Still inspired by Lawrence, NBA teams that have a chance to go 0-82:
Toronto Raptors
Boston Celtics
Brooklyn Nets
Detroit Pistons
Washington Wizards
Atlanta Hawks
Denver Nuggets
Los Angeles Lakers
Sacramento Kings
Continuing the NBA loser update…
November 3rd, 2012Ch-ch-change, change of fools…
November 2nd, 2012Every election, I tell myself I should go vote early, just so I can get it out of the way, rather than rushing to my precinct after work and trying to beat the crowd.
After waiting in line for an hour during the primaries, and what with being fed the f–k up with this election cycle, I decided this year I’d make the big push and actually go do it. I was out with a friend on Saturday when we accidentally found one of the early voting places, and there was no line.
(We were actually visiting a Sears store. I haven’t been in a Sears since…well, I can’t remember how long, but I think it was before the K-Mart merger. They haven’t changed. At all. And I have no desire to go back.)
But, even though my friend generously offered to wait for me (he’d already voted early), I didn’t feel like asking him to do that. So I skipped early voting until yesterday, the next-to-the-last day I could do it.
It didn’t take an hour. It was only 26 minutes from getting in line to exiting the polling place. The line was out the door and almost into the parking lot of the Shrine Temple that was hosting early voting; fortunately, since it was an early voting site, they had more than the usual number of machines, so things actually went relatively fast. But it seemed like an awfully high turnout, and looking at the count on the door, it looked like the turnout was pretty high on other days as well. I’m not sure what this means, or doesn’t mean, for the election. I just find it interesting that so many people are so motivated to vote early. (Let us hope that they are not also voting often.)
(Speaking of the Shrine Temple: when I was young, I saw the Shriners as being vaguely comic figures. Now that I’m older, I find that I have a lot more respect for the organization and the work it does.)
Anyway, I’m done until Tuesday and pizza with Lawrence. No, I won’t tell you how I voted; it isn’t any of your GD business, thank you very much.
(Ha. On a totally unrelated note, Groupon just sent me an offer for an “introductory beekeeping class”. I wonder if the apartment management would let me keep hives on the balcony? And I wonder how well things would work if I kept the beehives on one side of the balcony, and a chicken coop on the other side? How much space do beehives need?)
(My paternal grandfather kept bees as a hobby. He also sold Christmas trees.)
(“Wicker Man” reference goes here.)
(“Russian Origami” shirt by Linoge. “I Voted Early” sticker by Travis County. Camera by Canon.)
(Edited to add 11/3: The Statesman is reporting that Travis County early voting numbers were down this year. The HouChron is reporting that, at some polling places in Harris County, people were still in line three hours after the official 7 PM close. Interesting.)
Your (NBA) loser update.
November 1st, 2012Inspired by Lawrence, I thought I’d do a quick roundup of NBA teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:
Toronto Raptors
Boston Celtics
Brooklyn Nets
New York Knicks
(Please note that the Knicks-Nets game was postponed due to the weather.)
Detroit Pistons
Milwaukee Bucks
Washington Wizards
Atlanta Hawks
Charlotte Bobcats
Orlando Magic
Denver Nuggets
Minnesota Timberwolves
Oklahoma City Thunder
Phoenix Suns
Los Angeles Lakers
Sacramento Kings
New Orleans Hornets
Memphis Grizzlies
Obit watch: November 1, 2012.
November 1st, 2012I was previously unfamiliar with the gentleman, but after reading his obit, I think a case can be made that he was the most interesting man in the world.
High points:
- He shot down a ME262 during WWII (flying a P-51 Mustang), and spent three months as a German POW after being shot down himself.
- “He liked to tell the story of how he met the Duke of Windsor at one soiree: they were relieving themselves on a bush at the time. The duke became a friend.”
- He got into auto racing, and was good enough that he was Pierre Levegh’s co-driver in the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans. Yeah, that 24 Hours of Le Mans.
- “The horror of the crash motivated Mr. Fitch to develop safety barriers, including one for the walls of racetracks to deflect a car and soften its impact. For the highway barrier, he began with liquor crates, filling them with different amounts of sand and then crashing into them himself at speeds of up to 70 m.p.h. to figure out what worked best. “
- “Mr. Fitch helped develop the Lime Rock Park racecourse in Lakeville, Conn., carving it out of a potato field, and then managed it.”
As David Letterman always says…
October 30th, 2012…”Please, no wagering.”
Oddly enough, the HouChron has a longer story, which states that “more than $100,000” was bet on the youth football championship.
Yeah. Wanna bet the players weren’t aware that Daddy was betting on them to cover the spread?
Wait. That was kind of insensitive of me, wasn’t it?
Still. Eight-year-olds, dude.
Star Wars, nothing but Star Wars…
October 30th, 2012I don’t think Disney is going to have the courage to do what I’d like to see in the last three movies: follow the Rebel Alliance as it takes power and tries to govern, watch the compromises they make to hold the Alliance together and maintain power…
…and, at the very end of the last movie, force the audience to come to the realization that the Rebel Alliance is now completely indistinguishable from the Empire they were rebelling against. Ideally, by having Princess Leia execute Han Solo as a traitor to the revolution. For extra bonus points, have Luke Skywalker gunned down while trying to lead a revolution on another planet in the system, and young people in the new Empire wearing his image on shirts.
