Choctaw bingo.

July 5th, 2011

Too weird to pass up. On Friday, the Sunset Valley PD arrested a guy on charges of impersonating a police officer. (Sunset Valley is a small municipality on the outskirts of Austin; most of Sunset Valley consists of strip centers and big box stores. Just FYI.)

…31-year-old Crag Redhawk was arrested and charged with two counts of tampering with a government record after police found him to be carrying ticket books from area police and sheriff’s departments.

I really, really want to know where he got those ticket books.

…on Friday afternoon, Sunset Valley police stopped Redhawk in a Crown Victoria sedan with Home Depot-bought stickers on the side that said “Choctaw Police.” Redhawk claimed to be a member of the Choctaw Tribal Police Department, but that agency told the officers they had no record of Redhawk working for them. In addition, the car belonged to the Williamson County sheriff’s office and had a fake inspection sticker.

I also really, really want to know how he came into possession of a car belonging to the Williamson County sheriff’s office. Notice that the list of charges does not, so far, include “car theft” or “possession of a stolen vehicle”.

(I know what you’re thinking: “That might explain where he got the ticket books, too.” Maybe. But the way I read the article, he didn’t just have Williamson County ticket books, but also ones from the Austin Police Department and other local agencies. I don’t think all of those would be in one WCSO car.)

The fake inspection sticker is a nice touch, too. What, he couldn’t swing by one of those 10 minute inspection places? Then again, maybe the WCSO car wouldn’t pass inspection. Perhaps there was a problem with the emissions testing.

I wonder how they know he bought the “Choctaw Police” stickers at Home Depot. Was there a receipt in the car? Heck, I didn’t even know you could get custom stickers for your car done at Home Depot. That gives me a few ideas…

Redhawk was found to be carrying an antique handgun,

I’m wondering about that “antique handgun” as well.

a badge

I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badges!

and a handcuff case, the affidavit said.

(Subject line hattip: Do you really need one? He cooks that crystal meth because the shine don’t sell. I’m mildly annoyed that you can’t purchase that song as a stand-alone tune on iTunes, and Amazon charges $1.99 for it instead of the usual 99 cents. Then again, it is over eight minutes long, so you’re getting good value for money. And how many songs do you know that give a shout-out to the SKS and Berdan-primed ammo from some East bloc nation?)

Posted in Clippings, Law, Music | 3 Comments »

What are my interests worth?

July 5th, 2011

Over at the American McCarver blog, Michele Catalano makes an impassioned plea to save the New York Islanders:

There are people screaming in opposition about the $58.00 a year our property taxes will go up if this vote is passed and I get that, I do. We’re one of the highest taxed counties in the nation (our average annual property tax is $8,306) already. But $58.00 a year to save your hockey team? That’s too much to ask?

Yes, Michele, it is. I get that I’m not a Nassau County resident, and the decision isn’t up to me; the voters will decide on August 1st. But the question shouldn’t be “Is $58 a year too much to ask?” It should be “Why should the taxpayers of Nassau County, who I already concede pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation, subsidize this thing I’m interested in to the tune of $58 a year?”

Catalano’s arguments for why seem to boil down to two things:

  1. It would make Catalano sad if the Islanders left.

    Ask any fan of any sport whose team has left them what it feels like…Ask a Baltimore Colts fan what it’s like. That’s the stuff earnest young men in black rimmed glasses with acoustic guitars write hit songs about.

    Well, if it’d stop “earnest young men in black rimmed glasses” from writing acoustic guitar songs about losing the Islanders, I’m all for it. More seriously, I understand Catalano’s sadness. But the population of Nassau County in 2010 was 1,339,532. The Islanders average attendance in 2010 was 11,060. By my calculations (and assuming the Islanders draw their attendance just from Nassau County, and not the surrounding area) that’s about 0.825% of the population that actually attends games. 100% of the population will get hit by that “only $58 a year”. Even the people who rent will see the property tax increase passed on to them in the form of higher prices for goods and services. Which leads to Catalano’s second point:

  2. Approving the tax increase will result in net positive economic benefits. That’s a much better argument than Catalano’s sadness. And, to be honest, this stadium deal doesn’t look as bad as a lot of other deals. The excellent Field of Schemes website has been covering the Islanders proposal, and I commend their coverage to your attention. In brief, though…

    …the county would be paying to build an arena and handing over control of 77 acres of development rights to Islanders owner Charles Wang, and in return would get … somewhere between a $12 million a year loss and a $2 million (and rising) a year profit, assuming you count as “profit” taxes that any development on the site, including the existing Nassau Coliseum, would be paying anyway.

