Archive for December, 2015

Random notes: December 30, 2015.

Wednesday, December 30th, 2015

Okay, so it isn’t exactly Ninja Part 3: The Ninjaing. But I was entertained by Pete Wells’ review of Señor Frog’s in the NYT.

Señor Frog’s is not a good restaurant by most conventional measures, including the fairly basic one of serving food.

(Spoiler: he still liked it better than Guy’s American Kitchen and Bar.)

From the HouChron: off-duty HPD officer lists a couple of personal firearms on Texas Gun Trader, meets up with potential customers, and gets into a shootout.

Mildly interesting, but I call it out here for this quote:

Senties did not know how much Curry was asking for the guns, but on the website, the price tag for pistols can range from about $300 to almost $2,000 depending on the model and the condition.

“…from about $300 to almost $2,000”. Wow. That certainly narrows it down.

Seriously, if you don’t have specific information on what Curry (the HPD officer) was selling and how much he was asking, why put that in? Does the HouChron even have editors these days?

110 years ago today…

Wednesday, December 30th, 2015

…early in the evening on December 30, 1905, Frank Steunenberg, the former governor of Idaho, returned to his home in Caldwell after a busy day downtown. (Among other tasks, Steunenberg renewed his life insurance policy.) He opened the side gate to his home…

…and set off a massive explosion that gravely wounded him. He was carried into his home by family and neighbors, and lingered for a short period of time before succumbing to his injuries around 7:10 PM.

For days thereafter, passerby were picking “little bits” of the governor out of the debris.

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A Chip off the block…

Tuesday, December 29th, 2015

What was TMQ’s belated Christmas present?

Oh, nothing, really. Just Chip Kelly being fired as coach of the Eagles. ESPN. Philly.com.

As you may recall, TMQ has been banging the drum for months now, promoting his expectation that Kelly would go back to coaching college ball after this season. Well, he got the first part of his wish. Now let’s see if he gets the second part; we’re thinking there will be some job openings next Monday, and Kelly might be a good fit for another NFL gig.

TMQ Watch: December 29, 2015.

Tuesday, December 29th, 2015

We hope all of our readers had a good Christmas, and that Santa or Krampus brought you everything you wanted. Sadly, Robot Santa Claus failed to bring us everything we wanted, as far too many of our enemies remain alive. Maybe in 2016. Or maybe we should submit our wish list to Morbo.

It looks like TMQ got what he wanted; a Panthers loss. Does this mean what we fear it means? After the jump, this week’s TMQ

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Obit watch: December 29, 2015.

Tuesday, December 29th, 2015

Ian Fraser Kilmister, also known as Lemmy from Motörhead.

“Please,” the band added, “play Motörhead loud, play Hawkwind” — Mr. Kilmister’s earlier group — “loud, play Lemmy’s music LOUD. Have a drink or few.”

100 years ago today…

Tuesday, December 29th, 2015

…on December 29, 1915, Robert Chester Ruark, Jr. was born.

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Obit watch: December 28, 2015.

Monday, December 28th, 2015

Haskell Wexler, noted cinematographer.

Mr. Sayles said Mr. Wexler had once told him the story of being torpedoed. “He said the U-boat surfaced as the sailors were swimming to their lifeboats,” he said, “and they all were afraid it was coming up to machine-gun them. Instead, the captain lifted a small movie camera to document his kill, and Haskell remembered thinking, ‘I wonder if he’s shooting color or black and white?’”

Meadowlark Lemon.

“Meadowlark was the most sensational, awesome, incredible basketball player I’ve ever seen,” basketball great Wilt Chamberlain, Lemon’s onetime teammate, said in a television interview shortly before his death in 1999, as the Times reported. “People would say it would be Dr. J or even Jordan. For me, it would be Meadowlark Lemon.”

Edited to add: NYT obit wasn’t up previously, but is now.

NYT obit for George Clayton Johnson.

Obit watch: December 27, 2015.

Sunday, December 27th, 2015

Robert D. Douglas Jr.

