SamuraiFrog Archives - Page 20 of 22

June Ramblin’: my Facebook follies

Speedy Alka-Seltzer with Buster Keaton?

The problem with Facebook: I had passed along some funny items. As it turns out, though, the original cover of Tails had been Photoshopped to remove the comma after the word cooking, this giving the post a whole new meaning. Read about it here.

The wife of a World War II soldier waited for more than 68 years for solid proof that her husband is either dead or alive. Then she learned the stunning truth in Normandy, France. Steve Hartman reports. A sad, maddening, and ultimately, touching story.

Mark Evanier tells The Ray Bradbury-Julius Schwartz-Al Feldstein Story, at the San Diego Comic-Con. Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4.
Also: Ray Bradbury: 1950s comics’ illustrated man.

The British sense of personal privacy is very different from the American one. Asking someone’s name, even implicitly by offering yours, is a premature violation of that privacy until some goodwill has already been established between you.

From Alan David Doane: Looking back, I have to say my over 18 years of parenting has been fascinating, a never-ending learning curve that I am sure will continue for the rest of my life.

There’s also a debate over whether the FDA should label genetically modified food. I don’t even know what the debate is, honestly. Is this something that needs discussion? Of course it should be labeled. Everything on food should be labeled. Also stuff about “gay” Oreos, among other topics.

John Lincoln Wright – a man of two musical careers.

How did the Euro start?

In 1955, John L. Black, Sr. started his job as a janitor for the Cincinnati public school system. He regularly put in 16-hour days to provide for his wife and eleven children…his son Samuel talks… about his father’s lasting legacy and the power of a look.

Redux Riding Hood is a 15-minute Oscar-nominated animated short from 1997, written by Dan O’Shannon, and starring Michael Richards, Mia Farrow, Lacey Chabert, Garrison Keillor, Adam West, Don Rickles, June Foray, Fabio, and Jim Cummings. It has never aired or been released on DVD. You can now watch it on director Steve Moore’s website, or on Samurai Frog’s.

The Making of Star Wars. Now, I REALLY want to read this book.

A great tool in snow removal.

Matt Cain of the San Francisco Giants pitched a perfect game against the Houston Astros on Thursday night. Cain struck out 14 batters in the Giants’ 10-0 victory. Here’s the box score.

Clinic Vignettes from a family practice physician.

Jaquandor finishes the first draft. I’m interested in the process, too.

June Foray wins her first Emmy…at the age of 94. As the Squirrel would say, Hokey smoke, Bullwinkle!

Cartoonists! You NEED This Chapbook!

The argument is: If you’re criticizing this show, which is for, by, and about girls/women, you’re a misogynist. Bullsh-t.

Here’s a rundown of the folks who hosted The Tonight Show between the time Jack Paar left and Johnny Carson took over.

Harry Belafonte on The Nat King Cole Show, back in 1957, singing a song I remember surprisingly well.

‘Mr. McFeely’ gives his take on viral Mister Rogers video

How Canadians Get Their TV

An obit of legendary Dick Beals — a star of radio, cartoons, and more commercials than just about anyone – Speedy Alka-Seltzer with Buster Keaton?

Yog(h)urt.

A mashup of cartoon and Kubrick.

Keep Calm and Carry On – a phrase I somehow all but missed. (Though, now that I see the graphic, it looks vaguely familiar…)

Not calm: Gilbert complains about gender cakes, as well he should. (Some NSFW language.)

New grandfather Steve Bissette’s essays on Tijuana Bibles and gay comics. To be VERY clear, grandpa Steve is adorable, but if you don’t know what the Tijuana bibles are, they are definitely NSFW AT ALL, and the latter post, “though non-explicit, may be offensive to some.”

And in the world of the truly bizarre: Jesus was crucified on a pyramid.
By aliens… The proof is on the Ohio flag.

GOOGLE ALERT

Dr. Green is the founding President of the Florida Nurse Practitioner Network.

May Rambling: Stolen Scream and lots of music

THE QUID IS A COOL ROCK BAND that gained some success during the Garage Band era in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

The Stolen Scream (via Steve Bissette’s Facebook page). Creative theft is a global phenomenon. “The Stolen Scream” is a snapshot of just one such phenomenal, almost spontaneous international appropriation of an artist’s (in this case, a photographer’s) work.

A death that was also a birth. “As a midwife, I’ve spent the last 30 years taking care of women in pregnancy. But nothing prepared me for this.”

It’s a horrible cycle I’m quite familiar with and occasionally adore. After all, anxiety is king, and I am its lowly peasant. Going into public, whether a store, the movies, a restaurant or a family function, is exhausting. (New blogger, a friend of a friend.)

