,,,the police are 25 minutes away.
Archive for January, 2013
When seconds count…
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013Cahiers du Cinéma: Django Unchained.
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013I want to throw Lawrence some linky-love for his review of Django Unchained. If I don’t, I’ll hear from him.
And, more to the point, he says a lot of what I wanted to say. My comments are more in the form of notes on his review than an actual review.
I disagree with Lawrence on this. Specifically, I found what I’ll refer to as “the third act” (people who have seen the movie should understand what I’m talking about) to be kind of draggy. I think that entire sequence could have been tightened up considerably; I was ready for the movie to be over long before it was over.
Dear Quentin Tarantino:
You’re a good director. Really. Please stop trying to act as well. Thank you.
I was glad to see Zoë Bell in the credits, though I honestly missed her in the movie itself. Maybe one of these days Tarantino will give her the role she deserves.
There is a scene where Django and Schultz have hunted down a wanted man; Django balks at shooting the man in front of his child until Schultz has him read the wanted poster. I thought this was a very clever scene, more clever than I actually expected from Tarantino, for two reasons:
- Django has trouble reading the wanted poster. Of course he does; he’s a slave, he probably wasn’t taught to read very well to begin with. There are a lot of hack directors who wouldn’t have thought of developing Django’s character in that way.
- That scene also sets up a key plot point much later in the movie, which I won’t spoil here.
Generally: yeah, I liked it, but I would have liked it a little more at 2:15 or possibly 2:30, not 2:45.
Edited to add: For some reason, Lawrence’s comments about this film self-selecting its audience, and comments I expect to get from certain other people, remind me of ham. Don’t know why.
Final judgement.
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013Both Lawrence and I have written about Amado Pardo, restaurateur, Democratic activist, convicted murderer, and alleged heroin dealer. As Lawrence noted in his last update, Mr. Pardo was in declining health and had been released to hospice care.
According to the Statesman and his attorney, Mr. Pardo passed away yesterday. His trial on the drug charges was scheduled for February 11th. I’m not clear how Mr. Pardo’s death is going to affect the charges against the other people who were indicted with him.
Obit watch: January 23, 2013.
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013Taiho.
Who?
His career record was 746-144-136, and he won the Emperor’s Cup (“an immense silver trophy awarded to the champion of sumo’s top division”) 32 times.
And one more gratuitous note: Taiho was born on Sakhalin Island during World War II. After the war ended and the Soviet Union took control of Sakhalin, Taiho and his mother were sent to Hokkaido.
Remember, folks: Commies aren’t cool.
TMQ watch: January 22, 2013.
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013We were busy most of the morning, all afternoon, and on into the evening. But hey! Today is still Tuesday, and we all know what that means! Girl Scout cookies!
(munches another Caramel deLite)
Damn, these are good.
(has another)
(puts up the rest of the box before we eat our way through it)
Oh, yeah, we also have this week’s TMQ to deal with after the jump…
Obit watch: January 21, 2013.
Monday, January 21st, 2013Lawrence sent me a heads-up that Michael Winner had died, but I wasn’t able to find independent confirmation until now. Here’s the A/V Club obit.
His filmography is interesting: he directed Death Wish, Death Wish 2, Death Wish 3, and the original version of The Mechanic. (I kind of liked both Death Wish and The Mechanic, though I haven’t seen either one in ages.)
He also directed Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood, a version of The Big Sleep with Robert Mitchum as Marlowe and set in England instead of L.A., and (the reason Lawrence brought him up), The Sentinal.
Strange definitions.
Monday, January 21st, 2013New York state has very strict gun laws.
One of those laws imposes a mandatory prison sentence of three and a half years on anyone caught carrying a loaded illegal gun.
How’s that working for them?
You don’t say. Tell us more.
Now, let’s be fair about this:
The NYT gives two specific examples of cases in which Bronx prosecutors did not seek the mandatory sentence: “a state prison guard who was not authorized to carry a firearm only because he had failed to submit the required paperwork” (only ones syndrome, anyone?) and “a Pennsylvania school bus driver who was traveling to his sister-in-law’s wake in New York”.
I’m all for prosecutorial discretion, but in more than 50% of cases? This is obviously some strange definition of the word “mandatory” I was previously unaware of.
Random notes: January 21, 2013.
Monday, January 21st, 2013I’ve written previously about the pot growers of Mendocino County. Today’s LAT reports on a new development.
Mendocino County set up a program to register medical marijuana growers:
The DEA raided the first person who registered.
