Archive for the ‘Loser’ Category

Soy un perdedor.

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011

Overslept. Running behind. Quick note: Carlos Alvarez, mayor of Miami-Dade County, lost his recall election yesterday.

Voters favored removing the mayor by 88 percent to 12 percent.

Apparently, Mr. Alvarez managed to alienate people by raising property taxes 40 percent, while giving various county workers (including his “top aides”) raises. And his taxpayer-subsidized BMW didn’t help much.

Edited to add: The NYT article touches very briefly on this, but Commissioner Natacha Seijas also got kicked out of office. Here’s a longer article from the Miami Herald on Ms. Seijas and her loss. And here’s the Herald’s coverage of Mr. Alvarez and his loss.

(Hattip: Ace of Spades.)

Random notes: March 15, 2011.

Tuesday, March 15th, 2011

The NYT has a long and interesting obit for Owsley Stanley, noted recreational chemist and sound engineer for the Grateful Dead (and others).

He moved to Australia in the 1980s, as he explained in his rare interviews, so he might survive what he believed to be a coming Ice Age that would annihilate the Northern Hemisphere.

Well, okay, then.

(He had insisted, among other things, that the [Dead] eat meat — nothing but meat — a dietary regimen he followed until the end of his life.)

Ditto. (By the way, Stanley died in a car accident.)

I kind of like Berkeley Breathed (much less so post-“Bloom County”, but still), so it doesn’t give me that much pleasure to note that “Mars Needs Moms” is being compared to “Ishtar” and “Pluto Nash”.

Walt Disney Studios spent an estimated $175 million to make and market “Mars Needs Moms,” which sold $6.9 million in tickets at North American theaters in its opening weekend.

“Mars Needs Moms” is a 3-D movie, so that $6.9 million figure is with the higher 3-D ticket prices.

“Mars Needs Moms” may lead to the end for the Zemeckis style of motion-capture filmmaking, which has proven increasingly unpopular with audiences.

Good!

“Holly did not go lightly.”

Friday, February 25th, 2011

There’s a mildly funny piece in today’s NYT about Joe Allen Restaurant, specifically about the restaurant’s eastern wall…

Covering its eastern wall are posters for old Broadway shows, about 50 of them, from the mid-1960s on. Their titles will ring few bells except among the most knowledgeable of theater buffs. There is a reason. Each was a notorious flop.

Included are posters for such notorious works as “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (closed in previews), the legendary “Kelly” (Lewis Lapham was invited to document the production of “Kelly” from start to finish; “Kelly” closed after one performance. Lapham’s story was reprinted in a wonderful book called Second Act Trouble: Behind the Scenes at Broadway’s Big Musical Bombs.) and “Moose Murders” (closed after one performance: NYT review).

If I ever make it back to NYC, I think I’m going to make it a point to stop by Joe Allen’s place.

Loser note.

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

I’ve not been covering the Cleveland Cavaliers for several reasons. One, I don’t much like basketball. Two, the Cavaliers fall is kind of painful for me. (I have family in the Cleveland area.) Three, I don’t much like basketball. Four, I’ve been kind of distracted by other things.

However, Lawrence pointed out this interesting SI article on the worst season-to-season declines in sports history, which covers not just the NBA, but also the NFL, MLB, and the NHL. There’s some surprising stuff in there; I didn’t realize the Houston Oilers dropped that much from 1993 to 1994, but I also really don’t remember the Cody Carlson/Billy Joe Tolliver era.

Random notes: December 16, 2010.

Thursday, December 16th, 2010

I was tempted to make some play on Bob Feller’s name in the headline, but I figure everyone’s going to be doing that. So here’s your NYT obit link, sans pun.

As I was in the process of composing this post, I found out about the death of Blake Edwards. I expect fuller obits in tomorrow’s papers.

Speaking of the NYT, there’s quite a bit of interesting stuff in today’s paper. Here’s a quick set of links:

Today is the 50th anniversary of the “Park Slope” plane crash: a United Airlines DC-8 and a Lockheed Constellation collided and fell to the ground in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn, killing 134 people. The “City Room” blog has been doing retrospectives on this story for most of the week: the best place to start is probably here, with the “How It Happened” post, and then browse the list of related posts below. It would be nice if the NYT bloggers could tag all the posts on the subject for easy linking…

(Edited to add: for some reason, the tags were not showing up for me earlier in Firefox 3.6, but they are now: this link will show all the posts tagged “Park Slope Plane Crash”.)

There’s also a retrospective on the murder of Ken Rex McElroy in Skidmore, Missouri “nearly” 30 years ago. The hook here is that the county prosecutor, who was just starting the job at the time of the murder, is now leaving office, and there still haven’t been any prosecutions.

There’s also a pretty shallow article on the rise of home science labs. I say “shallow” because the article is basically “Oh, look at all this cool stuff computerization has made affordable” and doesn’t cover any of the issues around home labs and amateur science experimentation; the CPSIA and science kits for kids, laws in some states (like Texas) restricting the purchase of “chemical glassware”, BATFE and the war on high-power rocketry,  or the CPSC’s attempt to shut down sales of chemicals for home experimentation, among other issues.