    And…

    …consultant Camoin Associates explains how they projected that the county would end up turning a $2 million a year profit on the deal: “If the Arena is not built, the Islanders have stated that they would leave and the County has said that the Coliseum would eventually close. All economic activity associated with the Islanders would be lost to the County.” In other words, the only thing the new arena plan was compared to was scorched earth — and every single dollar currently spent on hockey or concerts at the Coliseum (aside from any concerts that could relocate to a different Nassau venue) would be assumed to disappear from the county economy. There’s no indication that Camoin made any attempt to account for the substitution effect — i.e., the possibility that if the Islanders really moved away and the county closed the Coliseum in a fit of pique, a couple from Ronkonkoma denied the ability to buy Motley Crue tickets might just decide to go to the movies locally instead of driving to Brooklyn.

    That’s pretty much Catalano’s attitude: “…if the Islanders go, the Coliseum goes and then the surrounding business community dies.” In short, if you don’t buy this stadium, we’ll kill this pizza parlor.

I’d love it if I could get people in Travis County to pay $58 a year for my obsessions. Think of all the books and Registered Magnums I could buy. But the difference between me and Catalano is that I wouldn’t presume to ask folks in Travis County to subsidize my interests. Catalano, and far too many other sports fans, have the idea that this kind of request is not just okay, but an entitlement. That’s not what “the pursuit of happiness” means.

Posted in Politics, Sports | 1 Comment »

The people cry “Bread! Bread!”

July 4th, 2011

I encountered this at the local grocery store. In case you can’t tell by the label, this is a chocolate cake made in the shape of a hamburger (complete with little white icing dots for the sesame seeds on the bun). Those are “french fries” on the left: they appear to be made from bread cut into rectangles and darkly toasted. I believe the “ketchup” is actually red icing.

No, I didn’t buy one (they had several of these, in both chocolate and white flavors): it was $20, and not something I’d eat by myself. Frankly, it makes me kind of bilious.

Posted in Food, Photography | Comments Closed

Happy 4th of July.

July 4th, 2011

As SayUncle puts it, make sure to buckle up and watch for state troopers while you’re illegally buying fireworks.

In our case, the fireworks are both illegal and not really all that good an idea, to be perfectly honest. I did do a lot of driving yesterday, and saw a fair number of state troopers, but no DWI checkpoints; I did 80 MPH much of the way without incident. Unfortunately, while I was driving this route, I was doing so fairly early in the morning, before Lawrence wrote this post, so I missed out on the best potato chips ever. (Surely someone in Austin sells them.)

So what else can you do to celebrate the 4th? Well, you can hit the gun store, provided you have one near you that’s open on 4th of July Monday. (All the good independent gun stores in Austin are closed Sunday and Monday, but Cabela’s in Buda is open today. Edited to add: And the Cabela’s in Buda was not the Mongolian fire drill I was expecting.)

Or you could go to the range. Provided you can get a slot on the firing line, given that everyone else and his brother has probably had the same idea.

If you have a veterans cemetery near you, you could also go pay your respects.

I don’t actually know Richard Johnson or his family, but I stumbled (almost literally) on that marker, and there’s something striking about it. He would have been roughly 28 years old when the United States entered the war. What was he doing before then? What was life like as a 2nd Lieutenant during World War I? Where did he serve? Did he see action? He lived for 58 more years after the end of the war: what did he do with the rest of his life?

I want to add a nice word here for the VA’s Nationwide Gravesite Locator, which was indispensable. (The gravesite locator at the Houston cemetery was broken when we were there.) It would be nice to have a version of this tool that’s optimized for smart phones, but the existing version did work on my Evo.

Posted in Guns, Photography, Uncategorized | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 1, 2011.

July 1st, 2011

Robert Morris, computer security expert.

Back many thousands of years ago, I remember going to the university library and digging out old issues of the Bell System Technical Journal just so I could read Morris’ paper, “File Security and the UNIX Crypt Command“. Kids today have it easy.

Edith Fellows. I’d never heard of Ms. Fellows before, but this is a pretty interesting story.

Her grandmother brought her to Hollywood to pursue an acting career at the age of 4. By the time she was 13, she’d appeared in 30 movies, and was the subject of a bitter custody dispute between her grandmother and mother.

Her earnings were put into a trust, estimated to be worth $150,000 in 1939: she ended up with $900.60 when the trust matured.