In spite of this, the county intended to continue registering growers:
The county is now fighting the subpoenas. Three things about this:
- “Wonderful thing, a subpoena.”
- It feels like we’re moving ever closer to an armed showdown between federal and state law enforcement over marijuana laws.
- How many of the same people who are applauding Mendocino County’s actions do you suppose are appalled by the actions of Texas, Wyoming and other states?
Meanwhile, in local news: Austin has a moderately successful chains of bars known as “Little Woodrow’s”. The owners want to put a new location at 5425 Burnet, but they need a zoning change first. Here’s 5425 Burnet on Google Maps:
View Larger Map
This is a stretch of road I’m fairly familiar with; there’s not much along there except strip centers and stand-alone businesses. As the Statesman notes, there’s a mixed-use apartment/shopping development (with a parking garage) right across the street, which Little Woodrow’s hopes to cater to. There’s two bars close by that I can think of: Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon, mentioned in the article, which is also famous for chicken (stuff) bingo, and Billy’s on Burnet (which does very good hamburgers and has limited parking).
Anyway, the point is: the usual suspects – the Brentwood and Allandale neighborhood associations – are all butthurt over this, claiming there won’t be enough parking, the bar would be too noisy, yadda yadda. In spite of their opposition, “the opponents are short by roughly half the number of signatures needed on a petition that would require six of seven council members to approve the rezoning”. They had two votes against in a preliminary vote: Laura Morrison and Kathie Tovo.
(On a completely unrelated note: anyone got any experience organizing recall elections?)
Bread blogging: Sourdough Beer Bread.
Sunday, January 20th, 2013I thought I’d go back and revisit a recipe I’d made recently, but didn’t document here: sourdough beer bread from Brody and Apter
I kind of screwed this one up. Instinctively I put in an entire tablespoon of yeast, which is standard for most Brody and Apter recipes. But I forgot this was a starter-based bread until after I added the yeast; I really only needed half that much (one and a half teaspoons). The end result was a bread that I think was over-yeasted and over risen, making the top kind of ugly.
(This time I used a better camera than the spectacular cell phone CrapCam.) Here’s a top view:
So, yeah, kind of lumpy and mis-shaped, at least as far as the top crust goes. But I blame the over-yeasting/over-rising for that. How does it look inside?
Not too bad, actually. It has a nice texture and a slight, but not overwhelming, sourdough tang to it. It toasts up well; I’ve been eating it for breakfast with some butter and honey. I also made a big pot of French Onion Soup, and this bread was a nice compliment to it just placed in the bowl with some grated Cheddar cheese (not traditional, but I was trying to use it up before it went bad). This would be a good sandwich bread, too; perhaps a nice patè, or some good meat and cheese.
I think I’d like a little bit more sourdough tang to it, but that may just be my starter. The nice thing about this bread is that you don’t need much beyond starter to make it; flour, yeast, salt, sugar, and some beer, all of which I generally have on hand. This is probably a B; maybe an A if I make it again with the correct amount of yeast.
I’ve got everything lined up now to make Brody’s Sourdough Chèvre Bread (have you ever tried to find powdered goat’s milk?), but I want to take a break from Brody. The next bread in the queue is Laurence Simon’s French Onion Bread. (Sorry, Mom.)
The Baseball Gods Must Be Angry.
Sunday, January 20th, 2013Stan Musial died yesterday. NYT. St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
There are some other things I like from the various obits:
Take that, Earl Weaver.
And:
The Post-Dispatch website says that today’s physical paper will include a “14-page special section” devoted to Stan The Man. I’m trying to think of a single Houston sports figure who would get the same treatment on their passing, and I can’t.
Obit watch part II.
Saturday, January 19th, 2013ESPN is reporting the death of Earl Weaver, the colorful former manager of the Baltimore Orioles.
He was ejected 91 times, including once in both games of a doubleheader.
Obit watch: January 19, 2013.
Saturday, January 19th, 2013Both Lawrence and my mother (of all people: I mean, I love my mom, and she knows I’m a “Wire” fan, but I’m not sure she’s ever watched an episode) sent me obits for Robert F. Chew, aka “Proposition Joe”. (Baltimore Sun. A/V Club.)
Don’t have much more to add to those: David Simon has a blog entry with no comments, and the A/V Club already links to the best videos of Proposition Joe. Apparently, he died of natural causes, and not from wearing a suit when it was 85 f’ing degrees out.