Obit watch: January 11, 2011.

January 11th, 2011

Both of these broke yesterday, but I was waiting until I found some better sources before posting:

Peter Yates, director. Lawrence and I were discussing his rather interesting career yesterday. Yates directed such films as Bullit, The Dresser, Breaking Away, and The Friends of Eddie Coyle. He also directed The Deep, Mother, Jugs & Speed, and Krull. (And let’s not forget The Hot Rock, one of the better adaptations of a Donald Westlake Dortmunder novel.) (LAT obit.)

Richard Winters, of Band of Brothers fame. (WP obit.)

I haven’t had much to say about events in Arizona, and probably won’t. Other people are covering this much better than I am; you can pretty much click on any blog in my blogroll for commentary. If you have to pick one, Battleswarm seems to be doing good roundups.

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Heroism, Obits | Comments Closed

Talkin’ GPS Blues (part 1).

January 9th, 2011

A long time ago, my great and good friend Glen pointed me in the direction of a Steven Jay Gould essay about his encounter with Richard Feynman. Gould’s point in that essay was that he thought Feynman wasted a lot of time trying to understand evolution from the ground up, time that Feynman could have spent making valuable contributions to the theory instead. My response is that I think I understand where Feynman was coming from; the only way he felt like he could contribute something was to start from first principles and work his way forward until he understood each step. I’m not anywhere near as smart as Feynman or Gould, but I feel much the same way as Feynman did. Hence, the long and rambling nature of this entry.

I have six GPS systems. That’s probably more than any one sane person needs, but we can leave that discussion for another time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in asus_eee, CompScI, Geek, GPS, linux, netbook, Nokia, project_e | 4 Comments »

Godspeed, soldier.

January 7th, 2011

General Vang Pao, leader of the Hmong, has passed away. (Edited to add: AP obit, by way of the NYT.)

There’s more that I’d like to write about this, but I don’t have my references in front of me right now. In the meantime, for a good take on the general’s legal troubles, here’s a link to a good Popehat essay by the inimitable Patrick.

Edited to add 1/11/2011: Peter over at Bayou Renaissance Man says pretty much everything I would have said.

Posted in Clippings, Obits | 1 Comment »

Dear New York Times…

January 6th, 2011

Yo. Pooh did have the floor...

This is Idris Elba. He’s an actor.

This is O.J. Simpson. He’s a convicted felon and accused murderer.

Please be so kind as to note that these two men look nothing alike. Thank you. (Hattip: Lawrence.)

Posted in Clippings, Movies | 2 Comments »

Noted for the record.

January 6th, 2011

Lawrence has bet me $20 at 5-1 odds that the Texans will make the playoffs in 2011, provided that the NFL plays a complete season in 2011.

Posted in Wagers | 5 Comments »

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSMOKIN’!

January 6th, 2011

It’s been a week for fires.

First, the condo fire.

Next, Katz’s closes a day early. Then they catch fire as well. At this point, I half expect the building to fall over and sink into the swamp.

Then, someplace called the Green Muse Cafe (which I’ve never heard of) caught fire as well.

What next? A raging fire in the cedars off of Loop 360? (Come to think of it, that might make spring a bit more pleasant.)

Posted in Clippings, Food | 1 Comment »

What is this I don’t even

January 6th, 2011

“Phawker knocks down Philebrity report about Philly.com paywall“.

Actual headline on Jimbo’s site.

Posted in Clippings, Media | Comments Closed

The Happening.

January 6th, 2011

The train wreck is now official. I expect this to be about as successful as M. Night Shamalamadingdong’s latest movies.

And Vince Young won’t be a Titan in 2011. However, it is not clear that the Titans are going to keep Jeff Fisher on as coach, either; that decision is yet to come.

Edited to add: And tying it all together, Richard Justice in the HouChron: “Should the Texans sign Vince Young? Are you kidding? Of course! Today!“

Posted in Clippings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

A handful of randomness.

January 5th, 2011

I intended to post this yesterday, but got sidetracked: the SF Weekly and the Bay Guardian have reached a settlement in their legal dispute. I’ve previously blogged about the dispute here, here, and here. (Hattip: Jimbo.)

I’m posting this only because it amuses me: the Statesman has posted the APD’s annual list of “local bars where drunken driving suspects reported having their last drink before hitting the road”. Particularly chuckleworthy to me is the large cluster of places in one block of 6th Street…

Speaking of the Statesman, there’s also a kind of neat profile of Austin writer, former Dell employee, and MonkeyBrain Books publisher Chris Roberson, who is taking over the current “Superman” story line with issue 707.

And speaking of things that amuse me, “Never Said About Restaurant Websites” pretty much hits all of my peeves (and Lawrence’s) save one. And we’ve both submitted that one. (Hattip: Daring Fireball.)

Edited to add: Here’s something else I wanted to blog but forgot: “The Now-You-See-It Restaurant“.

He signed a short-term lease for a space in SoHo whose landlord cannot promise that the building, likely to be demolished, will be around past July. In return he received a rent of about $9,000 a month, well below market rate.

…

He’s not paying for, or bothering with, a proper sign out front. The dozens of chairs, used, were bought on eBay for under $10 each, and if they’re not so durable, no sweat.

The bar, a mobile cart, will be stocked with only one brand of each spirit, and on a given night there will be just two whites, two reds and one sparkling wine.

…

Diners, for example, will be expected to set and reset the cutlery on their tables with utensils from drawers beneath. That way Mr. Fraser won’t need as many servers. It will save him money, he said, and translate into fewer intrusions for diners. “You’re visited only at points of the meal when you really need help,” he said.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Food, Law, Media | 2 Comments »

The Al Davis reign of terror continues…

January 5th, 2011

Tom Cable out in Oakland, even though he finished this season 8-8.

