Archive for July, 2018

Obit watch: July 16, 2018.

Monday, July 16th, 2018

Nancy Barbato Sinatra, Frank Sinatra’s first wife and mother of Nancy, Frank Jr., and Christina.

This is a fascinating and kind of sad obituary. They were married from 1939 until 1951, when Frank finally left her (after years of philandering) to chase Ava Gardner. In spite of that, they remained extremely close after the divorce until Frank’s death.

“Throughout the many years after they split, my grandfather came to visit whenever his crazy life would allow it,” Mrs. Sinatra’s granddaughter A. J. Lambert wrote in a 2015 remembrance in Vanity Fair. “I can remember times when she would be on the phone with her ex-husband, and the next thing I knew some eggplant was coming out of the freezer to thaw so that she could make him some sandwiches when he showed up.”

Pat Swindall, former congressman convicted of perjury, and who ended up losing his seat to Ben “Cooter” Jones.

Alan Johnson, choreographer. He did a lot of work for Mel Brooks, including choreographing numbers in “Blazing Saddles”, “Young Frankenstein”, and “Springtime for Hitler” in “The Producers”. (I would embed that here, but it’s already in the NYT obit.)

More quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore.

Monday, July 16th, 2018

Half-Price Books had another coupon sale this week, and I picked up a few things that I feel like documenting here.

I picked up a lot of “popular culture”…stuff, I’d say, though other people might call it “crap”. Specifically, I got:

Of course, I wouldn’t be me if I hadn’t picked up some gun books, too…

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I have to do this.

Sunday, July 15th, 2018

I’m sorry.

A federal judge on Saturday ordered the Los Angeles Times to remove information from an article that described a plea agreement between prosecutors and a Glendale police detective accused of working with the Mexican Mafia, a move the newspaper decried as highly unusual and unconstitutional.

More seriously, there seems to be a long recent string of judges deciding that they can just disregard the Supreme Court and order newspapers to do whatever the judge wants. Just once before I die, I would love to see an editor or publisher say to one of those judges:

“Your order is illegal and unconstitutional, and we believe that you are fully aware of these facts. We will not obey your order. We will also not initiate violence. But if this court attempts to enforce its illegal order, we will treat that as the initiation of violence against our staff, and we will defend ourselves with whatever level of force is necessary to stop said violent acts.”

Edited to add 7/16: Ken White over at Popehat:

This is not a close call. Judge Walter’s order is not plausibly lawful. It is patently unconstitutional, and the sort of order that is only issued when a judge deliberately defies First Amendment law or is asleep at the switch. This is utterly unacceptable. The Los Angeles Times will be challenging the order, and I expect them to win, and look forward to all of the briefing — and the original article — becoming available.

Headline of the day

Saturday, July 14th, 2018

Kicking, screaming, biting Kansas councilwoman finally taken down with Taser, arrested, police say

It’s not quite “You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena!” but it’s close enough for government work.

Bonus points:

A few days later, on July 2, Fowler refused to cooperate with jail workers as they tried to complete the booking process.
When officers were forced to remove jewelry and personal items from her, Fowler bit one of them on the thumb hard enough to break the bone.

The original charges against her were failure to appear on a public drunkeness and interferring with law enforcement charge from last year. Now she’s managed to escalate that into at least two, probably three counts of battery on a law enforcement officer. Plus interference with a law enforcement officer times two. Plus the drunkenness charge.

I wouldn’t expect her at a council meeting in the near or far future.

Let’s go!

Friday, July 13th, 2018

More car related updates and thoughts.

First of all, RoadRich left an excellent and thoughtful comment on the last post which you should go read.

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Headline of the day.

Thursday, July 12th, 2018

The best Austin bar for every Myers-Briggs personality type

A quick skim of the article does not reveal that they picked the best Austin bar for “I think Myers-Briggs personality types are a bunch of f—ing bull—t.” My personal favorite in that regard was the original Horseshoe Lounge: where they checked you for weapons at the door, and if you didn’t have any, they loaned you one.

Real estate watch.

Wednesday, July 11th, 2018

Do you have a spare $1.7 million lying around? Or can you get a mortgage for that amount? Zillow says the payments would be around $6,900 a month (20% down, 30 year fixed).

What are you getting for that amount?

Welcome to the Terrazzo dell’Infinito!

Or, in other words, the Infinity Terrace.

Take a step into this Tuscan sanctuary and be whisked off to the Old World.

It’s not just an infinite terrace, it’s a sanctuary. From what, I’m not clear. Certainly not the cares of the world, if you have to come up with $7,000 a month for 30 years to pay for it.

Enjoy the stylish Italian warmth with hints of royalty.

