Archive for the ‘Hysteria’ Category

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I may have spoke too soon.

Thursday, November 19th, 2020

This might be the headline of the day:

Rapper with flamethrower in custody over NYC bus stunt

More context:

Authorities said Dupree G.O.D was arrested on charges of reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon. There was no information on when he would be arraigned. He was in police custody Wednesday night.
The musical artist was filmed earlier this month in an unauthorized stunt that he said was part of a tribute video for the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan. The clip gained attention on social media after a police union tweeted it as an example of the city becoming less safe.

And of course:

I’m really not sure I see the “reckless endangerment” part of that charge. It seems to me that he was pointing it away from and above people. As for the “criminal possession of a weapon” charge, well, maybe, given that this is NYC.

Posted in Art, Cops, Firings, Hysteria, Law, Media, NYPD | 3 Comments »

Banned in the UK.

Monday, December 16th, 2019

Well, not really, but I thought I’d cause a commotion.

Spotted at a Big Lots over the weekend. Mike the Musicologist and I are thinking you could do a holiday special about a narwal: all we need is a name, and then we can write the script.

(I kind of like “Nathan the Narwal”, but would Nathan be saving Christmas, Chanukah, or Life Day?)

Posted in Christmas, Hysteria | 1 Comment »

Historical note, suitable for use in schools.

Friday, July 12th, 2019

In keeping with our baseball theme, some lazy stupid blogging.

Actually, I wanted to pull together a longer post, but I’m all out of energy this week, plus I’ve posted on this subject before, so:

Ladies and Germans, today is the 40th anniversary of Disco Demolition Night.

“I thought these fans in Chicago were the best because they’re saying `Let’s go Sox! Let’s go Sox!’ ” Petry recalled last weekend at Comerica Park. “They were really chanting `Disco sucks! Disco sucks! Disco sucks!’”

There’s a book (co-written by Steve Dahl).

And the Sox commemorated the occasion before last night’s game, with Steve Dahl throwing out the first pitch.

Enough time has passed for the Sox to come to terms with Disco Demolition’s place in the team’s annals. They showed highlights of that night on the video board, including video of fans storming the field and damaging it so much the Sox had to forfeit the second game of that day’s doubleheader against the Tigers.
“It’s absolutely cool that it’s just part of the history, and not a shameful part of the history,” Dahl said. ‘It’s just something that happened, and honestly, it was just about the music.”

Posted in History, Hysteria, Music, Sports | Comments Closed

Something you don’t see every day.

Monday, March 18th, 2019

Raw live feed from Houston’s KHOU of a tank farm fire in Deer Park, Texas.

Multiple storage tanks containing naphtha and xylene are involved. The fire’s been burning since yesterday.

(Hattip: Lawrence.)

Posted in Clippings, Hysteria | Comments Closed

No stars, no bucks.

Wednesday, October 24th, 2018

In case you haven’t heard, customers who get water from the City of Austin are under a boil water notice. The water treatment plants are overwhelmed by the volume of silt and organic matter that’s being stirred up by the release of water from the dams, as a result of the continuing rain in the area.

At my office, the water fountains, water dispensers, and coffee makers are completely shut down. (Even though the fountains and dispensers have their own filtering systems.) I’m lucky: the MUD that services our house in Lakeway is not impacted by this, we don’t have to boil our water, and I can put coffee in my Yeti cup (thanks to my beloved and indulgent sister) before I leave in the morning and keep it hot until I finish it off.

But I digress. I tried going over to the Dunkin’ Doughnuts near my office yesterday to see if they could do one of those big coffee boxes for the office. They just laughed at me. (Hey, I figured these places had their own water filtration systems.)

I just called over to the Starbucks nearest our office to see what their status was. (Again: Starbucks brags about their water filtration system.)

Not only was that Starbucks not doing the big coffee boxes, they were not brewing coffee at all. The guy who answered the phone told me none of the Austin Starbucks (79 of them, I think he said) were brewing coffee: if I wanted coffee, I’d have to go to Cedar Park, Georgetown, or Round Rock.

What does a Starbucks do if they can’t make coffee? I guess you could boil water (or heat bottled water) and do tea from teabags. Maybe serve pastries?

One of my cow-orkers said earlier that they expect this to go on for another twelve days. I can’t find any news or official government source that’s reporting an expected duration for this boil water notice, though, so I’m taking that with a grain of salt.

I swear, you people are going to make a prepper out of me yet.

Posted in Austin, Hysteria, Politics | 2 Comments »

Don’t forget your mittens.

