Yes! There finally is a new update this year!

The last survey went longer than I originally intended. In fact, 1,927 people voted. The polls showed me that 27% of the voters had a DVD player, 28% was undecided, 26% didn't want one, 2% didn't know what DVD is, and the other 3% wanted to wait till the still non-existent H-DVD format was released.

This new poll is a long story. Go to the guestbook and see why it is before you vote. Then vote. People who have the newsletter already know about this. In short, Veggie Pirate doesn't like Veggies, so he's doing the Christian thing: kill everything he doesn't like. They did it during the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. So, Veggie Pirate pretty much ignores the "love thy neighbor" bit (as evidenced in a recent e-mail) and go straight for the executions. Very Christian attitude, eh? Well, what can we expect from a generation raised on Fred Phelps?

This poll is to let you decide whether his guestbook entry stays or is destroyed. Vote now and decide its fate!

In other news, I haven't had much time to update. This quarter is almost finished, so I'm having a little bit more free-time than usual. Not much, but a little. Currently, I'm trying to get an internship in animation somewhere in Central Ohio, so if you know of someplace that is wanting interns, let me know! Currently, my only hope is Horizons, who you may be familiar with somewhat. They created the Actual Reality CD-ROM a couple years ago. They've also done an enhanced CD for Caedmon's Call and The Beginner's Bible CD-ROM. And they're currently working on a Garfield CD-ROM. Sounds like a great company to me! So maybe they'll be the one.

More updates later.

As many of you know, on the 23rd of August, newspapers all over the country ran the following cartoon (note all copyrights):

That's right! VeggieTales has become a major part of pop culture! Should we be surprised? Possibly, but with all the success that many Christian artists had in the mainsteam recently, there should be little need for alarm. Family Circus is the last of its kind. It's the last of the cute cartoon. In an age of South Park, we should be glad that there is still The Family Circus. The Family Circus may be very unlike VeggieTales, but at the same time, it is very much like it. The Family Circus has become the most successful mainstream Christian comic. VeggieTales is the most successful mainstream Christian cartoon series. So should we be surprised that these two pop culture icons finally met? No.

I'm not sure is The Family Circus has affected as many people spiritually as VeggieTales has, but there's no doubt that more people know Billy, Jeffy, and Dolly almost more than most other toon kids. The Family Circus is always Christian-based. In fact, the only other toon family that goes to church as much as they do are the Simpsons! But the difference between those two families is that Keane's family has always had a positive influence on everybody.

Bill and Glen Keane are two of the greatest cartoonists ever. And they both play a positive Christian influence on the world of cartoons. Bill's Christian influence comes to the public through his comics. Glen's Christian influence goes to one of the biggest animation studios: Disney. Glen is only one reason why Disney isn't the evil empire that many want to believe it is. Glen is also not afraid to share his beliefs to the other animators for instead of lunch, many animators will go with him to a Bible study lead by him. He is living proof that Disney isn't trying to convert kids to Satanism through cartoons. Glen knows that there's a difference between fiction and reality. He knows that if you're portraying Pocahontas in her pre-Christian years, she won't be a Christian. He knows that if you're portraying ancient Greek mythology, Christian views won't be as apparent. Disney's whole point is to tell a story, not to present evil to children. Parents should also always be with their children to guide them through everything, not just PG movies. It's good to let children know about more than just the world that's always near them, but they always need to be guided no matter what, even through VeggieTales. We can't just hope that reading The Family Circus to them and letting them watch VeggieTales will teach them all they need to know. Let their curiosity flow, but use your good judgement. Sometimes it may be useful to take time to watch any movie/video first, think as a child would, and be prepared to judge.

How I jumped to this topic, I'll never know.

Last night when I was typing the below, I forgot to say something about the new poll. I changed the poll to a not very Veggie question, but I'm a bit curious as to how many VeggieTales fans do have a DVD player of some sort. I was having a bit of difficulty getting the on-page quizlet, so I modified it to be a pop-up. I hope you don't mind!

Updated!

The newest webring was added today: The Larry-Boy Webring! Go check it out in the rings section!