What? Me? Cynical? Never!
TMQ Watch: October 30, 2012.
October 30th, 2012In other news…
October 29th, 2012….wouldn’t “Mitt Romney’s Weather Machine” be a great name for a band?
Millions and millions of dollars.
October 29th, 2012Bal Harbour is a village in Florida. They have a population of 2,574 people, and a police force of 27 officers.
Now they are the subject of a Department of Justice investigation.
Yeah. Thirty. Million. Dollars.
1. Wait, “stationed in Southern California“?
2. “Though the village tapped into forfeiture funds to pay the two salaries, federal law prohibits police from relying on those dollars to cover the payroll of cops who work seizures.”
More:
Whaaaaaaat? “in more than a half-dozen states and Puerto Rico”?
This bears a lot more exploration. What are Bal Harbour cops doing operating outside of the village, much less in other states? And how and why are they getting a cut of seized assets for these operations in other states?
And what did the cops do with the money? Well, lots. Computers (Apple computers, no less), beach parties, a boat, a truck, a nuclear submarine, tacos…oh, wait, strike those last two. I was confusing Bal Harbour with Deadpool.
The biggest pay — $624,558 — to snitches over the past four years.
And:
(Hattip: Reason‘s “Hit and Run”.)
(Soccer) Field of Schemes.
October 29th, 2012NYT story: “state of the art” soccer field is in progress. Initial cost estimate is $210 million. Current projected cost is $1.4 billion. Primary sponsor has pulled out of the project, leaving local government entirely responsible for the cost.
Punchline: the soccer stadium is in St. Petersburg. As in, Russia.
(Subject line hattip: if you’re not reading the “Field of Schemes” blog, why not?)
More EarthQuest updates.
October 28th, 2012Promoted from a comment left by Heather Dobrott:
The judge in Ohio dismissed the remaining third-party defendants including myself. Holbrook’s bid to attack the Texas taxpayers commenting on Earthquest has been ended in Ohio!
Earthquest and its dubious consultant, Don Allen Holbrook, are getting excellent coverage on Click 2 Houston:
I’m delighted that the legal troubles of the folks like Heather asking questions about EarthQuest seem to be ending, and that other media outlets are starting to ask questions about EarthQuest as well.
The Burgess Meredith Catastrophe.
October 28th, 2012Last night, after the SDC, some of us decided to watch movies over at Lawrence’s.
The main feature of the night was “Kiss Me Deadly” (the Criterion edition
But before we started that, we felt like watching something short. I’d brought over the first season of “Night Gallery
Frankly, it wasn’t very good. The parts where they stuck closest to the original story are also the most talky parts, and the changes they made don’t enhance the story; actually, I think they make it weaker. Somebody who is doing an anthology series for television ought to go back and revisit this story. I think you could make a fine adaptation of it today, with a minimal budget, using CGI and a script that sticks closer to the story.
But I digress. The major point here is that “The Little Black Bag” features our old friend Burgess Meredith again. I knew he was a prolific actor, but it seems like he’s showing up everywhere these days in the stuff we watch.
So the idea came to me: how about a Burgess Meredith Video Night some night? After all, the late Mr. Meredith was not only prolific, but he was a fine Cleveland boy, so why not a night devoted to his work?
What would you put in it?
- I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this, but it turns out Lawrence and I have never actually seen “Time Enough At Last“. In my case, it just never seemed to come around when I could watch re-runs of the original “Twilight Zone”. I believe those episodes are available on Netflix Instant, though…
- Lawrence suggested “Rocky“. I’ve never seen it, and I have to say that I’m less wild about it than he is. I don’t know why.
- In that vein, I’m going to say: probably not “Grumpy Old Men” and “Grumpier Old Men”.
- I am somewhat interested in seeing “Magic“. though. Besides Burgess Meredith, it also has a William Goldman script, which pushes another button of mine.
- “The Manitou“, just because that’s supposedly completely ridiculous at a MST3K level.
- I’ve never seen “The Day of the Locust“, either, and I’d like to. Plus: it has Donald Sutherland! And William Atherton! And the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black!
- Speaking of batshit crazy, “Skiddo“?
- I’ve never read any of Allen Drury’s work, and I may want to read the book first, but I’d also be interested in seeing “Advise and Consent“. Look at that lineup of actors: they don’t make that kind of movie any more.
That’s probably more than enough for one night. We could always pad things out a bit, too, with episodes of some of the many, many television series he did guest bits on; at least, the ones that are actually on DVD or Netflix.
Any other Burgess Meredith roles I’m missing? Feel free to leave them in comments.
Things I did not know (a continuing series of infinite length).
October 26th, 2012Going to Montana soon…
October 25th, 2012And yet, the cries for gun control continue.
In other news: gee, I really miss Frank Zappa.
Just guessing here…
October 24th, 2012I’m thinking it is the kind with big sharp nasty teeth, myself.
