Things are still kind of up in the air, but improving slowly. In the meantime, have a handful of random crap:
Your Jack LaLanne obit from the NYT. And from the LAT.
Just for Lawrence, a review of the New World Center, designed by Frank Gehry.
Happy belated birthday, John Moses Browning.
The Pack is back, baby! (Mostly, I’m linking this for the font: may not be valid after 1/24. Did they drag the “Japs Attack Pearl Harbor!” font out of the Linotype case?)
Is it possible to be a football atheist? Plus Easterbrookian ignorance about guns and stealing jokes from FARK. All in this week’s TMQ after the jump…
Nudity! Gambling! This week’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback! Now!
The train wreck is now official. I expect this to be about as successful as M. Night Shamalamadingdong’s latest movies.
And Vince Young won’t be a Titan in 2011. However, it is not clear that the Titans are going to keep Jeff Fisher on as coach, either; that decision is yet to come.
Edited to add: And tying it all together, Richard Justice in the HouChron: “Should the Texans sign Vince Young? Are you kidding? Of course! Today!“
Tom Cable out in Oakland, even though he finished this season 8-8.
He posted a 17-27 record during his two-plus seasons as the Raiders coach.
And apparently, calling one of your fellow employees “sweet baby” and “a–hole” is a firing offense. At least at ESPN. If your fellow employee is a woman. And you have a record of pulling this kind of crap.
I’m running a bit behind today due to a personal matter this morning, so here’s a quick roundup of some things I felt were worth rounding up.
Day after coverage of the Kubiak situation from the HouChron. Kubby stays, four assistants get the axe. And it looks like the Wade Phillips thing is moving closer to happening.
Fire last night in one of our downtown condo complexes. A close friend of WCD and many of our readers (who shall remain nameless here to protect his privacy, but the people who know him know who I’m talking about) lives in that condo one floor above the fire. He’s fine, and his condo suffered what he describes as minor smoke and soot damage.
Local gun store (McBride’s) robbed. This is the second break-in at McBride’s that I can remember; I have it in my head that the perps were caught in the act the first time, but I can’t confirm that now. It struck me as odd that they only stole “several” handguns, but this KXAN article describes them as high-end .45 autos. I think I know which guns were taken, as I’ve seen them in the display case. My recollection is that they were Wilson Combat and Les Baeur 1911s. Nice to know that our local crooks have good taste, but I don’t think they’re going to be able to move those easily. Assuming that they want to move them, as opposed to using them personally…
The Macy’s store in Highland Mall is closing. I’m thinking this is probably the end of Highland Mall. I haven’t been there in…I can’t remember how long. And I haven’t been to that Macy’s since shortly after they dropped the Foley’s branding. (I miss Foley’s.) Highland Mall attempted to file for bankruptcy last year, but had the petition dismissed. The mall itself has been in decline for several years; there are a lot of allegations that it has become a hangout for gangs, and a hotbed of criminal activity. The more recent Statesman articles avoid discussing those issues, but you can pick up on them by reading the discussion and this older Statesman article.
Question: if you level the mall, what do you put there as part of the redevelopment process?
Happy new year, everyone. Now that we’re all over our hangovers, let’s see what Gregg Easterbrook has in store for us this week, shall we?
First Monday after the end of the NFL regular season, and the firings have begun.
Mangini out as head coach of the Browns.
More coverage from the Cleveland Pain Dealer.
Watch this space for updates. Thanks to Lawrence for the heads-up.
Edited to add: Looks like Kubiak is staying on as Texans head coach, but Frank Bush is out as defensive coordinator.
Neither do panthers. In what I expect to be the last sports firing of 2010, John Fox is officially out as head coach of the Carolina Panthers.
(Hattip: FARK.)
John McClain takes a break from defeating Hans Gruber and his minions to let us know:
That post is timestamped at 12:10 AM this morning. This is the kind of brilliant analysis that passes for sportswriting at a major daily newspaper.
At 12:31 PM, McClain (having finished with Gruber and his minions) tells us:
Meanwhile, Pro Football Talk is repeating speculation that Kubiak will stay, but the Texans will hire…Wade Phillips?! as a defensive coordinator.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so let me just put one here:
And the owner of FireGaryKubiak.com is taking the site down “due to unrelenting hate mail and threats”. I didn’t think Gary Kubiak had that big a family.
TMQ has his party bus, WCD has our party van. Let’s get this party started, shall we?
One HouChron writer says “Fire him now; don’t let him coach the final game.”
Another HouChron writer says “Firing him now is pointless.”
Meanwhile, the fans are restless and organizing a “Fire Kubiak” rally for Sunday.
And in today’s bulletin from a failing chain of restaurants desperately crying out for relevance, T.G.I. Friday’s is apparently lobbying to have their particular style of bartending (which has a name that I will not dignify by giving it here) made an Olympic sport.
Wait, did I say “singularity”? I meant “Singletary”. As in Mike Singletary, out as 49ers coach.
In other firing related news, Gary Kubiak has lost Richard Justice. Not just “fire him”, but “fire him now, before next week’s game”.
Instead of a clever introduction to this week’s TMQ, I’m going to give you, my loyal readers, a fitting present for the holiday season. After the jump…
Jingle Bells!
Haynesworth smells!
Texans laid an egg!
Bears-mobile lost a wheel
and the Giants got away! Hey!
Let’s open the TMQ Tupperware and see what’s inside.
