Travel update.

April 6th, 2025

Travel day tomorrow for the return, so probably light blogging unless someone important dies or something major happens.

In the meantime, Atlanta won Friday night. There are now no teams that can go 0-162, but the Braves are 1-8, for a .111 winning percentage. Projecting that out over the season, it comes out to 136 losses.

Our trip has been successful, but we did end our day early. Not so much out of exhaustion (at least for me) but because people started packing up around noon. While we didn’t see everything, we came closer than we did last year and probably could have seen it all, except by 2:15 PM diminishing returns had set in: there were so many empty tables and so many people packing and leaving that we decided it wasn’t worth it to explore the rest of the unexplored country.

While I don’t like discussing other people’s purchases, I will say that our VRBO could also now be known as the Winchester Mystery House. I will also say, at some point, folks will see the return of another one of this blog’s peculiar obsessions.

Posted in Guns, Loser, Sports, Travel | No Comments »

Your loser update: April 4, 2025.

April 4th, 2025

Still on the road, but have time to get in a quick one.

MLB teams that still have a chance to go 0-162:

Atlanta Braves

Atlanta, which I’ve always thought to be a generally good team, is 0-7 right now. But it looks like they play the Marlins tonight, and are pretty heavy favorites.

Posted in Loser, Sports | 1 Comment »

Nothing more than silliness.

April 3rd, 2025

Posted in Bagatelle | No Comments »

Consumer warning.

April 3rd, 2025

When I am out and about, I like to pick up unusual and different snacks for the Saturday Movie Group to try.

I bought some of these a while back and intended to write about them, but it got past me. Then we stopped at the Buc-ee’s in Hillsboro yesterday, where I saw them for sale again and was reminded that I intended to do a post.

“flock Chicken Skin Crisps”, in various flavors, including Terry Black’s Barbecue. Low-carb, high protein.

Folks, these are vile. Do not purchase these if you have any regard for your taste buds.

We opened the pack of Terry Black Barbecue flavor. It is about the size of your typical snack pack of chips. There were three of us there. None of us had more than one. The rest went into the trash. I don’t recall us ever before having a snack that was so bad none of us could finish it, but these were just that horrible.

Terry Black and Buc-ee’s should be ashamed of themselves for selling something this bad to unsuspecting travelers. Avoid at all costs. I wouldn’t even feed them to an elephant. Buy some beaver nuggets instead.

Posted in Food, Safety | No Comments »

Obit watch: April 3, 2025.

April 3rd, 2025

I was busy traveling in elephants yesterday. By the time we got in, got unpacked (do you know how long it takes to unpack an elephant?) and got something to eat…it was late.

So: Val Kilmer, for the historical record. NYT. THR.

Not much to say, really, except that I think both “Heat” and “Tombstone” are pretty good movies. I actually like “Tombstone” better than “My Darling Clementine” (which we watched last week) on the OK Corral movie front.

Charlotte Webb has passed away at 101.

Ms. Webb was one of the last surviving Bletchley Park codebreakers.

Ms. Webb, known as Betty, was 18 when she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s branch of the British Army, and was assigned to work at the base in Buckinghamshire where Bletchley Park was located. From 1941 to 1945, she helped in the decryption of German messages, and also worked on Japanese signals.
In 2015, Ms. Webb was appointed as Member of the Order of the British Empire and in 2021 she was awarded the Légion d’Honneur, France’s most prestigious honor.

Sian Barbara Allen, actress.

Other credits include “Sword of Justice”, “The Rockford Files”, “The F.B.I.”, “O’Hara, U.S. Treasury”, and “The Bold Ones: The Lawyers”.

Lawrence sent over an obit for Patty Maloney. Other credits include one of the spinoffs of a minor 1960s SF TV series, “Trapper John, M.D.”, and voice work in the 1978 “Lord of the Rings”.

Posted in 1970s, History, Movies, Obits, TV | No Comments »

Travel day.

April 2nd, 2025

Blogging is going to be as and when time permits, probably through Thursday of next week.

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Obit watch: March 30, 2025.

March 30th, 2025

Sgt. Joe Harris (United States Army – ret.) has passed away. He was 108, and is believed to have been the oldest surviving paratrooper.

Mr. Harris was a member of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, nicknamed the Triple Nickles (the word was deliberately misspelled) after their unit designation and the three buffalo nickels that formed their insignia.
He had enlisted in the Army in 1941, and he volunteered to join the 555th soon after it was formed in 1943. The Army was still rigidly segregated, and most Black service members served in support roles; the battalion was designed as an early step toward the military’s eventual desegregation.
It never served overseas. Instead, in 1945 it was transferred from its base in North Carolina to rural Oregon as part of a confidential program known as Operation Firefly.

