Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

My Neighbor Totoro: the review

Posted on Written by

Man, I love this movie. I loved it the first time Darin showed it to me (via laserdisc he’d brought back from Japan in 1992, no English subtitles or translation), and I love it every time Sophia watches it. She loves it too.

It’s the story of two young girls, Mei and Satsuke, who move to the countryside so that they can live nearer to the hospital where their mother is staying. Their new house is creaky and dusty—and filled with “dust bunnies,” which are little spirits. They soon discover there are a lot more spirits than that around, including the gigantic teddy-bearish Totoro! Sophia’s favorite is the Cat Bus, of course. Mei and Satsuke’s adventures with the spirits, while at the same time trying to cope with their mother’s illness (never stated, but I think it’s tuberculosis), is charming and fun.

Highly recommended.

Question: The first time I heard the American DVD, I was sure the father was played by Phil Hartman. I haven’t been able to find a cast list, but I have found that one of the voices is Kenneth Hartman. Anyone know if he’s Phil’s brother? (I haven’t found anything on the Web one way or the other, which is why I ask.)

Apparent answer: According to Julia’s stellar info, the Dad isn’t played by Kenneth Hartman, so I am clearly wrong and will now cease and desist.

Wine allergies

Posted on Written by

Man, I so did not even know wine allergies existed.

I had a glass of wine last night—McManis Cabernet Sauvignon to be exact—and not even a whole glass of wine but one of my wimpy half-a-glass deals. And when Simon woke me up at 4 in themorning I thought: I must be coming down with the flu or something. Stuffed nose, itchy eyes, sore throat, and generally feeling as though a steamroller had done its best to flatten me a couple hundred times during the night.

Darin let me sleep in today, and when I was finally conscious I said, Either I am coming down with the worst cold in the world, or there was something about that wine. So I clicked around a bit (the modern answer to every problem!) and discovered wine allergies.

From allergies.about.com:

The common question is “Can I be allergic to alcohol?” Although alcohol can be the culprit, it usually is not. The culprits are usually the additives used in the manufacturing process. Some of the possible culprits include:

    Brewers yeast

    Corn

    Eggs

    Grapes

    Molds

    Sulfites

    Pesticides

I am: bereft. It took me a while to prefer red wine over white wine (that is, to become a wine snob). And now this!

I assume that if any of those ingredients could cause this allergy then it’s not necessarily the wine that’s caused this head cold. But it’s not the kind of testing I want to do a lot of, you know?

What is it?

Posted on Written by

While searching my referrer logs, I discovered a link from an Interface Design Class, Spring 2001.

The sites in this list were nominated as either best or worst interfaces by students in the Interface Design Class, Spring 2001. Teams of students ranked sites as best/worst overall and best/worst in categories corresponding to the 8 Golden Rules of Interface Design presented in (Shneiderman,1998).

So what did NKA get? A best? A worst? (This was in Spring 2001, so pre-Movable Type site. I don’t even remember what the page looked like, frankly.)

The site’s #46: What is it?

Now, that just hurts. What is it? Ouch.