Archive for December, 2014

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Obit watch: December 24, 2014.

Wednesday, December 24th, 2014

Lawrence forwarded this really nice appreciation of Margot Adler, who passed away in July. Awful lot of dust in the room today.

(No, really. I’ve been sneezing my ass off the past couple of days.)

A/V Club obit for Joseph Sargent, who I mentioned yesterday. Also: NYT.

I missed this over the weekend: former Houston mayor Bob Lanier.

Finally, one I missed until late yesterday: Billie Whitelaw. You may know her as the nanny in the original “The Omen”, but she was very famous in England. She may have been best known as Samuel Beckett’s muse and collaborator:

She accepted his artistic vision without always understanding its explicitly rendered ambiguities. They read his plays together, discussing not their meaning but the most minuscule elements of the text — the pauses and sighs and guttural sounds as well as the words, the inflections demanded by the language, and his need, as she said in interviews, to remove the acting from the performance. “Flat, no emotion, no color,” he would often caution her, she said.

Posted in 1970s, Clippings, Movies, Obits, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed

The Bowl Game.

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014

I have a sort of secret fondness for college football bowl games. Especially the smaller, sillier ones.

Here’s a list of 2014-2015 bowl games.

We actually caught part of the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl while we were at dinner the other night. We also saw highlights of the Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl.

What the heck is a “Xaxby’s”? Oh.

Where’s the Beef O’Brady Bowl? (I always thought “Beef O’Brady” was what Kramer fed to the carriage horse in that “Seinfeld” episode.) That’s now the “Bitcoin St. Petersberg Bowl”: BitPay made a deal to sponsor it through 2016.

The Duck Commander guys have their own bowl sponsorship. Let’s not forget the TaxSlayer Bowl. And how is the “Military Bowl” different from the “Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl”, especially since neither one has a team from a service academy?

(I did not know this, but the Coast Guard Academy does have a DIII football team.)

Posted in Sports | Comments Closed

Like an oncoming train.

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014

Christmas is coming. But you don’t have a lot of time to shop and get physical objects delivered.

What to do? What. To. Do.

Well, if the object of gift giving has a Kindle or something like it, ebooks make fine gifts. And they can be delivered, even on Christmas morning.

I just finished, and enthusiastically recommend, Brian Krebs’ Spam Nation: The Inside Story of Organized Cybercrime-from Global Epidemic to Your Front Door. It isn’t quite the general book about spam I was expecting. His Krebsness is mostly writing about the Russian pharmacy spam gangs and their internecine warfare. There’s a lot of good stuff in Spam Nation; I’d recommend it for anyone in your life who has a interest in computers, computer security, or spam.

Another book that I really enjoyed this year is Amy Alkon’s Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck, an etiquette guide for the modern age. Much of her advice is based on the latest developments in cognitive science, too, so it isn’t just a list of arbitrary rules. Also enthusiastically recommended, for just about everyone. (With the possible exception of very small children. But if you have a late pre-teen or teenager on your list, I think they could get a lot out of this.)

Posted in Books, Christmas, Endorsements, Kindleing | Comments Closed

Merry Christmas to me! (Part 2)

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014

I like Joe R. Lansdale.

I like free stuff.

Joe’s Bullets and Fire is available for free on the Kindle.

(Hattip: Mike the Musicologist. Stuff from Joel’s Classical Shop makes swell gifts this time of year. And remember, the Twelve Days of Christmas begin on December 25th, and don’t end until January 6th. So you’ve got plenty of shopping days left!)

Posted in Books, Christmas, Kindleing | Comments Closed

Obit watch: December 23, 2014.

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014

Yesterday was a bad day for the Joes.

Joe Cocker: LAT. NYT. A/V Club.

This is the only story I’ve found so far, but prolific television and movie director Joseph Sargent also died yesterday. Among his credits: the original “Taking of Pelham 123” and “The Marcus-Nelson Murders” (the pilot for “Kojak”).

Posted in 1970s, Clippings, Movies, Music, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Merry Christmas to me!

Monday, December 22nd, 2014

I’m actually starting to get into the spirit of the season, believe it or not.

Part of the reason is that I got an early sort-of-but-not-really “Christmas present” over the weekend, which will be blogged in due time.

And then there’s this, which I think is really cool:

…mathematicians have made the first substantial progress in 76 years on the reverse question: How far apart can consecutive primes be? The average spacing between primes approaches infinity as you travel up the number line, but in any finite list of numbers, the biggest prime gap could be much larger than the average. No one has been able to establish how large these gaps can be.

Besides the fact that I have an amateur interest in prime numbers, this is also a famous Paul Erdős problem.

Even cooler: one of the guys who solved this problem, Terence Tao, has a direct connection to Erdős:

In 1985, Tao, then a 10-year-old prodigy, met Erdős at a math event. “He treated me as an equal,” recalled Tao, who in 2006 won a Fields Medal, widely seen as the highest honor in mathematics. “He talked very serious mathematics to me.” This is the first Erdős prize problem Tao has been able to solve, he said. “So that’s kind of cool.”

(Someone on my Christmas list is getting this as part of their present; I’ll let you know how that goes over.)

Posted in Books, Clippings, Geek | Comments Closed

Wiki wandering.

Monday, December 22nd, 2014

At dinner Saturday night, the topic of crap TV shows we watched in syndication came up. For some reason, I got kind of curious about “Hogan’s Heros“:

  • How many episodes were there? (168; the pilot was black and white, the rest in color.)
  • Who is still alive? Basically, nobody.