The Triple Nickles were assigned to parachute in and fight fires started by Japanese balloon bombs.

Mr. Harris and his unit became the front line in fighting the blazes. Jumping from C-47 cargo planes, they wore leather football helmets with wire-mesh face masks and carried a brace of firefighting tools, including the Pulaski, a specialized tool that combines an ax and an adze.
They were trained to aim for trees, to avoid landing in dangerously rugged territory. Among their gear was a 50-foot rope that they would use to drop to the ground after getting snared in branches.
Mr. Harris performed 72 jumps, fighting fires started by the bombs as well as by lightning and other natural causes. He was honorably discharged in late 1945. The Army was desegregated in 1947, and the 555th was incorporated into the 82nd Airborne Division.

Richard Chamberlain. THR. IMDB.

Bruce Glover. Other credits include the 1973 “Walking Tall”, “Bearcats!”, and “The Six Million Dollar Man”.

Richard Norton, “Actor, Martial Arts Expert, Trainer and Stuntman”. Other credits include “Gymkata”, “Walker, Texas Ranger”, and “Road House 2: Last Call”.

Posted in Heroism, History, Movies, Obits, TV | No Comments »

Quick random gun crankery.

March 30th, 2025

Yes, this is an advertising video for Rock Island Auction. But it is also relevant to another one of this blog’s obsessions.

Summarizing: RIA is auctioning off one of the three Winchester 1873 “One of One Thousand” screen-used rifles from “Winchester ’73”.

We watched “Winchester ’73” not too long ago, but Criterion just issued a brand new 4K and blu ray restoration with extras. This is on my list for the next 50% off sale.

(As I understand it, these three rifles were specially built by Winchester for the film, and not original production “1 of 1,000” rifles from the 19th Century. Just sayin’. I would still be on this auction like flies on a severed cow’s head in a Damien Hirst installation, if I had the money.)

Posted in Bagatelle, Guns, Movies | No Comments »

Don’t get a boo-boo, Boo Boo.

March 29th, 2025

I’ve been meaning to post this for a couple of days, but kept forgetting. I think it is relevant, especially since FotB Joe D. and I have discussed this in the past.

“These are the 10 deadliest national parks in the US — with one seeing more than 20 fatalities per year”.

Spoiler: Surprisingly, the deadliest “park” is…Lake Mead National Recreation Area, which averages 20.88 deaths per year. I say “surprisingly” because I would have figured Grand Canyon or Yosemite. But thinking about it, Lake Mead is mostly water, and there are a lot of ways to die around water.

Grand Canyon National Park comes in second (12.7 deaths per year), Yosemite National Park third (11.1), and Yellowstone ends up in tenth place (4.94 deaths per year).

Posted in Bagatelle, Safety | 1 Comment »

Happy 1911 Day!

March 29th, 2025

I know I’ve written about this before, but as a reminder:

Following its success in trials, the Colt pistol was formally adopted by the Army on March 29, 1911, when it was designated “Model of 1911”, later changed in 1917 to “Model 1911”, and then “M1911” in the mid-1920s.

I posted a teaser for this a while back, and I want to do the promised full post soon. For now: Smith and Wesson PC1911, round butt, scandium frame, 4.25″ barrel, tuned by the Smith and Wesson Performance Center. Original SKU on this was #170344.

Posted in 1911, Guns, Smith and Wesson | 1 Comment »

Unbearable.

March 28th, 2025

Taylor Jenkins is out as head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies.

Six seasons, 250-214 overall, and 9-14 in the playoffs.

Posted in Firings, Sports | 2 Comments »

Your loser update: March 28, 2025.

March 28th, 2025

The MLB season started yesterday. I guess? Sort of? Apparently, the Cubs and Dodgers played two regular season games in Japan a week or so ago, and the Cubs dropped both?

Shows how much I follow baseball.

Anyway, MLB teams that still have a chance to go 0-162:

Tampa Bay Rays
Toronto Blue Jays
Minnesota Twins
Kansas City Royals
Detroit Tigers
Texas Rangers
City to be named later Athletics
Los Angeles Angels
New York Mets
Washington Nationals
Atlanta Braves
Pittsburgh Pirates
Cincinnati Reds
Milwaukee Brewers
Colorado Rockies
Arizona Diamondbacks

The Cleveland Indians Guardians won, which is nice. But Lawrence still hasn’t taken me up on my offer to bet $5 on the Guardians to win the World Series. Houston won, which is nice. And shockingly, the White Sox actually won. ESPN picked them to be the worst team in MLB this season, but could they be worse than last year? I think that would be hard.

Posted in Loser, Sports | No Comments »

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