I had intended to note the passing of John Callahan, but could not find a good obit while I was compiling last night’s death watch.
Fortunately, Gene Weingarten has a very good appreciation of Callahan and his work in today’s WP.
There’s also a good obit by the reliable Bruce Weber in today’s NYT.
Maury Chaykin, actor. He was Nero Wolfe in the A&E series, I believe, and was in a lot of other stuff. Including “War Games”, “Dances With Wolves”…and, well, “Meatballs III” and “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank” (if anyone remembers that MST3K).
(Hattip to FARK.)
Jack Tatum, safety for the Oakland Raiders, remembered for the hit that paralyzed Darryl Stingley. According to the linked article, Stingley passed away in 2007. (Edited to add: NYT obit.)
(Hattip to Patrick at Popehat.)
I’ll be on the road tomorrow, but I did want to note that it is the one year anniversary of Whipped Cream Difficulties.
I’d like to thank Lawrence, Earl, Mike the Musicologist, the crew at Popehat (especially Ken and Patrick), Jay G., Cranky Prof (who I will pour out a 40 for; seriously, Cranky Prof deserves a much longer thank you from me, and I hope to write that someday. In the meantime, I hope she’s out there somewhere terrorizing the stupid and being the shepherd of lost souls.), the rest of the Friday Night Dinner and Saturday Dining Conspiracy gang, and the members of the Academy. I’m probably forgetting some other folks who also deserve thanks; sorry about that, chief. Drop me a line, and I’ll update.
Edited to add: Joe D., too.
I would tell the Google Ads people what they could do, but my mother has been known to read this blog. Suffice it to say, it involves a rusty fence post, a mile of barbed wire, an uncomfortable place, and no lubricant.
By way of Say Uncle, we learn that a Gurkha private with the 1st Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles, is in a spot of trouble.
It seems that his unit was dispatched to take out a Taliban commander, and intelligence wanted proof that they had killed the right man. They accomplished the mission, but came under heavy fire. Rather than lugging back the entire body, our man used his kukri to remove the head. You know, a convenient travel package.
For some reason, this upset his superiors, and various other folks.
I have this to say on the subject:
Tiny violin. Let me play it for you.
This FARK thread and this post by Glen reminded me of another guilty pleasure of mine: Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”.
More specifically, this version:
and this version:
All the cool kids are doing it, so I thought I’d throw my chapeau into the washing machine. Hence, a list of my guilty pleasures:
“Cops”, on the other hand…well, I can’t explain the strange attraction of that show to me. I’d like to think it isn’t a “there but for the grace of God go I” sort of thing; no matter how low my social circumstances go, I don’t think you’ll ever catch me wearing a wife-beater and drinking a Bud Light after thumping some on my woman. It may be that there’s just a dark part of my soul that enjoys seeing stupid people in trouble.
As for “Convoy”, let’s just say that I used to have a 45-RPM record of that song that I literally wore the grooves smooth on. Yes, it is on my iPod.
“Magnum Force” I’ll also defend as an answer to the critics who claimed Harry was a vigilante, and the people who said “So what? Maybe we need vigilantes these days.” I see “Magnum Force” as a movie that’s explicitly about the rule of law, and the need for same.
“Sudden Impact”…well, I really can’t defend that as anything but fun. “Smith…and Wesson…and me.” “Go ahead, make my day.” The dogshit speech. (Another shameful confession: I also have Clint Eastwood and T.G. Sheppard’s duet, “Make My Day”, on the iPod.)
I won’t defend “The Enforcer”, and I’ve heard so many bad things about “The Dead Pool” that I haven’t watched it yet.
If you’re going to cheat, don’t be stupid about it. Try to show at least a little intelligence.
I draw my example today from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Office, which has a bit of a problem. LACSO wants deputies in the jail to check on the inmates regularly, just to make sure none of them have decided to hang themselves, or are getting beaten to death by Bubba. So they have a system of bar code scanners around the jail; deputies are supposed to use those scanners to scan their assigned bar code as they make their rounds.
How did they discover this? Well, one of the inmates killed himself, and records showed that a deputy had been making his regular rounds. When the investigators dug a little deeper into the records…
…they discovered that computer records showed the deputy scanned several parts of the jail in 35 seconds — a physical impossibility.
…
As they investigated further, officials found that the deputy who was on duty during the suicide also went to the staff gym and made a “chow run” to a nearby restaurant on the day of the suicide when he should have been making his rounds, the report says.
The three top administrators of the city of Bell, California, agreed to resign yesterday.
These are:
Yesterday’s LAT also had a survey of recent municipal corruption in the area around Bell. Some high points:
Edited to add: Oh, look! Robert Rizzo also faces drunk driving charges! (Hattip: Reason “Hit and Run”.)
The LAT writes about the closing of Edward’s Steak House, a 64-year old steak house in El Monte. I’ve never eaten there, but it sounds like a place I would have enjoyed trying.
By way of Marginal Revolution, I found out about a fairly new book that’s relevant to my interests: Steak: One Man’s Search for the World’s Tastiest Piece of Beef
Titan II Launch Control Center, level 2.