He posted a 17-27 record during his two-plus seasons as the Raiders coach.

And apparently, calling one of your fellow employees “sweet baby” and “a–hole” is a firing offense. At least at ESPN. If your fellow employee is a woman. And you have a record of pulling this kind of crap.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

I would like…to feed your fingertips…to the Wolverines.

January 4th, 2011

Rich Rodriguez has apparently been fired as head coach at Michigan.

I say “apparently” because there hasn’t been an official announcement yet; Lawrence sent me a link earlier, but that link is no longer active, and appears to have been replaced by this link.

Rodriguez was 15-22 during three seasons in Ann Arbor. He lost a school-record nine games in his debut with the Wolverines two years ago, was 5-7 after starting 4-0 last season and turned a 5-0 start into a 7-5 finish this fall.

The Wolverines were also 1-10 against ranked teams, 0-3 against rivals Michigan State and Ohio State and 1-2 against Wisconsin during the past three seasons.

Edited to add 1/5/2011: Now it looks like the decision will come sometime today.

Edited to add 1/5/2011 2: Looks like “This time for sure!” Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a head coach out of my hat!

Edited to add 1/5/2011 3: Yep, he’s done.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Sports | 2 Comments »

Roundup of local and quasi-local news.

January 4th, 2011

I’m running a bit behind today due to a personal matter this morning, so here’s a quick roundup of some things I felt were worth rounding up.

Day after coverage of the Kubiak situation from the HouChron. Kubby stays, four assistants get the axe. And it looks like the Wade Phillips thing is moving closer to happening.

Fire last night in one of our downtown condo complexes. A close friend of WCD and many of our readers (who shall remain nameless here to protect his privacy, but the people who know him know who I’m talking about) lives in that condo one floor above the fire. He’s fine, and his condo suffered what he describes as minor smoke and soot damage.

Local gun store (McBride’s) robbed. This is the second break-in at McBride’s that I can remember; I have it in my head that the perps were caught in the act the first time, but I can’t confirm that now. It struck me as odd that they only stole “several” handguns, but this KXAN article describes them as high-end .45 autos. I think I know which guns were taken, as I’ve seen them in the display case. My recollection is that they were Wilson Combat and Les Baeur 1911s. Nice to know that our local crooks have good taste, but I don’t think they’re going to be able to move those easily. Assuming that they want to move them, as opposed to using them personally…

The Macy’s store in Highland Mall is closing. I’m thinking this is probably the end of Highland Mall. I haven’t been there in…I can’t remember how long. And I haven’t been to that Macy’s since shortly after they dropped the Foley’s branding. (I miss Foley’s.) Highland Mall attempted to file for bankruptcy last year, but had the petition dismissed. The mall itself has been in decline for several years; there are a lot of allegations that it has become a hangout for gangs, and a hotbed of criminal activity. The more recent Statesman articles avoid discussing those issues, but you can pick up on them by reading the discussion and this older Statesman article.

Question: if you level the mall, what do you put there as part of the redevelopment process?

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Guns, Law, NFL, Sports | 3 Comments »

TMQ watch: January 4, 2011.

January 4th, 2011

Happy new year, everyone. Now that we’re all over our hangovers, let’s see what Gregg Easterbrook has in store for us this week, shall we?

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Today’s bulletin from the Department of WTF?

January 3rd, 2011

The NYT has a regular feature, “Recipe Redux”, where Times writers revisit a classic recipe from the pages of the NYT, and attempt to update it for contemporary tastes/styles/availability of ingredients.

This week’s recipe was for Chocolate-Rum Mousse; the original actually sounds pretty good, at least to my unsophisticated palate.

So how did the NYT‘s chefs (Alex Talbot and Aki Kamozawa, who run the Ideas In Food website) update this recipe?

Talbot and Kamozawa considered making a terrine lined with the chocolate mousse and layering it with popcorn and more mousse, so the popcorn would behave like the chocolate wafers in icebox cake, softening and melding with the mousse.

Should have gone with that idea; sounds good to me. But, no:

Talbot and Kamozawa substituted beets for chocolate in the original recipe

Beets? Beets?! Were these people not loved enough as children?

Okay, let’s be fair: how did it come out?

After blending it together, 1966-style, they had a mousse that they liked a lot but didn’t quite love.

So…

…they whipped out their handy ISI dispenser (handy for some; it’s that magical tool that drove the foam craze) and made the mousse into a cloud.

To the cloud! Sorry. Here’s what I think they’re referring to when they talk about an ISI dispenser.

I asked Talbot whether readers might be daunted by a recipe that calls for an ISI dispenser. “We’ve grown and matured,” Talbot said, “and realized any recipe you put out there, no one really follows it. All it is is a suggestion: you might want to do this.”

Yeah. The original recipe sounds simple, straightforward, and relatively easy to prepare with nothing more than a blender and a stove. The new one requires relatively specialized kitchen equipment and sounds like crap.

I have to ask: if you did a side-to-side, A-B comparison, would Mr. Latte approve?

Posted in Books, Clippings, Food | 3 Comments »

Monday, bloody Monday…

January 3rd, 2011

First Monday after the end of the NFL regular season, and the firings have begun.

Mangini out as head coach of the Browns.

More coverage from the Cleveland Pain Dealer.

Watch this space for updates. Thanks to Lawrence for the heads-up.

Edited to add: Looks like Kubiak is staying on as Texans head coach, but Frank Bush is out as defensive coordinator.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

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