How bad is the California Institute of Technology basketball team?

The last time Caltech (2-5) won two games in a season was in 2001-2. The last time it won three was in 1996-97. The last time Caltech had a winning season was 1954.

In local news, I would have liked to be a fly on the wall for this conversation at the Hays County sheriff’s office: “So let me get this straight: you lost the interview with the victim.

Jack Shafer on the nutmeg scare. I think many of the commenters are missing a key point: shouldn’t we be happy that kids these days are still reading the classics?

Your loser update: week 10.

Monday, November 15th, 2010

It was a lousy week in the NFL, at least from my perspective.

Dallas won (what the heck? Was dumping Wade really all they needed?), Houston lost (what is this I don’t even), and sadly…

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

None.

Count on the Lions to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Bright spot: Minnesota got stomped, so I’m still holding out hope for another coach firing, and possibly even the benching of Brett Favre.

Your loser update: week 9.

Monday, November 8th, 2010

Sorry this is late. I wanted to hold off until this morning so I could work in the NBA loser update as well. Tragically, everyone at this point has won at least one game (yes, even the Rockets and Clippers).

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

Buffalo

In other news, do you hear that noise? The noise of drums? The constant drumbeat, pounding, pounding? “Fire Wade!” “Fire Brad!” “Fire Wade!” “Fire Brad!” The natives are restless.

Edited to add: Breaking! The natives have apparently gotten a sacrifice! More on this as it develops!

Random notes: November 4, 2010.

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

Remember the Vietnam War? It was in all the papers. Anyway, the LAT has an interesting article about the POW bracelets that were popular at the time. Oddly enough, this came up in a recent family discussion…

So let’s see. People living in illegal lofts in NYC get a law passed in an attempt to make their lofts legal, and, in the process, bring those lofts under the same laws regulating other residential housing in NYC (including “rent stabliziation”). Loft owners respond as you might expect. Tenants are outraged. Film at 11.

Speaking of outrage, I usually don’t join in with Internet lynch mobs, but thisthis train wreck is just too good to pass up. I’m reminded of something Harlan Ellison once said. Loosely paraphrased: arrogance you can work around. Stupidity you can deal with. But arrogant stupidity? There’s no cure for that.

Edited to add: Oh, yes. I knew there was something else I wanted to mention: this Slate review of The Anthology of Rap, in which the reviewer complains that the book is full of transcription errors. Transcribing rap lyrics is hard? You don’t say.

Your loser update: week 8.

Sunday, October 31st, 2010

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

Buffalo

That was a nail-biter, wasn’t it?

I’m still looking for a Wade firing this week. I know what Jerry said, and I know folks are distracted by the Rangers, but I really believe things have gone too far.

Your loser update: week 7.

Sunday, October 24th, 2010

Dallas doesn’t play until Monday night, so don’t expect a coach firing until Tuesday.

What the heck, Saints?

This week’s Asteroid Bowl (as in, I’d rather see the stadium hit by an asteroid strike than have one of these two teams win): San Francisco – Carolina.

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

Buffalo

Your loser update: week 6.

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Jerry Jones says “I would never consider (firing a coach) during the season.” Never?

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

Buffalo (bye week)
Carolina (bye week)

Your loser update: week 5.

Monday, October 11th, 2010

We were unlucky this week. More on this when TMQ posts.

In the meantime, does Wade Phillips go today, or does he last until Tuesday?

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

Buffalo
Carolina
San Francisco

Arrrrrrrrr!

Monday, October 4th, 2010

The Pittsburgh Pirates, who, as you may recall, went 57-105 this season, have fired manager John Russell.

Not since the mid-1950s have the Pirates been as bad as they were under Russell, who had records of 67-95 in 2008, 62-99 in 2009 and 57-105 this season. Only the 1952 Pirates, who went 42-112, lost more games in baseball’s modern era than Russell’s final team, which was the National League’s worst in batting, pitching and defense.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette coverage here.

Your loser update: week 4.

Sunday, October 3rd, 2010

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

Buffalo
Detroit
Carolina
San Francisco

Final MLB loser update:

Houston finishes 76-86, with a .469 winning percentage. Not quite Lawrence’s 61-101, but not quite the Chron‘s 81-81 either.

Baltimore, our early favorite, finished 66-96, with a .407 winning percentage.

Arizona finished 65-97, with a .401 winning percentage.

Seattle sort of snuck up on us, finishing 61-101 with a .377 winning percentage.

And Pittsburgh missed grabbing the 110 loss brass ring, but still finished 57-105, with a .352 winning percentage.

Friday loser update note.

Friday, October 1st, 2010

Since baseball’s regular season ends Sunday, I’m going to hold off on doing a Friday loser update this week, and plan to do a combined MLB/NFL loser update either Sunday night or early Monday morning.