Another Supermarket Interlude.

James Lipton gives Mitt Romney advice on how to come across as a more “authentic” human being. Of course, while some cannot forgive his economic policies, Willard being the Demon Barber of Wall Street and/or a flip-flopper, there are others who want to forget every mean word they’ve ever said about him.

Will the leaning tower of Pisa fall over?

7-UP: a Branding Revolution

It’s the second half of Mark Evanier’s story about his high school yearbook that’s really entertaining. He also writes about The $10,000 Pyramid, one of my three favorite game shows ever, and shares someone’s story about Dick Cavett, who I used to watch religiously on late night TV.

Upfronts: 2012–Video Trailers. Clips of the various new shows from the networks.

Steve Bissette has me wanting to see the new Dark Shadows movie, which I had previously dismissed. A Pac-Man movie and Movies With Matching Titles.

A Yank’s Humble Guide To Kiwi Music (Part II)

The Music of Nick McKaig, performing the Star Wars Theme (which Jaquandor linked to), some Christmas songs, plus TV themes such as The Simpsons, The Muppets, Friends, The Office, Mission: Impossible, and more.

A week’s worth of Na

Pictures at an Exhibition – especially check out the guy playing it on solo acoustic guitar.

THE QUID IS A COOL ROCK BAND that gained some success during the Garage Band era in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, from the POV of the wife of a former band member.

The obligatory Muppets segment: Racialious crushes Kevin Clash and Harry Belafonte; the latter has a song that shows up on SamuraiFrog’s 50 Favorite Muppet Songs. Do I want GPS via Sesame Street?

Brothers In Arms, the Dire Straits album, covered. Also, Coverville 867: The Beastie Boys Cover Story (and Adam Yauch tribute), and Coverville 871: The Donna Summer Cover Story, and Coverville 872: The Robin Gibb/Bee Gees Cover Story III.

Dustbury: “It bothers me a great deal that we’re now down to one Bee Gee. And I think it’s because it’s Barry, the oldest of the brothers, who’s still with us;” he speaks from experience. Arthur’s complicated feelings about the BeeGees, and especially Donna Summer. And here is Donna Summer’s MacArthur Park Suite (Extended Version), all 17+ minutes of it, the way I remembered it.

The New York Times obit of Doc Watson, legendary guitarist and folk singer.

The True Story Of The Traveling Wilburys

FROM THE OTHER BLOGS

What happens to your online content when you die?

Dumb and dumber?: Study finds level of Congressional speech in decline

GOOGLE ALERTS

On April 24th Joe Sampson performed a ten-song set with some of his friends joining him onstage. Nathaniel Rateliff, Roger Green & Esme Patterson joined him on stage and together they performed songs from Joe’s latest album.

But the club’s move to appoint Avery, alongside Roger Green, has been one of the masterstrokes of Sticker’s recent history.

Yes, there was a real Vidal Sassoon

The elimination of the ACS would mean the loss of all the data Census used to collect on the long form. A voluntary ACS would actually cost MORE to operate than it does presently.

I was on Facebook recently, and someone, who I believe considers herself a bit of a fashionista, wrote: “Did you have ANY idea Vidal Sassoon was a real person? I did not.” She must be even younger than I thought because that means she never saw this commercial and others like it. This made me feel rather old but also puzzled. I found this list of companies named after people, and Sassoon was not on it; maybe it seemed too obvious.

At a conference last week, I was talking to some folks about movies. I mentioned how cinematic offerings so often come from another source, such as The Avengers (a couple of no-spoiler reviews here and here, BTW) I said I didn’t know why they bothered to slap the name Dark Shadows on it, since it has such a different feel than the TV show. Both of them expressed shock. I said, “Look it up!” at which point one pulled out his smartphone. “Go to IMBD.com,” I directed. He exclaimed, “Dark Shadows 1966-1971, 30-minute gothic soap opera. I didn’t know they had goth back then!” I just walked away. They must have missed Jonathan Frid’s obit; he originated the character Barnabas Collins in 1967 that Johnny Depp will play in the film.

All the obits for Maurice Sendak mentioned first Where The Wild Things Are; I don’t think I’ve ever read it! Yet I immediately recognize the artwork. I DID watch Really Rosie and saw some of his other work, such as in The New Yorker.

