About Us-Living Dog Store

Celebrate in 2008

The dog is getting a bath.

Look for a completely new alivingdog.com, coming in June of 2008. Like the old front page? So do we. It will still be available under "Archives". Coming in Summer, 2008. The old dog learns new tricks. "A reading dog": a new book section, featuring new books by Steve Scott and Richard Purtill. "A listening dog": hear song samples of Larry Norman and other artists. This Summer, see what the dog's dug up.

Q: What's new in the dogpile?

The newest bits are the Amazon MP3 players on the Larry Norman pages. There's also one at barberz.com. Whether they show up or not depends on your browser and operating system. They seem most likely to show up on Windows Vista and Foxfire for Mac. Some of the Amazon gizmos don't work well with a recent version of Mac Safari, and they suggest downloading Foxfire (free, search on Google), if this is the case.

Clicking "Archives" on the front (main) page (the boneyard), brings up the former, much-loved front page. The left side of the page has lots of preview panes. To activate the pane, click on it, then use your back button to return (or bookmark the page). To visit the associated websites, click on the URL, for example, Zeroidz.com. Why did we take the panes out? Clicking the URL icon for the site will take you to the store, or to a link for the store. Clicking the preview pane only shows part of the store. Some sites still have preview panes and other Amazon gizmos (Amazon calls them widgets) on some pages.

A Reading Dog

The least updated bits of the dog are the books. Plans are to put in longer reviews, and streamline books into an Amazon store. There are already various Amazon book links all over the site. All the links work, but we hope to upgrade the book pages, and link to a simple, clean design store, as with the other sites.

Richard Purtill has been kicking out so many books we can't keep up. The dog buried some old ones on the Richard Purtill pages, and sniffed out some new ones slated for 2008.

Gord has been mostly reviewing on Amazon, and was voted an Amazon Top 500 Reviewer, and now has more than 500 reviews. Clicking a book or link on the dog will often lead to an Amazon page with a review. To find more reviews, search for that book's title or author in the Search Box. Gord's latest project was editing and compiling Steve Scott's latest book on faith and art, Crying for a Vision and Other Essays. If the topic sounds boring, the book is not. You don't need to know or care about art to read it. It's simply dazzling. Also due out is a retrospective CD of Steve's music. If the name Steve Scott doesn't ring a bell, you may have heard of his back-up band, the 77s. Read an interview by Gord with Steve on the dog , in which Gord asks Steve about the book, and Steve doesn't talk about it at all. As Counter Culture put it, "Steve Scott has been there, done that, or is doing it tomorrow."

New Year's Revolutions

As one of the few content- driven sites on the web, we've simply got too much content to handle in our old format, and most of the content isn't up yet. The dog just dragged in too much stuff, so we're slowly breaking it out into a few new sites, which will all link to the dog. It's always been a site to sniff around and leisurely browse in. Don't worry, if you like the main page as it is now, so do we, and you'll be able to dig it up under Archives.

Ch-ch-ch-changes.

We bought some domain names and are slowly changing the site to reflect that. ClassicsWithoutCable.com evolved from DVDelight, and incorporates a seamless Amazon store. The stores from all the sites link together and link with all other Amazon stores so you can use one shopping cart. Classics is built around the model developed for CartoonsWithoutCable.com. Both Classics and Cartoons now feature video downloads for PCs and TiVo DVR.

The popular robots and toy pages are slowly moving to a new site, Zeroidz.com, although the old pages can still be accessed through the Index. Richard Purtill has been writing like a crazy man and we can't keep up with all his books. Look for updates in Summer 2008.

The dog will be more about music and books, as was originally envisioned, as well as posting writing and content you probably can't dig up anywhere else. Or wouldn't want to. It will still be a place to sniff around, browse through, dig up the occasional bone, chase the odd car, maybe now and then get in a dogfight. No sooner do we get the dogpile sorted out a bit, then here comes the dog dragging more stuff in. The books may be somewhat dog-eared, we may put up too much doggerel, miss something in the discdographies. This will never be a big, shiny lion site. It will always be a place to chew on a shoe, stick your nose out, dig up something long forgotten from the trashcan. It will always be a dog site. But maybe you'll agree, as someone once said, "a living dog is better than a dead lion".

Classics Without Cable/ Cartoons Without Cable

No cable? No problem. Watch classic TV, movies, and cartoons without ads. A little bit of heaven. More classic film, TV shows, and cartoons are available on DVD than ever before. Play one a day or week as if it was on cable. Mix and match to make your own line-up. Sprinkle in family-friendly films and classic cartoons for custom kids' programming. New! Video downloads for PCs and TiVo DVR.