I hadn’t heard of him before the NYT obit, but he led an interesting life: he became an Eagle Scout in 1925. In 1928, he and two other Eagle Scouts were selected to go on a safari with Martin and Osa Johnson; the three Scouts later published a book about their experience. He later went hunting for whales and bears off the Alaskan coast (and wrote another book), flew with Amelia Earhart in an early autogyro, and spent more time in Alaska stomping around with “the Glacier Priest” (and got another book out of that).

This has been floating around for a few days, but I finally found an obit I was willing to link to: George Clayton Johnson. Johnson wrote several of the best “Twilight Zone” episodes (odds are, if the episode you’re trying to remember wasn’t a Matheson episode, it was one of his). He also wrote “The Man Trap” for “Star Trek”, the story that “Ocean’s 11” was based on, and co-wrote “Logan’s Run”.

And what was in those ships?

Friday, December 25th, 2015

I think if you do it two years in a row, it becomes a tradition, and you have to keep doing it.

Also, I really do like this song.

Merry Christmas, you guys.

A Christmas Story.

Thursday, December 24th, 2015

I’ve been threatening to tell this one for a while now. What pushed me over the edge was this (because, hey, Christmas story), and a conversation with my mother about the first “Star Wars”, which filled me with nostalgia. (Or that may have been indigestion from a combination of three cup chicken and the pills I’m taking; sometimes, I can’t tell the difference.)

(We were trying to reconstruct the circumstances around seeing “Star Wars”. My father took my sister and I to the theater at Greenspoint Mall in Houston (which was the closest good one) to see it first run. My younger brother didn’t go with us, because he was roughly 2 1/2. So the questions that came up were: what did we do with him, and when did he first see it? I always thought my dad took us as just a nice gesture, while my mother thinks she had a Tupperware party going on that night and wanted to get us out of the house.)

End of introductory digression.

One year, over the Christmas break from school, I decided I wanted to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I’m pretty sure I was in middle school at the time, and to this day I can’t explain what motivated this: perhaps I thought it had a cool title, and I may have read about it elsewhere.

Anyway, I checked it out of the school library and brought it home with me.

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1D20.

Thursday, December 24th, 2015

Speaking of Ross Thomas, I’ve been meaning to link to (and bookmark) Ethan Iverson’s “Ah, Treachery!” essay for a while now. There are a few things in it that I disagree with, but I think Iverson’s essay is generally perceptive about Thomas and his writing; I find myself referring to it periodically.

Young Joseph Wambaugh and the hobo, from the LAT.

Dave Barry’s year in review, in case you haven’t seen it yet.

An OPM statement plays down the seriousness of the data breach, stressing that “if anybody publishes any photos allegedly depicting an alleged Cabinet secretary with an alleged goat, those are fake,” further noting that “it was totally a consenting goat.”

For the record: NYT obit for Joe Jamail.

Obit watch: December 24, 2015.

Thursday, December 24th, 2015

Marine Gunnery Sgt. Eden Pearl.

Pearl joined the Marine Corps in July 1994 from the town of Monroe, N.Y., before turning 19. After graduating from recruit training at Parris Island, S.C., he became an infantry rifleman, and then completed virtually every difficult form of training the service had, becoming a scout sniper, reconnaissance Marine, combat diver and critical skills operator in MARSOC. His training left him capable of performing anything — from free-fall aerial dives from airplanes to close-quarters combat after breaking down a door.

Sgt. Pearl was critically injured by an IED in 2009, and died on Sunday as a result of his injuries.

Fernande Grudet, aka “Madame Claude”. I note this here for two reasons:

1) Hookersnblow.org.
2) In one of my favorite Ross Thomas books, The Seersucker Whipsaw, there’s a character named “Madame Claude”. I’m wondering if this was a very subtle reference on the part of Thomas…

TMQ Watch: December 22, 2015.

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2015

We pretty much have all of our Christmas shopping done now, barring a possible few last minute gifts or accessories for gifts already purchased. With that out of the way, we can focus on TMQ.

And what does he have to say this week?

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Obit watch: December 23, 2015.

