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Obit watch: May 14, 2018.

Monday, May 14th, 2018

This is a placeholder for Margot Kidder obits: once they start going up, I’ll add them here.

In the meantime:

Chuck Knox, noted NFL coach.

Ernest Medina, one of the central figures in the My Lai massacre.

Captain Medina went on trial in September 1971, defended by the prominent criminal lawyer F. Lee Bailey, as well as a military lawyer. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter of at least 100 civilians, the murder of a woman and two counts of assault against a prisoner by firing twice over his head to frighten him the night after the massacre.
The defense contended that Captain Medina was unaware of large-scale killings of defenseless civilians until they had already occurred. The prosecution argued that the defense account was not credible since Captain Medina had been in continual radio contact with his platoons. The court-martial panel of five combat officers returned not guilty verdicts on all counts after an hour’s deliberation.

Doreen Simmons.

“Who?”

She was born in England, studied theology and classics at the University of Cambridge, and taught school in Singapore.

She was best known as an English-language sumo commentator for NHK from 1992 until March of this year.

“At the beginning, there were three play-by-play men who had experience of broadcasting games like baseball, but their knowledge of basic sumo was newly acquired and pretty limited,” she said in an interview last year with The Daily Express, a British newspaper. “They wanted the color provided by commentators like me who were hired because we were already knowledgeable about some aspect of sumo.”

Posted in History, Movies, NFL, Obits, Sports, Sumo, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: special norts spews edition, March 26, 2018.

Monday, March 26th, 2018

H. Wayne Huizenga. Special bonus obit content: Field of Schemes.

Posted in NFL, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: January 6, 2018.

Wednesday, February 7th, 2018

So, it has come to this: the ultimate Tuesday Morning Quarterback of the season.

And just in the nick of time, too, as we are entering one of the busy periods of our year, in which we are booked with meetings (with people!) three out of five days of the working week through May.

But enough about that. After the jump, this week’s TMQ…

(more…)

Posted in NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: January 30, 2018.

Tuesday, January 30th, 2018

Ah, the week between the end of the playoffs and the Superb Owl: or, as we like to call it, “the most boring week in sports”.

What does TMQ cover this week? Would you believe there’s almost nothing about television shows?

After the jump, this week’s TMQ…

(more…)

Posted in NFL, Sports, TMQ watch, TV | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: January 23, 2018.

Wednesday, January 24th, 2018

After the jump, this week’s TMQ…

(more…)

Posted in NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: January 16, 2018.

Thursday, January 18th, 2018

Yes, we know, we’re way late. It doesn’t have anything to do with something we’ll get to in a moment. It’s just been a matter of it being relatively cold here in the greater Austin metroplex. And like a giant lizard or some other cold-blooded animal, we’ve been curling up and conserving body heat. (We also fell into a time sink Tuesday night reading the archives of Damn Interesting. But that’s another story.)

But the cold spell is starting to break. After the jump, this week’s TMQ. Plus: viewer mail!

(more…)

Posted in Admin, Food, Movies, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Remember the Titans?

Monday, January 15th, 2018

They lost to New England on Saturday.

And head coach Mike Mularkey was fired today.

The Titans finished with a 9-7 regular-season record for the second consecutive season, reached the playoffs for the first time in nine years and won a postseason game for the first time in 14 years, rallying from an 18-point deficit to stun the Chiefs, 22-21, in a wild card game in Kansas City.

He was 21-22 overall.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: January 9, 2018.

Wednesday, January 10th, 2018

We’ve finished the first week of the playoffs. Would you expect TMQ to be longer, shorter, or about the same?

We expected shorter. We got “about the same”: almost 5,200 words by our count. Of which the first 1,600 (nearly 31%) are devoted to one theme, which we can summarize in four words.

After the jump, this week’s TMQ…

(more…)

Posted in NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: January 2, 2018.

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2018

Yeah, we can’t believe it, either. We want to try on our best Don LaFontaine voice. “In the future world of 2018…”

And that’s as far as we’ve gotten. “…you will believe that a famous chef sends out an apology for sexual harassment that includes his recipe for cinnamon buns“? Nobody would believe that.

“You will believe that Gregg Easterbrook watched football on New Year’s Eve”? That might work.

After the jump, this week’s TMQ…

(more…)

Posted in Mixology, Movies, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Blood watch.

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2018

The Houston Texas have let several assistants go:

  • special teams coordinator Larry Izzo
  • secondary coach John Butler
  • assistant special teams coordinator Doug Colman

Mr. Izzo’s departure is described as “a mutual parting of the ways” rather than a firing, while Mr. Butler’s and Mr. Colman’s are described as actual firings.