She went on to pursue a stage career, but suffered a breakdown in 1958 and didn’t act again until 1970.

Fellows died of natural causes Sunday at the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s retirement home in Woodland Hills, said her only child, Kathy Fields Lander. She was 88.

(Interesting fact: Kathy Fields Lander is married to David “Squiggy” Lander.)

Posted in Clippings, Obits | Comments Closed

Good cop, bad cop.

June 29th, 2011

Good cop:

Between 1977 and 1987, six women in Northern California were killed and dumped. The cases became known as the “I-5 Strangler” killings; Roger Kibbe was convicted of one of the murders in 1987, and pled guilty to additional murders in 2008.

Unfortunately, the body of one of his victims, Lou Ellen Burleigh, was never found, even though Kibbe attempted to lead law enforcement to where he had left the body.

Earlier this year, Napa County Deputy Sheriff Michael Bartlett decided to search for the body on his own time. It took him about a month, but he eventually found a place that matched up with Kibbe’s description, and a bone.

DNA tests confirmed the bone was Burleigh’s.

At least now her people know. Well done, Officer Bartlett.

Bad cop: Houston police officer Mike Hamby.

Actually, make that “former Houston police officer”. Mr. Hamby was “relieved of duty” June 17th.

What gets you fired from HPD? In this case, former officer Hamby was accused of throwing a tear gas canister into another team’s tent during a barbecue cookoff at the Livestock Show and Rodeo earlier this year.

The powerful chemical irritant wafted over two military veterans — both of them multiple amputees — who were brought to the rodeo event in wheelchairs and were waiting for a ride home.

Former officer Hamby can appeal his firing.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Cops, Law | Comments Closed

Today’s bulletin from the Department of WTF?! (#4 in a series)

June 28th, 2011

Mark Davis is a writer in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Mark Davis wrote a book about a writer who gets discouraged over his rejections.

So he finds an uber-successful agent, kidnaps her daughter, and gives her 90 days to get his latest novel in print.

That’s not a bad sounding plot. But Mark Davis decided to take things one step further.

…Davis staged and filmed a kidnapping (“I checked with a lawyer first to make sure I wouldn’t get in trouble”) to post on the website, then sent an e-mail to a wide variety of agents. It began: “By the time you receive this, I will have already kidnapped your child.”

“The first phone call I received the next day was at 7:30 in the morning, from an agent,” Davis recalled. “She was yelling at me, saying, ‘Are you crazy?’”

Yeah, I’m going to say the answer to that question is, “Hell, yes!” Either that, or Mr. Davis put on the Bad Idea Jeans that morning. I’m boggled at the fact that a lawyer apparently told him this was legal, or even a good idea.

Apparently, this strategy actually worked, for definitions of  “worked” that include “finding a publisher” (Poinsettia Publications, according to the article; the book is available in their online store) but there’s no mention that Mr. Davis has actually secured an agent. Frankly, if I were a literary agent who’d read about this stunt, or received one of those letters, my first reactions would involve a restraining order against Mr. Davis and press-checking my .45.

(Hattip on this: I picked up the story by way of Marko Kloos on the Twitter.)

Posted in Books, Clippings, IANAL, Law | Comments Closed

Obit roundup: June 28, 2011.

June 28th, 2011

Some of these are new, some of these I missed, some of these I’ve been intending to blog but haven’t gotten to it.

Randall Dale Adams, wrongfully convicted of the murder of a Dallas police officer, and subject of the Errol Morris documentary “The Thin Blue Line“. Mr. Adams apparently passed away in October of last year, but his death didn’t make the news until last Friday.

Margaret Tyzack, noted British actress (“The Forsyte Saga”, “I, Claudius”). (Hattip: Lawrence.)

Martin Harry Greenberg, noted SF and mystery anthologist. I can’t begin to count the number of Greenberg anthologies I’ve read; his death is a huge loss to both communities. The Rap Sheet also has a nice tribute to Mr. Greenberg.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Obits | Comments Closed

I am a mean person.

June 27th, 2011

This is a well established fact.

The latest evidence for my being mean and evil? The fact that I take a great deal of delight in the detail that the Dodgers number one creditor in their bankruptcy filing is…Manny Ramirez, who is owed $21 million by the Dodgers.

For those who don’t follow baseball, Manny no longer plays the game; he retired from Tampa Bay five games into this season after failing a drug test, and hasn’t played for the Dodgers since last year. Tampa Bay doesn’t owe him any money because he failed the drug test. The Dodgers traded Manny to Chicago late in the 2010 season; Chicago doesn’t owe him any money, as far as I know, since he completed his contract. But the Dodgers somehow wound up owing him $21 million?