I'm going to start doing something a bit different here for now on. The thing I will do different will be in the area that you are reading right about... now! That's right! This recent updates area will no longer contain just small snippets of what just happened on this page, but it will now be a semi-daily update with random thoughts. I will continue to give updates, but now I will try to give opinions, rants, or whatever may pop into my head. Feel free to use the message board for discussion of this!

The Prince of Veggies

It's now less than a month away before we see The Prince of Egypt on VHS and DVD (9/14/99). The first time (and so far the only time) I saw this movie was on my birthday last December (21st, just in case you want to get ready for this year!). That is one of those movies that will leave you saying "Wow!" Better yet, this will not be the last biblical movie for DreamWorks for a prequel to The Prince of Egypt will be released within the next year or two. Children of Eden will be about Genesis and, unlike the original plan, will be released to theaters. But that's not really the track I'm trying to get on.

I have been reading a lot about the upcoming DVD release of The Prince of Egypt and like the movie, it sounds like it will leave me saying "Wow!" This is going to be one of those discs that other studios will want to use as a reference when making their DVDs. Hopefully, studios such as Disney and Paramount will make discs of this quality. Among the special features is the chariot race scene using the angle button on the remote and the "When You Believe" music video in all 28 languages (each line is sung in a different language). But will you see the DVD in your favourite Christian bookstore along with the ridiculously high priced panned and scanned VHS version? Probably not. It will probably be a long time before we get to see any DVD sold in these stores. Why is that? Well, at the moment, there aren't very many DVDs that they could sell. There's the Italian The Gospel According to St. Matthew, The Ten Commandments, The Life of Jesus, and now The Prince of Egypt. How will I know that a DVD release to a Parable store is unlikely? Well, check their store ads and you'll find the VHS for sale with no indication of a DVD release. Hopefully I'm wrong. Even if they do put a $32 price tag on it, it would at least be there.

As you could probably tell, I'm very pro-DVD. I hate buying VHS unless I need to. I do not like paying $10+ for a stereo video with low-quality picture and an occasional glitch that all VHS tapes have at some point. DVD has put an end to this, yet it's still pretty hard to find the common store carrying this format; especially at a reasonable price. After many boycott threats from various DVD sites, Disney has finally decided that the DVD format is now big enough to release their animation (though they've always supported the always dying Laserdisc format extremely well). It is no longer a niche format. Almost everybody has DVD now. But it still gets very little respect. Could a VeggieTales release change this, at least for the Christian community?

VeggieTales could go farther than ever if Big Idea makes plans for DVD releases. Barney even has a few DVDs now, so if Big Idea doesn't want to handle it, their mainstream distributor could handle it easily! If the sale of The Prince of Egypt in Christian bookstores doesn't prompt companies like Word to start handling DVD, would the release of VeggieTales through Lyric give that extra push? I don't know, but if VeggieTales does make its way to DVD, whoever authors the disc better use The Prince of Egypt as an example for the extras and A Bug's Life as an example for the picture that could be obtained through direct transfers!

I've added a review of my theatrical and home experiences with the Rumor Weed in the news section. Also, the countdown has been removed due to obvious circumstances.

A first has been added to the club pages.

Two new links have been added to the links page; the Larry-Boy Crime Fighting Center (which, along with this page, has created Larry-Boy Chat Central) and Nathan's VeggieTales Archives. If you have a Larry-Boy Page that would also like to be a part of Larry-Boy Chat Central, contact me at [email protected] and I'll let you know about what you could do to help out. The idea for Larry-Boy Chat Central is to get one chat on many pages so that many will be in the chat, not just those who visit one particular page.

All but two pages have now gone through the makeover. The only ones that have not went over to the new format are the FAQ and the Never-Ending story pages, but I will do that soon. The introduction pages are gone now, but only because I have been having some problems with getting the animation made. And as the suggestion above says, not every page will work correctly on Netscape. There is a floating frame that requires that you have at least Internet Explorer 3. Since the poll requires Internet Explorer 4 or Netscape 3, I am putting a requirement of Internet Explorer 4 and above on this page. If you need to scroll from side to side on this page, your screen is too small. Please change it to at least 800�600 pixels to view the page correctly.

Attention VeggieTales web masters looking for suggestions for their site! Go to the About page for suggestions on what to do and what not to do for a truly ultimate VeggieTales web page!