Running backs coach Charles London is leaving the staff on his own without being dismissed. London wants to pursue a quarterback coaching position.
Meanwhile, Texans director of football research Jim Bernhardt is retiring.

Dom Capers out as defensive coordinator for Green Bay. Also inside linebackers coach Scott McCurley and defensive line coach Mike Trgovac. It feels kind of crappy to fire guys after a season disrupted by a quarterback’s injury. But then again, as ESPN points out, the Pack’s defense ranked 22nd out of 32 teams: you can’t blame not having a quarterback for that.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Monday, bloody Monday…

Monday, January 1st, 2018

It has begun.

Jim Caldwell fired as head coach of the Detroit Lions.

Caldwell posted the highest regular-season winning percentage (.563) of any full-time Lions coach in the Super Bowl era, but his 36-28 record included just four victories over teams that finished above .500, and he went 0-2 in the playoffs.

Give the man credit though: in four seasons, none of his teams went 0-16.

John Fox gone as coach of da Bears. He was 14-34 over three seasons, and 5-11 this year.

Fox leaves as the second-worst coach in Bears history, behind Abe Gibron, who had a 27.4 winning percentage. His 5-11 mark this season is two wins better than last season, but it marked the Bears’ fourth-straight season mired in last place in the NFC North.

Edited to add: Not a firing, but Bruce Arians has retired as coach of the Arizona Cardinals, ostensibly to spend more time with his family. (Some coverage has also mentioned that Mr. Arians has suffered from various health issues, too.)

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Snoop, call your office, please…

Sunday, December 31st, 2017

Chuck Pagano out as head coach of the Colts.

Pagano’s tenure in Indianapolis ends with a 53-43 overall record, though nine wins from the 2012 campaign were credited to Pagano while he battled and eventually beat leukemia and Bruce Arians ably filled in as interim coach.

The team was 4-12 this year.

Edited to add: And now, Jack Del Rio out as coach of the Raiders, according to ESPN. Haven’t found a good link for this yet. Rumor for the past couple of days has been that the Raiders really want Jon Gruden and are prepared to offer him everything, including equity in the team.

Gregg Easterbrook is going to be more insufferable than usual.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 17, 2017.

Sunday, December 31st, 2017

Honorable readers:

As of 3:06 PM Central on December 31st, 2017, the Cleveland Browns became the third team in the modern NFL era to go an entire season without winning a game, and the second to finish an entire season 0-16.

Only the 2008 Detroit Lions match Cleveland’s record for futility: the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers finished their first season 0-14.

In other news, the New York Football Giants actually won their game, improving to 3-13. This may be good enough for second place in the draft: the Colts beat Houston and finished 4-12.

More later, maybe. There will be a ceremonial toast drunk tonight.

Edited to add: Yep. Looks like it’s going to be Browns-Giants for sure. I think the third and subsequent positions are still up in the air until the late games are over.

ETA2: Cleveland.com coverage.

ETA3: Per NFL.com, it’s going to be:
Browns
Giants
Colts
Browns again (traded with Houston for this pick)

I expect Bloody Monday to be interesting. If there are any “Damn, you didn’t even wait to get him in the house” firings tonight, I’ll try to update.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | 1 Comment »

Loser watch.

Wednesday, December 27th, 2017

Two articles from ESPN that amused me:

“The worst teams in NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL history“. I quibble with their NBA team choice, but the rest of the picks seem sound.

“The worst NFL teams ever for all 32 franchises“. The picks for Detroit and Tampa Bay are logical. But were the 1990 Browns worse than the 2016 Browns?

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 16, 2017.

Sunday, December 24th, 2017

da Bears won! da Bears won!

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Cleveland

With the defeat, the Browns became the first team in NFL history to have multiple 15-loss seasons, according to ESPN Stats & Information. The Browns, who are 0-15 this season, finished 1-15 last season.
Coach Hue Jackson has been coach for both seasons and is 1-30 in his two years leading Cleveland. Browns owner Jimmy Haslam already has stated that Jackson will return in 2018.

And in other news:

UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen would prefer to play for the Giants over the Browns and would be hesitant to declare for next year’s NFL draft if he knew that Cleveland was going to take him with the No. 1 overall pick, according to league sources familiar with the situation.

Gee, where I have heard something very much like this before…? ‘Tis a mystery.

As I’ve noted a couple times before, the Browns last game of the season is in Pittsburgh. Anything can happen, of course, and depending on playoff position the Steelers may want to rest their starters, but I don’t see Cleveland coming out with a win unless things go totally off the rails.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | 1 Comment »

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