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2015

Joe Jamail, noted Houston attorney.

He was also a major booster, contributor, and power behind the scenes in University of Texas football. Here’s an article from Texas Monthly in 2014 about the relationship between Jamail and UT.

And another TM article (by way of Popehat) profiling Jamail.

He once took a $675,000 judgment against Sears into the retail chain’s downtown Houston location, commandeered the intercom, and informed employees that he’d just taken over the store.

“Some plaintiff’s lawyers have a tinge of dishonesty. When they leave a room, you smell a little brimstone. I’ve never heard anyone suggest that about Jamail. He may kill you, but he won’t cheat you.”

Now that’s a eulogy.

Art, damn it, art! watch (#50 in a series)

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2015

I don’t remember how this originally came up – I’m pretty sure it was by way of someone’s Twitter – but over the weekend Mike the Musicologist and were discussing odd gingerbread constructions. I wouldn’t exactly call them “houses”…

I got to wondering: has anyone ever done a gingerbread Fallingwater?

That would be a “yes”, Bob. And the conversation moved on from there. But I had it in the back of my mind: could you do a gingerbread Guggenheim? Doesn’t seem like it should be that hard, should it?

The answer is also “yes”.

And a gingerbread Tate Modern. And five other museums.

(Now I want to do a gingerbread Reichstag. Mostly because at the end of the Christmas season (which, as we all know, is January 6th), I can pour brandy on it and set it on fire.)

Shrimp for Christmas!

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2015

I’ve been trying to keep up with the Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow trial. Really, I have.

But the press coverage has been kind of pathetic. I keep looking for stories in the San Francisco newspapers, but no joy.

The latest update is from the LAT: apparently, we’re now into the defense phase of the trial, and “Shrimp Boy” is testifying.

He said that he ran an escort service, dealt cocaine and was involved in a street gang, but upon his release from prison in 1989 got jobs at a supermarket and law office. That did not last, he said, as he continued to face scrutiny from police.

Chow was convicted on a federal gun charge in 1995 and released in 2003 after agreeing to cooperate in another prosecution. He said he decided to renounce criminal activity after engaging in meditation and focused instead on writing his biography.

Do you want to read that? I kind of want to read that, though “Chow doesn’t always understand English and that his diction and tenses are not always used correctly.”

Chow’s attorneys say the FBI agent instigated the crimes for which people were later arrested and forced money on him, often when Chow was drunk.

Worse than Ashley Madison?

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2015

A database for sanriotown.com, the official online community for Hello Kitty and other Sanrio characters, has been discovered online by researcher Chris Vickery. The database houses 3.3 million accounts and has ties to a number of other Hello Kitty portals.

Obit watch: December 18, 2015.

Friday, December 18th, 2015

British mystery writer Peter Dickinson. The Telegraph.

Dickinson is a writer who’s fascinated me since I read HRF Keating’s Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books: he shows up twice on that list (a distinction he shares with such folks as Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, and Arthur Conan Doyle).

Unfortunately, I’ve also always had some difficulty finding his work in the US: somewhere I have a paperback of The Poison Oracle (which appears to be back in print!) and apparently you can now get The Glass-Sided Ants’ Nest for your Kindle…

Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm. I may have to revisit this after Christmas…

Cahiers du cinéma: The Library of Congress recommends…

Wednesday, December 16th, 2015

I just have one thing to say about the latest list of movies added to the National Film Registry

TMQ Watch: December 15, 2015.

Tuesday, December 15th, 2015

After last week’s “slit your wrists” opening, we were hoping to find something light and funny for this week. We didn’t have much luck, alas.

We did briefly consider doing something with “All I want for Christmas is a goat”. But then we listened to “Holy Night”. Or at least we tried to; we had to shut it off 30 seconds in. With all due respect to ActionAid, they could use this to torture prisoners at Gitmo.

So the heck with trying to find something light and funny. Let’s just jump into this week’s TMQ

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TMQ Watch: December 8, 2015.

