Archive for December 31st, 2014

Not this crap again.

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014

Police have tied James Cordell Avery, 47, to 19 incidents at local H-E-B stores in which he has stolen or attempted to steal meats police believe he is selling to local barbecue restaurants.

Because of the quantity of meat stolen, [APD Detective Ricky] Jones said it was a safe assumption that Avery was selling the meat to a restaurant.
“I have yet to know a person who could eat that much meat in that short of a time,” Jones said.

I was going to offer to introduce Detective Jones to Lawrence, but “that much meat”, in this case, is entire shopping carts full. I can honestly say I have never seen Lawrence eat an entire shopping cart full of meat.

When he is successful, Avery would make off with upwards of $900 in meat in each theft, Jones said.

Previously on WCD. When they catch Avery, I will be interested in seeing if APD manages to track down his customers. Granted, it doesn’t seem like this is pants meat, but I’m sure the restaurants in question had no idea how long Avery and company were driving around with their stolen briskets.

Edited to add 1/5/2015: Avery is now in custody. The briskets are safe.

Down to the sea.

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014

I hope all my readers are either enjoying a day off, or a quiet day at work if they have to work.

To fill time, I offer this long but fascinating piece from the NYT, “The Wreck of the Kulluk“.

The Kulluk was a drilling rig that Shell bought for use in the Arctic. Things did not go well at first. Then they started going badly. Then things got really bad.

There was a loud boom and a shower of sparks. It was gone. Matthews turned to see why the captain was so anxious. He found himself staring at a wall of water — a 50-foot wave, the biggest they had seen. The Alert went straight up its face. “There was this feeling of up and up and up and up and up and up,” he said. He put his hands against the back window to stabilize himself. White water was running over the front window. They couldn’t see anything. “When is this going to stop?” the captain asked.

There are times when I think it’d be interesting to become a seaman. Then I read things like this or Wired‘s story about the Cougar Ace and I remember why I didn’t choose that career.

Obit watch: December 31, 2014.

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014

I’ve seen coverage of this elsewhere, but I wanted to note it here.

Christine Cavanaugh, noted voice actress, passed away on the 22nd, though her death wasn’t widely reported until yesterday. Her major credits included the voice of “Babe” in the first movie, the voice of Marty Sherman on “The Critic”, and the voice of Dexter in “Dexter’s Laboratory”.

ETA: A/V Club.