The director of Elvis Presley’s 1968 comeback special (Steve Binder) also directed…”The Star Wars Holiday Special”.
Archive for the ‘Bagatelle’ Category
Thing I did not know.
Friday, June 24th, 2022Those Glorious ’70s…
Friday, April 15th, 2022There’s a high bar that has to be cleared for me to link to something on ESPN.
Bonus: the Canadian Football Act (which isn’t really an act, as it has never been signed into law).
Okay. This made me laugh.
Friday, April 1st, 2022“A few things to know before stealing my 914“.
Especially this line:
(Sometimes I think about a 914 as one of those fun cars to knock around in. Even though I have no mechanical talent, the 914 seems like a simple enough car to learn on. Then I come to my senses. A man will think a lot of stupid things when he can’t sleep at night. Also, there aren’t any on Craigslist locally right now.)
Quick note from the California legal beat.
Wednesday, March 30th, 2022Eligible for parole in California: Frederick Woods. Mr. Woods was one of three men involved in the Chowchilla school bus kidnapping.
Richard and James Schoenfeld (brothers) were paroled in 2012 and 2015 respectively.
Mr. Woods, who was 24 at the time of the kidnapping, was given a sentence of seven years to life in prison. He began serving his sentence in 1978 and has been held at the California Men’s Colony, a state prison in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
The panel’s decision is subject to review by Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who has 30 days to let it stand or refer the application to the full parole board. Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, cannot override the decision because Mr. Woods was not convicted of murder.
Not eligible for parole: Leslie Van Houten.
Beware the Ides of March.
Tuesday, March 15th, 2022
(Hattip: Mike the Musicologist.)
Headline of the day.
Friday, February 25th, 2022New Yorkers Discover Fire.
Friday, February 18th, 2022Important safety tip (#24 in a series)
Wednesday, February 9th, 2022Trigger warning for dog people, but: nature red in tooth and claw.
.380 is not a sufficient caliber for moose.
Also:
I’m sorry, but if your guns are going off because of the sled jostling, you’re doing it wrong, and should go find a qualified gunsmith.
Bagatelle (#55 in a series).
Friday, January 28th, 2022Shot:
Chaser:
Dr. Rockzo, call your office, please.
Thursday, January 27th, 2022
I have no joke here…
Wednesday, January 12th, 2022…I just want to observe that you can get “The Day of the Dolphin” on blu-ray from Amazon at a not unreasonable price (affiliate link).
When guns are outlawed…
Monday, December 27th, 2021Responsible use of category tags.
Wednesday, December 15th, 2021I hate to link to Crimereads two days in a row, but this is another one of those articles I feel like I have to link. Especially since it lets me tick off multiple categories from my list:
“Fireworks at Graceland: How Elvis Spent His Last Christmas Before Boot Camp“.
I’m not going to add it to my wish list yet, but Christmas with Elvis (affiliate link) sounds like it could be a fun book.
Other people lead more interesting lives than I do.
Friday, December 3rd, 2021At least, it seems that way according to the New York Post.
This bride went from blushing to barfing in a matter of seconds.
Wife Hollee Lynnea-Kolenda Darnell unintentionally put her groom’s “in sickness and in health” loyalty to the test when she passed out, puked and got pooped on during their wedding ceremony.
…
A woman who took a Delta flight recently wasn’t kitten around when she whipped out her breasts and started feeding her hairless cat.
The unidentified female flew from Syracuse, NY, to Atlanta, GA, where she was caught breastfeeding her feline on the plane. A flight attendant told her repeatedly to stop and put her cat back in its cage, however, the woman refused.
As a person with a strong cat allergy, hey, at least it was hairless. Also, what did she do wrong? Other than not obeying a flight attendant, but it isn’t clear to me what she was doing wrong. Delta policy allows cats on planes, and allows breastfeeding on planes…
The name of the bar is “Paddywagon Irish Pub”, which sounds like a fun place to go drinking on Thanksgiving night.
Christmas trivia.
Friday, December 3rd, 2021Not too long ago, I found a used DVD of “The Detective” at Half-Price Books.
“The Detective” is a movie I’m kind of interested in, and I only paid $5 for the DVD. It is based on a novel by Roderick Thorp, and stars Frank Sinatra as a NYPD detective named Joe Leland.
Most of what I’ve read about the movie says that it was well regarded: it was praised for being a more mature approach to movies about police work, as well as dealing with non-mainstream subjects. (And check out that supporting cast.)
I think I’m going to end up watching it by myself, as I suspect it will be a tough sell to the Saturday Night Movie Group. (We’ve already watched one Sinatra detective film, “Tony Rome”, which was…not great.)
What does this have to do with Christmas?
In 1979, 13 years later, Roderick Thorp published a sequel to The Detective called Nothing Lasts Forever, also featuring Joe Leland (affiliate links). By this time, Detective Leland has retired from the NYPD, and decides to go visit his daughter in Los Angeles for Christmas.
Yeah, you guessed it. As I understand it, there were initially discussions about having Frank Sinatra play Joe Leland again (he was 64 when the book came out) but he turned the role down, and they eventually wound up with Bruce Willis. Also, the book sounds like it is a lot darker, just based on the Wikipedia summary.
Two of Thorp’s other novels were adapted for film, but none of those is set in the Die Hard Cinematic Universe (DHCU). (“Rainbow Drive” sounds like it could be interesting, but it is hard to find.) Thorp died in 1999.
And now you know…the rest of the story.
Because it’s just not Christmas until we see Hans Gruber fall from the Nakatomi Tower.