A guy who’s my sister’s friend, and my Facebook friend and real-life acquaintance, lives in the San Diego area. He wrote of Junior Seau, the San Diego Chargers linebacker who committed suicide: “There’s an outpouring of sadness in this city. He was much more than an athlete: his charitable contributions were well-respected. We won’t know what demons were in his life; we’d rather remember the goodness that he radiated, at least in public.” What Jaquandor said, I would echo.
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From the Association of Public Data Users:
“The U.S. House of Representatives voted on May 9th to eliminate the American Community Survey. This amendment to the FY2013 Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill passed by a vote of 232 to 190. Right before this vote, the House passed the Webster amendment, approved by voice vote and sponsored by Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), to make a response to the ACS voluntary by prohibiting both the Census Bureau and the Justice Department from using funds to enforce penalties in the Census Act that make survey response mandatory. (The amendment had to be written as a limit on the expenditure of funds in order for it to be ruled “in order” on an appropriations bill.) The outcome of this vote demonstrates the importance of proactivity among data users in conveying their support for the ACS and other surveys to all members of the House and Senate. The Senate is expected to take up the FY2013 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations bill next week.”

The elimination of the ACS, for those who don’t deal with Census data, would mean the loss of all the data Census used to collect on the long-form, discontinued after Census 2000 to make way for the ACS, at Congress’ urging! The ACS has provided data more regularly. A voluntary ACS, because it would involve contacting more households, would actually cost MORE to operate than it does presently, and because of participant bias – i.e., people who like to fill out surveys – would lose its statistical validity. Governments, businesses, and individuals use these data daily, I know from experience.
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Evanier notes that on a recent trip how much of it was made possible by technology that didn’t exist a decade or two ago.

Bellowing about Blogger

I do understand the ire. My complaint with the new Blogger is not that it’s new. It’s the fact that it’s new and largely unimproved, with changes that were not at all intuitive.

Even though this blog is in WordPress, most of the other blogs I write or co-write are on Blogger. I stayed in Old Blogger as long as possible – when I briefly switched, about two months ago, I admit to being a tad confused, and switched back almost immediately – but now, all the blogs have the New Blogger board.

My intern at work was having fits. For everything she wrote, there were no page breaks. So I finally sat down and actually looked at the post settings, on the right of the screen. The bottom button gives one the option to either add page breaks – tiresome and tedious, and the default setting – or Press ENTER for line breaks, which is what I had always done. It was my major problem besides the Post Settings box seeming to jump to the left and right, opposite whatever direction I pointed the cursor; still annoying. But not enough to mention. But that Send Feedback button in the bottom right of the screen – is there any way to get RID OF IT?

Oh, and someone else was having difficulty I was not, which was getting to the editing page of the posts.

So I was humored by the fact that SamuraiFrog was complaining that people were complaining about Blogger; terribly meta. I was amused because I hadn’t seen any complaints at that point. THEN Ken Levine expressed his displease with Blogger (and Facebook, and rightly so); I did, though, solved one of his frustrations, and he thanked me in the comments. Dustbury cites Roberta X’s disdain. Demeur got so ticked off that he gave Blogger the middle finger and started a WordPress blog.

I do understand the ire. My complaint with the new Blogger is not that it’s new. It’s the fact that it’s new and largely unimproved, with changes that were not at all intuitive.

Something that REALLY annoys me on the Internet are those lists where you have to click on a dozen or more pages to get to “the Answer”. One of them Jaquandor pointed to, the ranking of Stephen King’s books. At least the slideshow goes five books at a time, but there seems to be no book at all in 2nd place.

Now this a good and proper thing to do. That Texts from Hillary page has hung it up.

“As far as memes go – it has gone as far as it can go. Is it really possible to top a submission from the Secretary herself? No. But then when you get to text with her in real life – it’s just over. At least for us. But we have no doubt it will live on with all of you on the Internet.”

Erasing the Deceased QUESTION

How do you handle the written records of a deceased friend or loved one? Do you purge them right away, or is it a gradual process?

(Weird – I scheduled this particular post for this day a couple of weeks ago, before vacation. Didn’t know I’d be writing so much about dead people this week.)

I still have a print address book; you know, the kind made of paper. And when someone dies, I never know when to erase that person’s name. It seems that doing so means they are REALLY dead. The only time I’m likely to drop someone is if the book falls apart, I buy a new one, then rewrite the names in the new book, but only the living.

It’s no easier for me in my electronic address book. Deleting someone, especially someone I cared for, is tricky. I suspect that my mother’s still in the system, and she passed away over a year ago.

When Albert Wood from my choir died on Ash Wednesday, his logo picture kept showing up on my Facebook home page. But I didn’t want to “unfriend” my late friend, especially since people keep writing “to” him. A side issue: Are Users’ Facebook Profiles Are Part Of ‘Digital Estates’?

How do you handle the written records of a deceased friend or loved one? Do you purge them right away, or is it a gradual process? And should relatives be able to get access to their loved ones’ social media after they die?
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In the non-human category, SamuraiFrog says goodbye