Other creditors include Kaz Ishii, who is owed $3.3 million, and who hasn’t played for the Dodgers since 2004, and Marquis Grissom, who is owed $2.7 million and who hasn’t played for the Dodgers since 2002.

I think I have a decent understanding of the idea of deferred salary, but come on! You owe all this money to whodats who haven’t played in years? This is your Dodgers management, ladies and Germans.

Lawrence had a good suggestion when we were discussing this at work: someone should buy the Dodgers and move them to a baseball deprived area of the country. Someplace that would be receptive to baseball. Someplace like…Brooklyn.

Edited to add 6/28: There’s a good take on this over at the American McCarver blog. Speaking of that blog, it looks like it might be kind of promising; I’m familiar with the works of people like Jason Snell, Philip Michaels, and (of course) John Gruber from other contexts, and I enjoy reading their stuff. However, American McCarver is pretty baseball-obsessed at the moment, and my feelings on baseball are well known. I’d like to see how the site develops after the season ends.

Posted in Clippings, Schadenfreude, Sports | 1 Comment »

Yet another food note.

June 27th, 2011

This weekend was an off one for the Saturday Dining Conspiracy (and, yes, I know I’m behind on the website, but I’m hoping to get caught up soon).

A bunch of folks went to Machu Picchu in Pflugerville, and I heard good reports from them.

I, on the other hand, drove down to San Antonio with my sainted mother and spent a long hard day book shopping at the various Half-Price Books locations. Oh, the agony.

Anyway, while we were there, we had a very good meal at Mr. Cod. This is a place that appears to have aspirations of becoming a chain, but currently only has one location. The restaurant is tucked back in a strip center, and the decor isn’t much to look at. We’re talking your basic English fish and chips place here.

But the fish is good. Really, really good. My mother said she thought it was as good as Tino’s Seafood: I think I’d have to give Tino’s a slight edge, but that still makes Mr. Cod’s fish the second best fried fish I’ve ever had.

Enthusiastically recommended if you’re in the San Antonio area.

Posted in Endorsements, Food | 1 Comment »

Noted for the record.

June 24th, 2011

James “Whitey” Bulger had “an AK-47 assault rifle” and a “sawed-off shotgun” in his Santa Monica apartment, according to the FBI.

I wonder which of these “AK-47 assault rifles” Whitey had.

I also wonder how “sawed-off” that shotgun was.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Guns, Law | Comments Closed

Just one more thing…

June 24th, 2011

Obit watch: Peter Falk. (LAT obit.)

I loved “Columbo” when I was a kid. At least, when my parents would let me stay up and watch it.

Posted in Clippings, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Prose from Dover.

June 24th, 2011

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution linked to this “Dover Sole Price Guide 2011“, which, in turn, led us to “The Price Hike“, Ryan Sutton’s website tracking price changes at restaurants. We’re still wading through “The Price Hike”, but it looks interesting (although pretty NYC-centric).

We are particularly fond of this entry, “Ten Rules For Better Pricing“, especially #5:

Include Prices on Online Food Menus: I have no idea how much dinner at L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon in Midtown will cost because there are no online prices on the Four Seasons website, on the Robuchon website, on Opentable.com or on Menupages.com. That takes chutzpah for a venue where tasting menus for two with pairings will cost over $700 after tax and tip.

Mr. Sutton also has a companion site, “The Bad Deal“; quoting that site’s first entry,

We save you money by highlighting BAD DEALS on Groupon, Gilt, Living Social, Savored and elsewhere.

There’s not much there at the moment, and we suspect “The Bad Deal” may have the same NYC specific orientation, but we still plan to keep an eye on both of Mr. Sutton’s sites.

Posted in Food | Comments Closed

Obit watch: June 23, 2011.

June 23rd, 2011

Bruce Dinkins, Director of Bands at Bowie High School.

This is somewhat personal, as I have a nephew in the Bowie high school band. I’ll probably be posting some more on this in the future.

Edited to add 6/24: Expanded AAS obit here.

BowieBand.org has details on the funeral service.

Posted in Clippings, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

After action report: Orlando, FL.

June 23rd, 2011

As I alluded to previously, but did not make explicit, I spent much of the past week out of town. Specifically, I was in lovely Orlando, Florida, where the natives experience a curious phenomena involving water falling from the sky. They even have a word for it: “rain”.