Friday, January 12th, 2018

Apropos of nothing in particular:

(Subject line hattip.)

Posted in Clippings, Hysteria | Comments Closed

Headline of the day.

Tuesday, November 28th, 2017

‘It Was a Blood Bath’: Freight Trains Kill 110 Reindeer in Norway

Posted in Hysteria, Mammals, Media, Trains | Comments Closed

Random notes: August 24, 2017.

Thursday, August 24th, 2017

Also among the dead: the print edition of the Village Voice.

In other news: WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

Keeping your head up, your eyes open, and not driving into high water is probably a good idea. But. I remember the last time a hurricane came ashore near Houston, and was threatening Austin. I was still attending St. Ed’s at the time, and the university was sending out regular updates. There was tremendous hysteria. Everyone was hunkering down waiting for the storm.

In my part of town, the skies turned dark…and we got maybe three drops of rain, total. The hurricane was a giant bust.

I suggest being careful. But I’m not going to put any faith in apocalyptic predictions until the water starts coming over the top of the dam.

Whatever happened to Alice Goodman? She wrote the librettos to John Adams’s “Nixon in China” and “Death of Klinghoffer”…and then she just sort of vanished.

Turns out, she’s an ordained Anglican priest living in England.

“I never drifted away from music,” she said in a recent phone interview. “I couldn’t get work commissioned, so I did what members of my family do when that kind of thing happened: I started another degree. By 1997, I was being offered commissions and collaborations again, but none of them were particularly interesting to me, and my ideas didn’t interest my colleagues.”

Posted in Hysteria, Media, Music | Comments Closed

Now I’m only falling apart…

Monday, August 21st, 2017

Posted in Art, Geek, History, Hysteria, Music | Comments Closed

Art, damn it, art! watch (#51 in a series)

Thursday, April 21st, 2016

And speaking of Damien Hirst:

“One of Hirst’s main subjects is the setting-up of giant fish tanks filled by thousands of liters of FA, in which intact biological specimens are immersed, such as zebras, cows, calves, even sharks,” the abstract of the article said, referring to formaldehyde fumes. “It has been found that the tanks are surrounded by FA fumes, constantly exuded in the atmosphere (likely via the sealant), reaching levels of 5 ppm, one order of magnitude higher than the 0.5 ppm limit set up by legislation.”

In other words, some people are concerned that a tank full of formaldehyde with a dead shark in it may be leaking formaldehyde fumes. Shocked, shocked I am.

The museum also provided a statement from Pier Giorgio Righetti, a professor at Politecnico di Milano university in Italy and an author of the paper, saying that the research “was intended to test the uses of a new sensor for measuring formaldehyde fumes, and we do not believe that our findings suggest any risk for visitors at Tate Modern.”

Posted in Art, Clippings, Geek, Hysteria | Comments Closed

Random notes: January 3, 2014.

Friday, January 3rd, 2014

WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!*

(* Offer not valid outside of New York City.)

I’m not sure I understand the point of this article. Ostensibly, it is about the supposed economic impact on the neighborhood businesses of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” closing.

But even a full house at the 1,930-seat Foxwoods, the biggest Broadway theater, is just a drop in the bucket of the roughly 400,000 people moving through Times Square daily at this time of year.
And it can be hard to determine just where audience members for “Spider-Man” — some 89 percent of whom are from out of town, according to the show’s most recent research — have been spending their dollars, though some businesses popular with tourists seeking a classic Broadway experience say the show’s absence will be felt.

So it doesn’t seem like the NYT has any way to quantify the impact, just a bunch of anecdotes from businesses in the neighborhood. Some of them expect reduced business, others say they expect people (especially actors) to keep showing up. Is there a point?

Strippers. Always with the strippers.

The new agreement freed the 16 clubs involved in the lawsuits from abiding by the 1997 law and required the owners to contribute $1 million annually to a unit in the Houston Police Department devoted to fighting human trafficking. But a number of religious leaders and advocates for sex-trafficking victims have opposed the deal. They said it sent the wrong message about Houston’s tolerance for such entertainment, and allowed the 16 clubs to buy their way out of complying with the law. The Houston Area Pastor Council is considering suing the city over the agreement.

Is that $1 million from each club, or $1 million total? And is it just me, or is there something odd about private businesses giving money to the police department to enforce the law?

Posted in Clippings, Hysteria, Law, Theatre | Comments Closed

In other news…

Monday, October 29th, 2012

….wouldn’t “Mitt Romney’s Weather Machine” be a great name for a band?

Posted in Hysteria, Politics | Comments Closed

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