness in the Rankin-Bass holiday classic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer:
Getting Reacquainted
November 27th, 2006Another interesting development: one of my ex-coworkers contacted me to do CD reviews for a local upscale lifestyle magazine. I accepted. It’s a sweet little gig — three mini-reviews a month, no restrictions but for a vague instruction to cover a wide variety of genres (and presumably stuff that would appeal to free-spending North Scottsdaleite […]
The Cold Wardigans
November 24th, 2006Mr. Jenkins has posted scans from a fascinating fallout shelter handbook from 1962. Very Kennedy-era, and yet paranoia never really goes out of style. Yes, in forty years the Department of Homeland Security’s Chicken Little warnings will seem quaint as well.
At flickr, I’ve just posted some scans from a 1956 McCall’s magazine fashion shoot taken […]
A Feast of Disney Music
November 23rd, 2006Happy Thanksgiving … I’ve gorged myself on turkey, cornbread stuffing with apple pieces, and boiled parsley carrots. That said, I did manage to waddle to the computer and download some neat old Disney music which iTunes just recently added to their store (thanks for the tip, Julie!). For me, the highlight was Walt Disney Takes […]
Dept. of How Funny
November 22nd, 2006In five plus years of doing this weblog, I’ve never gotten an email from somebody I wrote about — until now. A few days ago, former Entertainment Tonight correspondent Dixie Whately sent me a response to this. She wasn’t pissed off; on the contrary she was funny and sweet! These days Ms. Whatley is doing […]
Birthday Haul #3: Cartoon Modern Book
November 19th, 2006A wad of extra birthday cash inspired me to go to amazon.com and purchase the book Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation written by Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew and Animation Blast magazine. Although I haven’t yet read it, the book looks absolutely gorgeous and smartly designed with tons of beautiful film stills […]
How Logo Can You Go
November 15th, 2006Fun little diversion: identify the correct logo in the quickest time (via Kris at Web Goddess). Being presented with six minute variants on popular e-company logos might sound simple, but some of them are unexpectedly tough. I completed the quiz in just under two minutes. The fact that it took me five tries before correctly […]
Everybody’s a Critic
November 15th, 2006Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club Blog writes on the succession of stand-in critics on Ebert & Roeper, which points out many of the same things as my previous post on the subject. Namely that people within the entertainment industry have serious credibility problems when they slip into critic mode. On the other hand, TV […]
Simple Pleasures …
November 14th, 2006… finally locating a good Scrabble game for the Mac. It cost me twenty clams, but I’ve been trying to get something like this for years.
A Face That Could Crumble Stone
November 12th, 2006In honor of his recent passing, I present Bill Griffith’s impressions of Jack Palance in a 1988 Zippy the Pinhead strip. GSN just reran an old ’60s Password in which the movie toughguy faced off against Lauren Bacall. Mr. Palance may have been a pretty effective actor, but he was a terrible Password player.
Birthday Haul #2: Looney Tunes Vol. 3
November 11th, 2006The birthday loot continues with the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 3. I supplied my parents with a suggestion to get either this or the Rhino Girl Group set, and they bought both. Maybe becoming grandparents brought out their indulgent side, but we’ve definitely been enjoying the cartoons on these DVDs. The format is the […]
Birthday Haul #1: Girl Group Sounds Box
November 10th, 2006This is coming a month late, but starting here I’m sharing my impressions from a year of unexpectly large birthday giftage. The parents answered my number one wish by gifting something that I’d been saving up all year to get: Rhino’s mammoth One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found box […]
Stroll through the Daisies
November 9th, 2006I’m walkin’ on sunshine. My pal Patrick is sharing six Sunshine Pop compilations which he originally assembled in 2002. I never get tired of this kinda music, evocative of moony couples walking though sun-dappled fields. I’m particularly interested in hearing more from harmony-based vocal quartet The Arbors. These guys may have looked like accountants from […]
Election Day
November 7th, 2006Now that election day is almost over, it’s time for a few hopes. Firstly, I’m hoping people in my home state of Arizona actually vote and not sit on their collective butts watching Dancing with the Stars or whatever — action is always better than inaction. Secondly, I’m hoping that AZ gets a big dose […]
