I’m not absolutely positive what this Japanese item is, but just looking at it I suspect that it’s a radio that the unconnected Peanuts figures automatically bop along to the music. I’m not into buying too many Peanuts things that aren’t books, but this one does look cool.

And besides, I wanted to post something, and it’s been a while since there’s been any Peanuts book news (other than the release of the cover image for A Peanuts Valentine).

Which isn’t to say that AAUGH.com has been quiet. Quite the opposite, the site’s been getting more traffic than ever, but for odd reasons. Doing so much work with getting material from Amazon and driving customers to them, I got a bit curious about the way that they display book covers and other product pictures. Poking around a bit, I discovered that Amazon doesn’t actually store images at all the different sizes and with all the percent-off bullets and other features which they display – each image is actually generated on the fly, based on information hidden in the image’s URL (the file name). So I made a web page on AAUGH.com about how to get Amazon to put out odd and interesting versions of their product images (using a Peanuts book cover as my example), figuring that a few geeks like myself would be interested. Next thing I know, a ton of blogs are linking to it and tens of thousands of folks are visiting the page. It really kept me hopping! I also put up a page showing some artistic use of messing with the Amazon image server. (Warning to folks in sensitive environments: it does include a slightly rude shot of men’s underwear.) Below is one example (and just to note what should be obvious: the listed discounts aren’t accurate.

"Peanuts Bounce"

Yeah, I’m a geek. I’ll be back when there’s more Peanuts book news!

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