“hints of royalty”. I think you can get that in spray bottles; a spritz here, a spritz there, and pretty soon your home smells like Henry VIII.

The attention to detail was paramount during this design.

But apparently not in the writing of this blurb.

Relish in the tranquility of the grounds that provide multiple seating areas and a pool flanked by statues and lush foliage.

I don’t much like relish myself, but I guess if that’s your thing, “multiple seating areas” (as opposed to just dragging a lawn chair over), a pool, and lush foliage might make the relish taste better. Nothing like throwing some dogs on the grill next to your $1.7 million home.

This property is truly captivating, unmatched by its beauty.

Meh.

This isn’t simply a home-it’s a lifestyle.

Specifically, a criminal lifestyle. You see, this isn’t just any old Tuscan-style home: this is former Democratic state Senator and now convicted felon Carlos Uresti’s house.

He appealed the convictions, but told the court yesterday he does not have the money to continue paying for his attorney. Uresti asked a judge to appoint Michael McCrum, who represented him at trial, as his appellate lawyer at state expense.

Kermit.

Tuesday, July 10th, 2018

I was 12 years old in 1977. I wasn’t an NBA fan at the time (and I’m still not one) but I remember the punch. It was all over the news.

I thought then that Kermit Washington should have been banned from the NBA for life and faced criminal charges.

Some years later, I read John Feinstein’s The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever. There’s some chilling stuff in there. (Rudy Tomjanovich tells a story about lying on a stretcher and asking the doctor why he had a bitter taste in his mouth. The doctor told him, “That’s your spinal fluid. It’s leaking out of your skull.”)

Feinstein’s book also, oddly enough, made me feel a little more compassion for Washington. When I was 12, I was convinced that the punch was a deliberate and malicious act, and that Washington planted his feet and braced himself before he struck Tomjanovich. After reading the book, I was at least willing to accept the possibility that I was wrong, and that Washington, while he intended to strike Tomjanovich, didn’t intend to do the level of damage that he ended up doing. It seemed as if Washington had been struggling for most of his life not to be defined by that one moment: and who among us wants to be defined by the worst moment of our lives?

Of course, it’s worth pointing out that Rudy Tomjanovich never completely got over being punched in the face and nearly killed. The whole story is like a giant pile of sad. Especially now.

Former NBA player Kermit Washington has been sentenced to six years in federal prison for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in charity donations on vacations, shopping sprees and plastic surgery for his girlfriend.

Somehow, I missed the fact that he was facing criminal charges, but he pled guilty last year to “making a false statement in a tax return” and “aggravated identity theft”. He’s also expected to pay $970,000 in restitution.

Obit watch: July 9, 2018.

Monday, July 9th, 2018

Tab Hunter, noted actor and Hollywood idol.

Arthur Gelien was 17 when the agent Henry Willson gave him a new name and added him to a roster of clients that included Rock Hudson, Robert Wagner and Rory Calhoun. “Acting skill,” Mr. Hunter said in his 2005 autobiography, “Tab Hunter Confidential” (written with Eddie Muller), “was secondary to chiseled features and a fine physique.”

Obit watch: July 7, 2018.

Saturday, July 7th, 2018

For the record: Steve Ditko. WP “Comic Riffs” (which quotes Neil Gaiman at length).

Obit watch: July 6, 2018.

Friday, July 6th, 2018

Claude Lanzmann, noted film director (“Shoah”).

Saman Gunan, former Thai Navy SEAL. He volunteered as part of the rescue mission for the trapped soccer team, and apparently ran out of air while delivering fresh air tanks to the cave.

Shoko Asahara is burning in Hell, along with six of his followers.

I’m not very well read in Haruki Murakami, but Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche impressed me, and I commend it to your attention.

Here in my car…

Thursday, July 5th, 2018

I bought a new to me car last Saturday. It’s a 2006 Honda Accord EX-L that had 82,000 miles on it (not bad, in my opinion, for a 12 year old car) and has quite few features I like: leather interior, sun roof, cabin air filter, power seats, and even seat heaters for that one month a year when those are actually useful in Texas. (Also ABS. I’m not clear on whether it has traction control or not. I checked the Honda-Tech VIN decoder and while it is useful, it doesn’t talk about traction control.)

Now that I have the car, I splurged on a couple of things. I got a dashcam for it: the Papago GoSafe 535, which is what the Wirecutter currently recommends. That one has gone up by about $13 in the couple of days since I ordered it, and it really wasn’t my first choice. I wanted the Spy Tec G1W-C, which was a previous Wirecutter choice that I bought for my mother’s car and have been happy with. But by the time I was ready to order, Amazon had sold out of the Spy Tec.

My other splurge item was a LELink Bluetooth Low Energy BLE OBD-II car diagnostic tool. Why? Several reasons:

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