November 2007 Archives

Seen on a Forum:

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

Way back when in the mid 80's, I was reading a manga called Outlanders. It was written by Johji Manabe and produced by AIC for Tatsunoko Production in Japan. It combined aspects of the Space Opera, Science Fantasy, fan service, magical girlfriend and Harem genres within it's story line. It told the story of alien Princess Kahm and Tokyo News Photographer Wakatsuki Tetsuya as they tried to save the earth from the invasion forces led Kahm's father, emperor of the interstellar Santovasku Empire. The Santovasku used giant organic spaceships, or "Biomech," and they utilized both their advanced technology as well as their mastery of sorcery in their assault on Earth.

The bad part was that I only found about a dozen of the comics in my local shops and just a few of them from shops online. (And heck, they were in the bargin bin. Cost more to ship the issues then to actually buy them.)

A few days ago I found scanned copies of the entire run as well as the two extra issues. If you're interested in reading the series, you can download them at the links below. Do note that there is some nudity within the series.

edit: You'll need the CDisplay Reader to read a *.cbr file and WinRAR to open up the *.rar files the downloads are in.

Outlanders - Volume #1
Outlanders - Volume #2
Outlanders - Volume #3
Outlanders - Volume #4
Outlanders - Volume #5
Outlanders - Volume #6
Outlanders - Volume #7
Outlanders - Volume #8

And the extras:

Outlanders - Epilogue
Outlanders - Special

Dick Wilson, the actor and pitchman who played the uptight grocer begging customers "Please, don't squeeze the Charmin," died Monday. He was 91.

The man famous as TV's "Mr. Whipple" died of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, said his daughter Melanie Wilson, who is known for her role as a flight attendant on the ABC sitcom "Perfect Strangers."

Over 21 years, Wilson made more than 500 commercials as Mr. George Whipple, a man consumed with keeping bubbly housewives from fondling the soft toilet paper. The punch line of most spots was that Whipple himself was a closeted Charmin-squeezer.

Wilson also played a drunk on several episodes of "Bewitched," as appeared as various characters on "Hogan's Heroes," "The Bob Newhart Show," and Walt Disney productions.

The first of his Charmin commercials aired in 1964 and by the time the campaign ended in 1985, the tag line and Wilson were pop culture touchstones.

"Everybody says, 'Where did they find you?' I say I was never lost. I've been an actor for 55 years," Wilson told the San Francisco Examiner in 1985.

Though Wilson said he initially resisted commercial work, he learned to appreciate its nuance.

"It's the hardest thing to do in the entire acting realm. You've got 24 seconds to introduce yourself, introduce the product, say something nice about it and get off gracefully."

Dennis Legault, Procter & Gamble's Charmin brand manager, said in a statement that Wilson deserves much of the credit for the product's success in the marketplace. He called the Mr. Whipple character "one of the most recognizable faces in the history of American advertising."

After Wilson retired, he continued to do occasional guest appearances for the brand and act on television. He declared himself not impressed with modern cinema.

"The kind of pictures they're making today, I'll stick with toilet paper," he told The Associated Press in 1985.

Procter & Gamble eventually replaced the Whipple ads with cartoon bears, but brought Wilson (as Whipple) back for an encore in 1999. The ad showed Wilson "coming out of retirement" against the advice of his golfing and poker buddies for one more chance to sell Charmin. "He is part of the culture," his daughter said. "He was still funny to the very end. That's his legacy."

He was born in England in 1916, the son of a vaudeville entertainer and a singer. He moved to Canada as a child, serving in the Canadian Air Force during World War II, and became a U.S. citizen in 1954, he told the AP.

In addition to Melanie, Wilson is survived by his wife, Meg; a son, Stuart; and another daughter, Wendy.

Here he is with the Forbidden Planet's Robby the Robot in a Charmin TV commercial that was taped sometime in 1981.

Angie and I had cats like this who would have entire conversations with each other and us.

Taken from here:

A man was killed Sunday after he was hit by a light rail train. It happened just before 8 p.m.

Charlotte Area Transit System officials tell Eyewitness News that the man was sitting on the tracks at the corner of South Boulevard and Old Pineville Road.

Investigators are trying to figure out why the man was on the tracks. They'll be reviewing on-board video from the train to help in the investigation.

Not the first person to die at Charlotte Transit's hands either. (But my Google searching is mush today and I can't find any links.)

Greets:

Just a quick mention that our RSS feed has been changed. I have the old one redirecting to the new one but you may want to change it:

http://drmikessteakdinner.com/atom.xml

Thanks,
-drmike

Google hasn't indexed my site since April or so because it can't see my robots.txt file for some reason.

But yet Google Reader doesn't have any issue with pulling a feed from this site.

And MSN and Yahoo and the rest don't have any issue either.

It's really annoying.

I setup a WordPress Multiuser site for one of my clients about a month ago with one of the domains I had kicking around and not using. We still have a lot to do with it.

Cynix

Wank changed her theme and now I see frames. edit: She's changed the theme back now. Wanted to get another screen cap to show that it wasn't the image within the post causing the issue. Oh well...