We all know about Bob Crane. No need to rehash that here.

Werner Klemperer died of cancer in 2000.

John “Sgt. Schultz” Banner died two years after Hogan went off the air. He was only 63.

Robert “Corporal LeBeau” Clary is still alive, and the only surviving original cast member.

Richard Dawson died in 2012. I didn’t realize he was Diana Dors’ second husband. (And, as a side note, the Diana Dors/Alan Lake story is a good one if you happen to be looking for a massive dose of sad this holiday season. I knew a little about Dors and Lake, as they were apparently close friends of the Kray brothers.)

Larry “Sergeant Carter” Hovis died in 2003. What I did not know: he was teaching drama at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos (just down the road from Austin) at the time of his death.

Ivan Dixon died in 2008. It sounds like he had a fascinating career both before and after. Especially after:

From 1970 to 1993, Dixon worked primarily as a television director on such series and TV-movies as Trouble Man, The Waltons, The Rockford Files, The Bionic Woman, Magnum, P.I., and The A-Team. He also directed the controversial 1973 feature film The Spook Who Sat By the Door, based on Sam Greenlee’s novel of the same name, about the first black CIA agent, who takes his espionage knowledge and uses it to lead a black guerrilla operation in Chicago.

That’s another movie I’d like to see.

And Kenneth Washington, who replaced Ivan Dixon in the last season, is also still alive.

Posted in 1970s, TV | Comments Closed

Random notes: December 22, 2014.

Monday, December 22nd, 2014

The Krampus Comeback!

“For the next 12 months I will live as if there is no God,” he typed. “I will not pray, read the Bible for inspiration, refer to God as the cause of things or hope that God might intervene and change my own or someone else’s circumstances. (I trust that if there really is a God that God will not be too flummoxed by my foolish experiment and allow others to suffer as a result).”

I don’t (and won’t) talk about my religion here. But I will say: I have a lot of respect for Ryan Bell, and would love to sit down and talk with him at some point.

Save the Lada!

The company’s market share diminished steadily after the Soviet Union collapsed, dropping to 17 percent from 70 percent.

Posted in Cars, Christmas, Clippings | Comments Closed

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (part 2)

Monday, December 22nd, 2014

The “First Annual Very Nicest Awards” from Very Nice Website (aka John Moltz, one of the four authentic geniuses the Internet has produced).

Won’t you consider murdering and eating a duck this holiday season?

The Incomparable takes on “The Star Wars Holiday Special”.

Posted in Christmas, Clippings, Geek | Comments Closed

What does it take…

Friday, December 19th, 2014

…to lose your job as a cop?

If you’re the police chief in Phoenix, the answer is “insubordination”. Specifically, calling a press conference and demanding a new contract after the city manager said “Don’t DO that!” seems to be a sure way to get yourself terminated.

If you’re with the Austin Police Department, the answer is “running your mouth to a reporter”. Technically, Andrew Pietrowski “retired”, but it seems like his retirement was just ahead of “being canned by Art Acevedo”.

“Now, stop and think about this. I don’t care who you are. You think about the women’s movement today, [women say] ‘Oh, we want to go [into] combat,’ and then, ‘We want equal pay, and we want this.’ You want to go fight in combat and sit in a foxhole? You go right ahead, but a man can’t hit you in public here? Bulls–t! You act like a whore, you get treated like one!”

The way I read this, it wasn’t like Pietrowski was asked for his opinion; he just walked up to a reporter who was there for another reason and started spouting off.

Posted in Austin, Clippings, Cops, Law, Stupid | Comments Closed

Obit watch: December 19, 2014.

Friday, December 19th, 2014

Mandy Rice-Davies has passed away at 70.

Ms. Rice-Davies, you may recall, was one of the central figures in what became known as the Profumo Affair. In brief, she was a roommate and friend of Christine Keeler, who had brief affairs with both Secretary of State for War John Profumo and Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet intelligence agent. This was quite the scandal back in 1963.

Posted in Clippings, History | Comments Closed

Notes on film, 2014.

Wednesday, December 17th, 2014

The latest batch of movies added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry has been announced.

Quick takes:

  • There’s a good representation of historical stuff on here; I’m interested in seeing “Bert Williams Lime Kiln Club Field Day” and “The Dragon Painter”.
  • Also a good representation of horror, with “Rosemary’s Baby” and the 1953 “House of Wax”.
  • “Ruggles of Red Gap” sounds like a whole lot of fun. I’d love to see that, too.
  • You know, I liked “The Big Lebowski” okay when I saw it. I still think it’s a good movie, and I often quote lines from it, but I really don’t get what seems to be the passionate worship of it. In terms of just Coen Brothers films, I think “True Grit”, “No Country For Old Men”, “Fargo”, and “Miller’s Crossing” are all better movies. (“Fargo” is already on the list, of course.)
  • I kind of want to see “Down Argentine Way” for one reason: Carmen Miranda. Same with “The Gang’s All Here”. Maybe we should have a Carmen Miranda movie night one night. (If we do, I’ll try to let everyone know in advance. You might even say I’ll give folks a Miranda warning.)
  • Yes, I will be here all week. Try the veal and remember to tip your waitress.
  • I’d also really like to see “Rio Bravo” and “Little Big Man”. I saw parts of the latter on TV when I was a child, but I’ve never seen either one start to finish.
  • Other things I’d like to see: “Unmasked”, “The Power And The Glory”.

Posted in Movies | 2 Comments »

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