A Crummy Commercial

A Roz Chast cartoon in The New Yorker - the bearded prophet carries a sign which reads: "THE END OF YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM IS NEAR": source:  https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/6a0387dc4ca8f0266f755ca3/master/w_1280,c_limit/a61789.jpg I thought of this in connection with both Android and Windows (what'll Windows 10 users do when the extra year of support on Windows 10 is up later this year ?). I just got a new Android device, it had version 15 - of course right away it wanted to update to version 16.  And I *think* I might get another version updated to 17 - and that's it. But the problem is that the apps are jealous of the latest OS version - they want it to be a certain level or that's it, no dice.  With a previous Android device support ended at Android 11.  December 2025 this broke my banking app.  So I wasn't able to deposit kit checks via the app, I had to mail them in to the bank :(   Now I can use the app again on the new Android device versi...

Remember the book:  Homer Price ? : https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/06/homer-price.html There was a sequel by author McCloskey:  Centerburg Tales I can't remember if I read this one as a kid - but it's a fun book - and it has those amazing drawings by author McCloskey.  The book has many of the characters from Homer Price but adds new kooky ones like the fanciful Grampa Hercules and the crusty Dulcy Dooner.  A wonderful collection of stories about people in the fictional Centerburg. One radio related story, the gang in Uncle Ulysses' lunchroom encounters a huckster named Professor Atmos P.H. Ear.  He sells them all cans of EVERSOMUCH MORE-SO which is sorta like MSG in cooking except that EVERSOMUCH MORE-SO works on everything :) this sounds like every preamp I've ever tried with a radio :) Freddy is raising one eyebrow No murders, nothing serious, just silly, I love it !  Yes, I am still 12 years old inside. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/h...

This was a really effective thumbnail - at least for a kid who was 7 when the Jetsons started on TV in 1962: So I clicked on it (or actually I opened a private window and searched for the title - don't want to pollute my Youtube feed if possible).  The video itself appears to be AI generated - it suffers from continuity errors and an obvious artificial voice so not really good, but I couldn't stop watching !  And that's probably what all Youtubers want to achieve :) source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpY2wDAvdT0 All that cabbage soup, think of the unwanted byproducts !  Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

Henry Reed, Inc. is a kids book from 1958, written by Keith Robertson and illustrated by Robert McCloskey.    https://archive.org/details/henryreedinc00keit The McCloskey drawings are what make the book for me.  Mentioned him previously: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/06/homer-price.html I am pretty sure I read Henry Reed, Inc. in the 6th grade.  But maybe it was a similar book - I remember it because we had to do drawings with our book reports and mine was of a runaway balloon that had to be shot down like the one in Henry Reed, Inc. : It's a fun book - I noticed two items that would have passed me by in 1966-67, first sunspots: Since the book was written near the greatest sunspot peak in the radio era but I was just into radio at that point and hadn't known that.  Anyway it must have been the thing to blame everything on sunspots in the late 1950s. The second item was this: I remember hearing Jean Shepherd voice the same opinion so I don't know if it was c...

I'll admit it, somewhere along the line I started watching Rick and Morty .  It can be seen for free on the Adult Swim website.  Rick and Morty is a cartoon featuring 6 main characters, Rick Sanchez (mad scientist, wears a lab coat), Morty Smith (Rick's 14 year old grandson), Summer Smith (Rick's granddaughter, couple of years older than Morty), Jerry Smith (father of Morty and Summer), Beth Smith (daughter of Rick, mom of Morty and Summer) and Space Beth (it's a complicated story).  Anyway I finally decided to buy seasons 1 to 8 on DVD: 16 DVDs ! I've never seen this kind of DVD packaging before it has a spindle and a little button to hold them in place The Rick and Morty  show is heavily into the multiverse so this extended Smith family features Rick C137, the self proclaimed smartest being in the multiverse.  They live in a reality where the residents pronounce parmesan as par-me-zee-ann.  Rick and Morty go on adventures, usually involving crime, viole...

Attitude Control (I get it) I completely forgot about NOVA last night: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAKnhanjXVI The second NOVA  program on the ISS had two interesting survival episodes.  The first was where an EVA astronaut's helmet starting filling with water from a leak in the cooling system of his suit.  They finally got him inside OK.  The suit helmet now has absorbent pads and an emergency snorkel (!) to guard against a water leak.  They mentioned that his suit had a CO2 alarm go off but they didn't mention (that I noticed) whether that alarm was related to the water in the helmet. The second survival episode shown was when a Russian science module was docked to the ISS - it then began firing it's thrusters and causing all kinds of problems.  The Russians never really quite figured out how to stop the thruster firing, the Russian module eventually ran out of fuel for the thrusters !  That's like the Bugs Bunny WWII cartoon where...

