Archive for December, 2009

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Random notes: December 16, 2009.

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Things have been kind of slow the past few days, but I did want to throw up a few notes:

Your NYT obit for Oral Roberts here. While looking that up, I discovered that the NYT has also just posted an obit for Milorad Pavic, of Dictionary of the Khazars fame.

Regret the Error has their year-end roundup of errors and corrections posted. I can’t argue with the correction of the year (which, surprisingly, is not the corrections to Alessandra Stanley’s Cronkite obit; that is, however, highlighted).

Edited to add: But wait, there’s more! The Onion A.V. Club list of the 19+ worst movies of 2009! I miss Ebert and Siskel’s  (and Ebert and Roper’s) yearly worst movies show; the A.V. Club list is the closest I’ve found to a substitute for that.

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Loser, Media, Movies, Obits | Comments Closed

Important safety tips.

Monday, December 14th, 2009

If you are planning to go into the offices of a financial advisor armed with a gun, it is a good idea to load the gun first.

It is also a good idea to leave the wine glass and wine bottle in the car; you know, so you have both hands free to load the damn gun.

Lawrence points out that Triton Financial, the firm in question, has a somewhat interesting history. (See also.)

Posted in Guns, Law, Loser, Safety | 2 Comments »

Because they’re a lot more effective than banging a flashlight on the window.

Friday, December 11th, 2009

This is why I own guns.

Posted in Clippings, Guns | Comments Closed

Obit watch.

Friday, December 11th, 2009

Thomas Hoving, former curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Gene Barry.

Harlan Ellison has written well about his experiences writing for “The Name of the Game” (and, if I remember correctly, “Burke’s Law” as well). I’d love to see both of those series come out on DVD; you can’t get “Burke’s Law”, but you can get “The Starlost”?

(Edited to add: Well, I will be sheep-dipped.  You can get at least the first season of “Burke’s Law”. If Fry’s has it, I haven’t noticed, and I usually count on them for my TV on DVD availability.)

Posted in Art, Books, Clippings, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

DeBugged.

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

BugMeNot.com links added. I’ll be happy to accept additional suggestions in comments or via email (see the Contact the proprietor page).

Please note that those links, unlike the others, open a new browser window or tab for your viewing pleasure.

Posted in Admin | Comments Closed

Did you stand by me? No way.

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Capital Metro, embroiled in a contract and insurance dispute with rail contractor Veolia Transportation, on Wednesday cancelled its five-year contract with the company to operate freight and passenger rail.

CapMet awarded “emergency” contracts to two other contractors to run the system “over the next five-plus years”. But don’t worry, this won’t delay the startup of the rail system any longer; CapMet says we’re still on target for startup “sometime before March 31, about two years later than originally scheduled”.

Two interesting food-related articles in the NYT: one about the upcoming Tavern on the Green auction, which gives a good overview of the restaurant’s decline and fall. The other article is really more of a rewritten press release on Chex and their promotion of new recipes for Chex Party Mix. Even though it has that whole rewritten PR quality to it, I feel compelled to note the later article; Chex Party Mix is a traditional food of my people.

As a side note, sometime later this evening, I’m going to add a list of BugMeNot links for the NYT, LAT, Statesman, HouChron, and WP to the sidebar. I already have cookies on my machines for most of these, so I don’t think about logins (and all of these sites are somewhat flaky about requiring logins), but Lawrence mentioned this problem to me the other day. (I can’t do it now because, believe it or not, BugMeNot is blocked at the office.)

(Edited to add: Speaking of Lawrence, I haven’t been able to listen to Ms. Aguilera yet; blocked at work. But the Bob Dylan YouTube video isn’t. I’d heard Mr. Zimmerman’s Christmas album was pretty awful; but am I a bad, evil, taste-lacking person for kind of liking “Must Be Santa”?)

Five. Five million. Five million dollars.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Food, Geek, Media | 2 Comments »

Snakes on a book.

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

python

The book on the left is the 4th edition of Learning Python.

The book on the right is this year’s Austin phone book.

Yes, Learning Python is thicker.

No, I’m not sure what that means; I just find it amusing.

Posted in Books, Geek, Photography, Python | Comments Closed

How can we dance when our Earth is turning?

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

We don’t have to worry about that now. CBS has cancelled “As the World Turns”.

(I like the song, but I’ve always thought that particular lyric was rather stupid. If the Earth wasn’t turning, dancing would be the least of our concerns.)

Posted in Clippings, Media, Music, TV | Comments Closed

Random notes: December 8, 2009.

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

I’m not a pro wrestling fan. I did see the FARK thread about Umaga’s death over the weekend, but didn’t really think it was blog-worthy (especially since it had already been on FARK). However, Ken Hoffman has a touching obit for the late Mr. Fatu in the HouChron.

“He speaks English!” the kids said. Even more surprising, he didn’t take their money for his autograph. “He said it was Christmas and told us to use the money for presents for our parents.”

On the obit front, the LAT has a story about the sectioning of Henry Molaison’s brain. This was also noted in the NYT last week, but for some reason I didn’t blog it. I’ll take this chance to link again to the obit the NYT published after Mr. Molaison’s passing last year. (I blogged this at the time, for values of “blogged” that include “noting it on the private mailing list I was using at the time”.) If you can read the last line of that obit without tears, you have no heart.

While we’re on the subject of the NYT, the government of India has released their report on the destruction of the Ayodhya mosque. The report came out last week; the mosque was destroyed by riots in 1992.

I probably should have blogged something about Pearl Harbor yesterday, perhaps the discovery of the Japanese mini-sub. But hey, I stink, and everyone else was doing it anyway. There’s also a good story in the Statesman about the new wing of the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg. I’ve got some time off coming, and I haven’t been to the musuem in a few years…

Posted in Clippings, Media, Neuroscience, Obits | 1 Comment »

Random notes: December 4, 2009.

Friday, December 4th, 2009

Today’s memo from Captain Obvious: scalpers find it hard to sell tickets when the team is awful. And sympathy for the Nets.

Mangino out.

So your scam involves taking money for hot tubs from people on eBay, then not shipping the hot tubs? I can’t decide who is dumber; the scammer, for not thinking that he’d be caught, or the people who actually thought purchasing hot tubs off eBay was a good idea.

In other news, we’re all going to die (well, mostly you folks in Houston). Film at 11.

Edited to add: The Observer has a nifty interview with Maj Sjöwall. I’m kind of ashamed to admit, even though I’ve read some of the Martin Beck books, I had no idea Per Wahlöö was dead. (Hattip: Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.)

Posted in Books, Clippings, Firings, Hysteria, Loser, Media, Roads, Stupid | Comments Closed

Dropping like JaMarcus Russell passes.

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Hofstra University has dropped their (1-AA) football program. (I know the NCAA doesn’t call it 1-AA any longer, but if you think I’m going to type out “NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision” every time, you’ve got another think coming.)

As noted in the linked article, Northeastern (also 1-AA, and in the same conference) dropped their program last week.

When is TMQ going to blog about the impending cupcake shortage?

Posted in Loser | Comments Closed

Human ingenuity.

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Joe D’s comment below about Obama blotter acid reminded me of another favorite government publication of mine: the DEA’s Microgram Bulletin.

If you ever want a catalog of all the ingenious ways people try to get high, spend some time going through back issues. The June issue even has some snazzy illustrations of “Ecstasy” tablets (Homer and Bart Simpson, Obama, Autobots, and others.)

It isn’t that I drop acid, smoke the chronic, or take X and go to a lot of raves; I’m fascinated by Microgram because of the discussions of analytic chemistry, plus this will make good background material if I ever wind up writing that series of crime novels I’ve sketched out.

Posted in Geek | Comments Closed

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