Thursday, December 10th, 2015

Instead of snark, and before jumping into this week’s TMQ, we wanted to throw up a link to something we found by way of a retweet from Popehat:

So let me be really clear about what happened to me. From the moment I got my first pair of hockey skates at five years old, I got the living shit kicked out of me every single day. Every day after hockey, no matter how many goals I scored, he would hit me. The man was 6-foot-2, 250 lbs. It would start as soon as we got in the car, and sometimes right out in the parking lot.

When I tell people the insane details of my childhood, they have the same two questions.
Why in the hell would anyone do this to their own son?
And then …
Why in the hell didn’t anyone put a stop to it?

Please go read this now, if you haven’t already. This week’s TMQ will be here when you return…

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Yearly administrative note.

Friday, December 4th, 2015

This is your yearly reminder: if you use the Amazon search box on the right hand side of the page to buy stuff, I get a small kickback.

Said small kickback, as you all know, goes to purchasing toys for crippled orphans supporting this blog, mostly by enabling our purchases of Robert Ruark and Jack O’Connor books, along with other crap in general.

(Speaking of Ruark, I’m reminded that I have two historical notes coming up back to back before the year is over. One of those should be of some interest to Lawrence…)

(And speaking of Lawrence, I would be remiss if I did not note, as I do every year, that books from Lame Excuse Books make fine presents for the holidays, especially if you have SF or horror fans on your shopping list.)

I believe I recommended Amy Alkon’s Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck last year, but I’ll plug it again as she deserves it.

Another book that was loaned to me by a friend, and that I’ve almost finished – I will be purchasing my own copy, so I have no qualms about recommending it – is Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. I somehow missed this when it came out in 2012, but it’s a very good book about the psychology of introversion, how to cope with being an introvert, and how to cope with significant others/family members who are introverts (if you’re an extrovert) or extroverts (if you’re an introvert).

I don’t see a shipping date for Archer Season 6 yet, but How to Archer: The Ultimate Guide to Espionage and Style and Women and Also Cocktails Ever Written made me laugh more than a cheap TV tie-in book by some anonymous ghostwriter had any right to. (But get the Kindle edition, or a used copy.)

cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra

Edited to add: Also. If I’ve managed to irritate you, please consider supporting the fine folks at Popehat through their Amazon link instead.

Also also: I haven’t given them any money, but I’ve always been kind of fond of the HouChron‘s “Goodfellows” program.

Also also also: the Reason Foundation is having their annual fundraising drive. And they will accept bitcoins, too.

TMQ Watch: December 1, 2015.

Thursday, December 3rd, 2015

Have you ever had one of those days when you don’t want to even look at the newspaper, or do much of anything except curl up in a ball and shut out the world?

Yeah. Us too. After the jump, this week’s TMQ

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Art, damn it, art! watch (#49 in a series)

Tuesday, December 1st, 2015

By way of Borepatch: Cassius Marcellus Coolidge’s most famous work sold at auction for $658,000.

Sotheby’s auction link. Yes, that did include the buyer’s premium.

Obligatory.

Flames, hyenas, etc.

Tuesday, December 1st, 2015

I wanted to wait a little bit for the paper of record to fully update their coverage. Now that they have:

Sheldon Silver, former speaker of the New York State assembly: Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

Mr. Silver, 71, a Manhattan Democrat, was convicted on all seven counts against him. The charges of honest services fraud, extortion and money laundering stemmed from schemes by which he obtained nearly $4 million in exchange for using his position to help benefit a cancer researcher and two real estate developers.

I am worried, though, about the jury issues:

Last week, as the jury first convened to deliberate, a juror sent a note to the judge, Valerie E. Caproni, asking to be excused from the case and saying she was “feeling pressured, stressed out … told that I’m not using my common sense, my heart is pounding and my head feels weird.”

On Monday, a second juror asked to be removed from the case, citing a conflict of interest related to his job. The juror, Kenneth Graham, a taxi driver, told the judge he had learned during the Thanksgiving recess that the owner of the medallion cab he drove was a good friend of Mr. Silver’s, and belonged to the same synagogue as the assemblyman.

I’m hoping this doesn’t give Silver grounds for a successful appeal.