Youtube served an old documentary on the cartoon TV show: Jonny Quest     It is a fan made film but well done, there were a number things I found out about the show: 1) Doug Wildey was the guiding force of the show not Hanna or Barbera.  He was a comic book guy not a cartoon guy and the art work shows that. 2) The music was composed and conducted by Hoyt Curtin, like many shows of that era the music was great 3) there were apparently subsequent Jonny Quest iterations but from a brief viewing they don't seem to be as good as the original. 4) Jonny was voiced by Tim Matheson when he was 16.  The other voices were familiar to any old time radio fan, one I recognized was Cathy Lewis who played some of the female characters (there weren't too many). 5) only 1 season of 26 shows (that'd be equivalent to 2.5 seasons of Rick and Morty ) 6) rewatching the shows there is a resemblance between Jonny Quest and Clutch Cargo although Jonny Quest was a much better show.  B...

They really nailed it, a perfect picture of 21st century education :) I hate starting in the middle of something, like a TV series or a movie - isn't it best to be there from the start ? When I used to subscribe to Boys' Life in the 1964 to 1965 time frame I never really read the Space Conquerors cartoons because it was a continuing story and I was starting in the middle.  Luckily a lifetime later I found this collection in two pdf files of all the Space Conquerors cartoons in Boys' Life from 1952 to 1972: https://archive.org/details/space-conquerors-in-boy-life-magazine-1952-to-1958/Space%20Conqueror%20in%20Boy%27%20Life%20Magazine%20%201959%20to1972%20%28%20and%20goodies%20%29%20/ I finally found out what happened to the galactic explorers / time travelers.  Of course a beautiful blonde queen named Rua is involved: I did like Boys' Life but after 1965 I had moved on to other magazines like Electronics Illustrated or Mad Magazine - luckily they all had cartoons ...

I've mentioned him before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/04/rodrigues.html But a search on the term Loof Lirpa from the April 2025 QST April Fools article found this: https://www.soundandvision.com/content/history-lirpa-labs which led to this: https://www.soundandvision.com/content/flashback-1958-if-not-charles I had never known that Rodrigues also was in Stereo Review.  Of course the wonderful worldradiohistory site has a bunch of old Stereo Review issues: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/HiFI-Stereo-Review.htm There is also a book of the Stereo Review cartoons, see the link in the first post: https://dynacotubeaudio.forumo tion.com/t3051-charles-rodrigu es-total-harmonic-distortion- cartoons-from-stereo-review Here is his first cartoon in the first issue of what would become Stereo Review: Here is a radio related cartoon: And here is my favorite: As I've mentioned before, sometimes the internet is still fun. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com...

Is this Roz Chast's take on Mickey in the public domain ? source: https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a28793 The New Yorker is forever inscrutable with their cartoons :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I saw that the first episode of The Simpsons: Roasting on an Open Fire is now on Youtube: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3kc0zDkNo and it explains where Bart's dog, Santa's Little Helper, came from. That's the smallest Christmas gift that Disney+ ever got me but it was a lot more than I have ever given them ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

The "Bart head" in spectrum analysis was blogged on before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/01/bart-head-in-december-i-joined-crowd.html ,   I noticed that The Simsons premiered on December 17, 1989. I never watched The Simpsons until some friends told me about this episode, Season 2, episode 16: excerpts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cPfRaioHgk   The thing that was clever was seeing from the viewpoint of Santa's Little Helper, in black and white, and the dialogue as heard by the dog is all waa-waa kind of like Charlie Brown's teachers. The amazing thing is the detail on an animated show, the script is 54 pages !  They don't "wing it" in animation: https://archive.org/details/7F14-barts-dog-gets-an-f-table-draft But just like NFL games I never watch The Simpsons or any other network shows any longer because the only network that I can still see is PBS, the local Fox station in Escanaba, MI went off the air some time ago. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9K...

Yes there were ham radio cartoonists other than Gil and ham radio magazines other than QST with April Fool's articles: source: https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-1967-04 This issue of 73 is mentioned in this nice blog post about the artist, K3SUK: https://www.onallbands.com/ham-radio-and-morse-code-in-popular-culture-mad-73-magazine-and-remembering-artist-wayne-pierce-k3suk-sk/ Modern society is divided into many enclaves, true of ham radio, too.  Hopefully stuff like cartoons helps to break down divisions between those groups. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

After mentioning Nancy another drawing of a kid involved with radio turned up of facetbook: It's from the book: Homer Price by Robert McCloskey: https://archive.org/details/homerprice0000unse_z3p6 Homer builds his radio with the benign presence of a skunk named Aroma - who is in the above picture.  Homer hears about an award ceremony on his radio and that ceremony figures in the story.  Also Homer has an antenna at the roof peak of his house as seen here: One of the more famous stories in the book concerns doughnuts, here is a filmed version: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXeYNmqp8X4 I'm sure I must have read this book as a kid although I didn't remember it - it is a fun read. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I was never a big fan of Nancy, Sluggo and Aunt Fritzi but I did read it in the Green Sheet each day: https://archive.jsonline.com/greensheet/green-sheet-which-offered-readers-a-respite-for-60-years-returns-b99503162z1-304874681.html I saw this Nancy cartoon from April 22, 1943 on bookface: And remembered this post: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/01/v-for-victory.html Morse code:  it's fun, try it ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Per Churchy: No, no: Friday the 13th is on Sat-a-day this month ! source: https://archive.org/details/WaltKellyComicsCustomCollection BTW, I like this motto: Albert and our star, Pogo Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm