Archive for September, 2012

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Some random stuff for the morning of September 20, 2012.

Thursday, September 20th, 2012

There hasn’t been much in the news the past couple of days, and I’ve been depressed and upset for various reasons that the readers of this blog won’t care about.

I don’t have a lot to say about the DOJ report on “Fast and Furious”. I haven’t had time to go through the report myself, and I’m expecting that a lot of people who are smarter than I am will have smarter things to say than I do, once they’ve had a chance to go through it.

The Astros have crossed the 100 loss barrier, and are still on track for 110 losses. Woot.

Today’s NYT has two articles I found kind of interesting. One is about problems with the United Network for Organ Sharing and kidney allocation:

…many experts agree that a significant number of discarded kidneys — perhaps even half, some believe — could be transplanted if the system for allocating them better matched the right organ to the right recipient in the right amount of time.

Story number two is about the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation in North Dakota:

The man who plays Santa Claus here is a registered child sex offender and a convicted rapist. One of the brothers of the tribal chairman raped a child, and a second brother sexually abused a 12-year-old girl. They are among a number of men convicted of sex crimes against children on this remote home of the Spirit Lake Sioux tribe, which has among the highest proportion of sex offenders in the country.

And:

Federal agencies, however, have sought to minimize the extent of the problem, including disciplining employees who have spoken publicly about sexual abuse and questioning the competence of others, according to federal and tribal officials.

And the mayor of Central Falls, Rhode Island, resigned yesterday. He’s also agreed to plead guilty on federal charges that “he took illegal gratuities from a friend and political supporter who received lucrative work from the city boarding up abandoned buildings”.

Some homes were boarded up even though people were still living there. Others were re-boarded by Bouthillette at Moreau’s direction, even though the owners had already had their own contractors board the building.

“Some homes were boarded up even though people were still living there.” In completely unrelated news: gee, I really miss Buddy Cianci.

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Law, Loser, Rhode Island, Sports | Comments Closed

I’m not snickering. I’m experiencing schadenfreude.

Wednesday, September 19th, 2012

I would have sworn I had written about the Virginia Samuelson murder case last year, but I can’t find it. Maybe I sent it to Weer’d Beard for the “Gun Death” files instead.

Short version: Shaun Samuelson got into an argument with his mother, Virginia, and hit her several times. EMS was called, and while Mrs. Samuelson was on a stretcher, being loaded into the ambulance, Mr. Samuelson drove his pickup into the group (including Mrs. Samuelson, the EMTs, and an APD officer) killing her. (APD and the EMTs apparently ducked out of the way and avoided serious injury.)

The jury in Mr. Samuelson’s trial took 30 minutes to return a “guilty” verdict on capital murder charges.

Mr. Samuelson will serve a life sentence, as the prosecution did not seek the death penalty.

Posted in Clippings, Law, Schadenfreude | Comments Closed

SDC updates.

Wednesday, September 19th, 2012

Lawrence and I have been making efforts (around the other things we have going on) to reboot the Logbook of the Saturday Dining Conspiracy in blog format. As I’ve mentioned previously, mac.com hosting went away, and I’m not sure what’s going to happen with Real/Time hosting.

We have a first version of it here, or at least one I don’t mind sharing with people.

One of the big problems I’ve been running into is the need for a header image. I found one that sort of “works”, for some value of works, but I’d really like to find a distinctive header image (or a set of images) that I won’t mind looking at for the next twenty years or so. The recommended image is 940 pixels wide by 198 pixels high.

If anyone wants to take a cut at doing a header image, I’m willing to put something on the table; either cash (in the double digits) or dinner at an SDC if you’re in the area.

Contact me at the usual addresses if you’re interested in talking specifics.

Posted in Admin, Food | 2 Comments »

TMQ watch: September 18, 2012.

Tuesday, September 18th, 2012

The time has come for TMQ to go after…well, not exactly a gnat, maybe an amoeba…with a sledgehammer.

Actually, we were thinking of something different, but we’ll take that one and run with it after the jump…

(more…)

Posted in Cops, Law, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch, TV | Comments Closed

Apropos of nothing in particular…

Monday, September 17th, 2012

There was a time in my life when I was listening to the original cast recording of “Evita” (or, at least, certain tracks off of it) pretty much every day. I’d forgotten how much I liked some of those songs (and, for that matter, how good Mandy Patinkin is) until now. Especially “And The Money Kept Rolling In (And Out)“.

And the money kept rolling out in all directions
To the poor, to the weak, to the destitute of all complexions
Now cynics claim a little of the cash has gone astray
But that’s not the point my friends
When the money keeps rolling out you don’t keep books
You can tell you’ve done well by the happy grateful looks
Accountants only slow things down, figures get in the way
Never been a lady loved as much as Eva Peron

This guy’s no Patinkin, but he’s pretty good, and this is the best video I could find on YouTube. (There is one video that claims to be Patinkin performing the song, but it is almost unbearably poor quality.)

Actually, I take back the “apropos of nothing in particular”, because what got me going down this path was the “Stuff You Missed in History Class” podcast, and especially the “Why did it take more than 20 years to bury Eva Peron?” episode. There is a comment in the liner notes to that cast recording that the story of Eva’s body is almost as fascinating as the story of her life, and I’ve agitated for Rice and Weber to do a musical about the saga of Eva Peron’s body.

Posted in History, Music, Politics, Theatre | Comments Closed

Hurry home early.

Monday, September 17th, 2012

Mark Kriegel has a new book coming out tomorrow: The Good Son: The Life of Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini.

I’ve never been a huge boxing fan, but the Mancini – Duk-koo Kim fight fascinated me even before the Zevon song was released. I’ll be watching for Kriegel’s book.

In the meantime, the NYT has a long article about the fight, adapted from the book.

And for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about when I reference Zevon, or those of you who just want to hear “Boom Boom Mancini”  right now:

Posted in Books, Sports | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 2, 2012.

Monday, September 17th, 2012

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Cleveland
Kansas City
Jacksonville
New Orleans
Tennessee
Oakland

The Astros, believe or not, seem to be on a winning streak (having won their last two games) and are currently 48-99, for a .327 winning percentage. This projects out to 109 losses.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Noted.

Sunday, September 16th, 2012

Lawrence sent me a link that seems to imply the Cubs have been mathematically eliminated.

MLB.com seems to confirm this.

So this is to document that I owe Lawrence $5.

Edited to add 9/24: Paid in full, in front of witnesses.

Posted in Sports, Wagers | Comments Closed

Score!

Sunday, September 16th, 2012

This weekend was the grand opening for the new Half-Price Books in Round Rock.

As they usually do, Half-Price was distributing coupons: 40% off one item on Thursday, 30% off on Friday, 20% off on Saturday, and 50% off on Sunday. (I heard one clerk complain that those coupons were only supposed to apply to the Round Rock store, but they made them valid for all the stores in error. I think that clerk was full of it, but that’s just my opinion.)

Anyway, I picked up a few interesting things Thursday through Saturday, including a copy of An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies (at 40% off of half cover price) and Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York (which I didn’t burn a coupon on, as the copy I found was marked down to $4.99).

Today was 50% off day. I had some things I was thinking about picking up, but then I got lucky. Fortunately, I had two coupons…

The new (2010) of Bill Warren’s magnificent book, Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties, The 21st Century Edition, complete with Howard Waldrop introduction. Cover is $99, so take half of that, and then take 50% off of that with the coupon…

Hoglegs, Hipshots and Jalapenos, the other collection of Skeeter Skelton’s work from Shooting Times. Some of you may remember me mentioning I found a copy of Good Friends, Good Guns, Good Whisky in a Las Vegas bookstore last year and paid (mumble mumble) for it. This was in a locked glass case at HPB and I nearly walked past it; I’m glad I didn’t. I won’t say how much I paid, but with the coupon, it was about half of the (mumble mumble) price I paid for volume one in Vegas, and nowhere near the asking prices on Amazon.

Squee!

Posted in Books, Clippings, Food, Guns, Hoplobibilophilia, Movies | 5 Comments »

How many rules were broken here?

Thursday, September 13th, 2012

The Saturday evening mock cannon fight was meant to simulate the spectacle of a historic battle on the high seas. This year, however, a crew member inadvertently veered from the script, which called for the Amazing Grace to fire blanks at the schooner Bill of Rights.

(Insert obvious joke about shooting at the Bill of Rights here.)

Onward. According to the LAT, one of the crew members accidentally “grabbed a box of buckshot ammunition after the Amazing Grace ran out of blanks”.

Two people were injured, apparently not critically.

So off the top of my head:

This appears to be the Amazing Grace’s website. I was trying to figure out what kind of guns it had, and how they worked; it kind of sounds like they may use commercial shotgun cartridges, instead of muzzle loaders like you’d see in the movies. The site isn’t helpful, but the “Ship’s Log” is good for a chuckle.

It sounds like this was part of the Toshiba Tall Ships Festival. “Back by popular demand again this year, children can take part in Cap’n Jack’s School for Scallywags. Watch as your young buccaneers learn to walk, talk, and sing like a pirate!” That sounds like it would get annoying. Fast.

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Safety | 1 Comment »

The Pizza Bistro?

Thursday, September 13th, 2012

Previously on Whipped Cream Difficulties:

Oh, wait. I’m sorry. That was a promo for “Hawaii Five O” (the real one).

Previously on WCD, I wrote about the Mangia Pizza bankruptcy hearing, and the proposal by “Cloud Cap LLC” to take over the remaining restaurant (and the stand out at the airport).

Today’s Statesman informs us that Cloud Cap won. Apparently, the Mesa location has been closed (I had not noticed that, but I have not been up that way recently); Cloud Cap plans to re-open it, and is hiring former Mangia employees.

In answer to our question about what would happen to the two independently owned location if Cloud Cap got control; those have been rebranded as “The Pizza Bistro”, which strikes me as being a pretty stupid name. However, I suspect we’ll end up doing dining conspiracies at both “The Pizza Bistro” and the new Mangia once they have a chance to settle down. (Generally, SDC policy is to allow three months from opening before visiting a restaurant.)

Posted in Clippings, Food | 2 Comments »

Hillsborough.

Thursday, September 13th, 2012

This was covered some on FARK yesterday, but I kind of feel like it is important enough to mention here.

On April 15, 1989, at the Hillsborough Stadium (located in Sheffield), 96 people were crushed to death. The initial inquiry on the deaths basically blamed the fans for what happened; that was a controversial verdict.

The British government agreed to a new inquiry in December of 2009. The results of that inquiry were issued yesterday.

Prime Minister David Cameron formally apologized on Wednesday to the victims’ families, saying their “appalling deaths” were compounded by an attempt by the police, investigators and the news media to depict the victims as hooligans and to blame them for the disaster.

More:

Quoting from the new report, Mr. Cameron said: “The Liverpool fans were not the cause of the disaster. The panel has quite simply found no evidence in support of allegations of exceptional levels of drunkenness, ticketlessness or violence among Liverpool fans, no evidence that fans had conspired to arrive late at the stadium, and no evidence that they stole from the dead and dying.”

And further:

The report also concluded that 116 witness statements presented by the police to previous inquiries had been amended by the police “to remove or alter comments unfavorable to the police,” and that police officers conducted computer checks on those who had died in an attempt “to impugn the reputations of the deceased.” In addition, the report said the coroner measured blood-alcohol levels in all who died, including children, only to discover — a fact withheld from previous inquiries — that the levels of alcohol consumption were “unremarkable and not exceptional for a social or leisure occasion.”

Additionally, the report suggests that at least some of the people who died may have lived, if they had been given prompt medical treatment:

The report said autopsy findings showed there were 41 victims who did not have the traumatic asphyxia that caused most of the deaths, and Dr. Bill Kirkup, a physician on the panel, said they might have survived if they been taken swiftly to a hospital.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, History, Law, Safety, Sports | Comments Closed

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