(Actually, things have improved slightly in Austin since I returned, but we’re still in a drought, and they’re not going to bring back the fireworks this 4th. Oh, well.)

I was in Orlando for the annual convention of the Smith and Wesson Collector’s Association. I’d love to be able to talk more about some of the nifty stuff I saw there, but the S&WCA doesn’t really like having this stuff discussed on open Internet forums. (I think they see open discussion of what goes on at the conventions, as well as other member-only information, as being a disincentive to people joining. In other words, if you want to know all the inside S&W history like production numbers or shipping dates, or what goes on at the conventions, join the club.)

(And you really should, if you have a serious interest in S&W collecting. The S&WCA is a good organization that deserves your support.)

So if I can’t talk about the convention in detail, what can I talk about? Well, I can talk about what worked and what didn’t. I have to say that this was about as perfect a trip as I’ve had in a long time. With the exception of things being slightly tight getting to the gate in Austin for the flight out, and leaving some medication at home, everything went smooth as silk. (Well, okay, the flights on “Latvian People’s Airlines, Your Cattle-car In the Sky”, were packed to the gills with families flying to Disney. But I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.)

My travel configuration hasn’t changed much since my last two trips. The only significant addition is that I now have a smart phone. And, in spite of my issues with Android (which will probably be the subject of a longer post in the future), I have to say; a smart phone for travel is nearly worth its weight in gold. Being able to find things (like a restaurant, or a Wells Fargo ATM) wasn’t the only advantage; the Orlando Airport Marriott was charging $14 a day for wireless Internet access. Easy Tether Pro literally paid for itself the first day I was there, and every day after that was like money in the bank. I heartily endorse this product and/or service, and, yes, you can get EasyTether in the Amazon Android app store.

Speaking of finding restaurants, food in Orlando was mostly just okay. The association has a cocktail party on Thursday night, and the hotel food there was pretty good (conch fritters, yum), but the Saturday banquet dinner was just not to my taste. I had a couple of fast food lunches with friends at Chipolte and Wendy’s, which were pretty much what you’d expect at each.

The best meals I had were at:

  • Sonny’s Real Pit Bar-B-Q, which is a chain, but a regional one, serving mostly pork based barbecue at very reasonable prices.
  • The Bonefish Grill near the hotel. Bonefish is also a chain, and a pretty large one; the holding company also owns Fleming’s, Outback, Carrabba’s, and Roy’s. That aside, I thought my fish (the imperial longfish) was a solid choice, even if it wasn’t local. (My close friend who was unofficially hosting the meal got slightly indignant when he found out the shrimp was from China. His indignation, however, was exceeded by that of a fellow diner who was offended by the 18% gratuity added to our checks.)
  • Big Fin Seafood, the directions to which Google Maps on Android gets wrong wrong wrongity-wrong. Not that I’m bitter or anything. The blue crab crusted grouper was very good (and local!) and I enjoyed my meal very much. But (with a slice of key lime pie, soup, and a half-dozen oysters, plus tax and tip) the meal came to as much as a dinner at Fleming’s or Ruth’s Chris. It was good, but I’m not sure it was quite that good.

I have some photos I took on the grounds of the National UDT/SEAL Museum (another product and/or service I heartily endorse, and which deserves your support) and will probably be posting those to Flicker once I’ve had a chance to import and clean them up some.

I didn’t do as much reading on the trip as I usually do, but I did finish Chinaman’s Chance, the first of the Ross Thomas novels about Artie Wu (pretender to the throne of China), his partner Quincy Durant, and Otherguy Overby. As far as I know, the Wu/Durant books are the only series Thomas wrote (edited to add 6/27: I realized over the weekend that I had forgotten the Padillo/McCorkle novels, which started with The Cold War Swap); I don’t like Chinaman’s Chance as much as I like some of his non-series books, such as The Fools in Town Are on Our Side and The Fourth Durango, but it is a perfectly fine read for an airplane or a beach.

I’m working my way through The Modern Day Gunslinger: The Ultimate Handgun Training Manual (a book I was previously unaware of, and which I found at the UDT/SEAL Museum). I don’t think I’m going to review that, as I don’t feel like I have the level of expertise to be able to do an intelligent review. However, I am considering commissioning a review for the site; if I pull the trigger (so to speak) on that, I’ll let you know. I will say that, so far, I haven’t found anything that contradicts what I’ve read elsewhere, my experience, or the training I’ve had from experts.

Posted in Android, Books, Endorsements, Food, Guns, Travel | Comments Closed

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