After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
TMQ Watch: January 23, 2018.
January 24th, 2018Ken is the man that we all need.
January 24th, 2018Ken White is my new favorite person in the world.
At least, for the rest of the day today.
(Subject line hattip. Yes, I realize it’s about a vastly different Ken in a vastly different context, but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to reference one of Kate’s more obscure but still rocking songs.)
Nostalgia is a moron.
January 24th, 2018When I was a teenager shooting the (stuff) out of BB guns in my backyard, I wanted a LARC M19-A “Annihilator” badly.
I’m not sure why I never got one: as I recall, they were around $35 in 1983 money (about $86 in today money), and I’m pretty sure I had that from my lawn moving ventures. It may have been some other minor petty inconvenience, something like parental permission.
In retrospect, that was probably a good thing, since:
- I probably would have gotten into trouble with it somehow.
- I would have had to feed it BBs and Freon. And while BBs were readily available at the places we shopped, I don’t remember if Freon cans were. I know you could get them at auto supply stores, but those were sort of off the beaten path for me.
- I hear in retrospect that the M19-A had some QC problems.
(Side note: that review the writer talks about? It was written by Peter Hathaway Capstick, and is reprinted in one of his collections.)
Anyway, I have a job now, and can drive. And the world has changed, sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better.
On the better side: the Crosman DPMS SBR Full-Auto BB Air Rifle.
Completely useless for any purpose other than fun, and it probably eats BBs and CO2 cartridges like they’re going out of style. And I plead guilty to kind of wanting one anyway.
(Hattip: Say Uncle.)
…you can’t authentically get your ‘80s Miami Vice LARP on without 10mm Auto.
I’m kind of glad to see the 10mm is making a comeback: maybe this will lead to cheaper ammo, and more loadings for the caliber. But none of the guns Tam discusses really turn my crank.
Then again, I’m still hoping to find a reasonably priced S&W 1076 before May, so take my opinion with a few grains of salt, some lime, a little Cointreau, and some tequila.
Obit watch: January 24, 2018.
January 24th, 2018Edited to add: David “Cloud Atlas” Mitchell on A Wizard of Earthsea.
No kidding.
January 23rd, 2018Jason Kidd was fired yesterday as head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks.
In case you were wondering, this is a NBA team.
ESPN says this is the third NBA firing this year. (Memphis and Phoenix were the other two.)
He was 139-152 overall.
Obit watch: January 22, 2018.
January 22nd, 2018Hemmingway and Ruark have a new hunting partner.
Harry Selby passed away on Saturday at the age of 92.
I’ve touched briefly on Selby in the past, but more in the context of Ruark. So please indulge me:
…
Without cellphones or evacuation helicopters, Mr. Selby had to be the doctor, mechanic, chauffeur, gin-rummy-and-drinking partner and universal guide, knowledgeable about mountain ranges, grassy plains, rivers, jungles, hunting laws, migratory patterns, and the Bushmen, Masai, Samburu, Dinka and Zulu tribes. He spoke three dialects of Swahili. And he improvised; if there was no firewood, he burned wildebeest dung.
He was no Gregory Peck, but had an easygoing personality that made for good company in the bush. He coped with emergencies, pulling a client clear of a stampede or a vehicle from a bog, treating snakebites or tracking a wounded lion in a thicket — his most dangerous game. He was left-handed, but his favorite gun was a right-handed .416 Rigby, which can knock down an onrushing bull elephant or Cape buffalo in a thundering instant.
…
For 30 years, Mr. Selby ran company operations in Botswana, and guided hunters and photographers into leased concessions covering thousands of square miles in the Okavango Delta in the north and the vast Kalahari Desert in the south, home of the click-talking Bushmen. He cut tracks and built airfields in the wilderness.
In 1970, he established Botswana’s first lodge and camps for photographic safaris. He hired guides and a large support staff for what became a dominant safari business in Southern Africa. After Ker, Downey and Selby was bought by Safari South in 1978, he remained a director, and even after resigning in 1993 he continued to lead safaris privately until retiring in 2000.
Noted actor Bradford Dillman.
He was “Capt. McKay” in “The Enforcer” and “Captain Briggs” (not to be confused with Hal Holbrook’s “Lt. Briggs” in “Magnum Force”) in “Sudden Impact”. As we all know, Callahan went through captains like CNN goes through Russian conspiracy theories.
And finally, more of local interest: Hisako Tsuchiyama Roberts. Mrs. Roberts and her husband, Thurman, founded the Salt Lick barbecue restaurant in Driftwood, a little outside of Austin.
…
She was 104.
Convenience store news.
January 20th, 2018…
Good, but not good enough. As I’ve said before, there’s no reason for the continued existence of BATFE: let Treasury handle the tax collection part of their mandate (including NFA), and let the FBI handle the criminal investigation part.
Worth noting:
Is there really a compelling reason for the Federal government to spend money from Texas taxpayers to keep people from buying smokes in Virginia and reselling them in New York without paying the $43.50 a carton tax? I know, organized crime: but New York has their own law enforcement agencies, and if they really wanted to shut down organized crime, they could drop the $43.50 a carton tax.
Obit watch: January 20, 2018.
January 20th, 2018Paul Bocuse, one of the great French chefs.
I don’t have my copy of Alice Let’s Eat in front of me, but I remember Trillin quoting Bocuse: “Without butter, without cream, there is no point to cooking.” Bocuse was 91.
Dorothy Malone, Texan and retired actress. She was in Douglas Sirk’s “Written on the Wind” (and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress). She also played Constance McKenzie for four out of five seasons of the “Peyton Place” TV series. (She was written out after season four.)
Stansfield Turner, former CIA director.
Peter Mayle, author. I never read A Year in Provence but from the description it sounds a lot like a French version of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.
Cray Cray.
January 18th, 2018When I was younger, I desperately wanted a desktop Cray.
Moore’s Law and all that (stuff), but this really brings home how much things have changed in (mumble mumble) years:
The CRAY-1 was rated at 160 MIPS (and 5.5 tons) – The Raspberry Pi -C is 2441 MIPS and 42 gms (ie 15 x a CRAY-1 in integer compute speed, and 130,000 times lighter) – A super-duper computer. Erlang was developed on a VAX 11/750 (0.8 MIPS) (3000 times slower than a RP) https://t.co/vM9kqBs3ag
— Joe Armstrong (@joeerl) January 17, 2018
TMQ Watch: January 16, 2018.
January 18th, 2018Yes, we know, we’re way late. It doesn’t have anything to do with something we’ll get to in a moment. It’s just been a matter of it being relatively cold here in the greater Austin metroplex. And like a giant lizard or some other cold-blooded animal, we’ve been curling up and conserving body heat. (We also fell into a time sink Tuesday night reading the archives of Damn Interesting. But that’s another story.)
But the cold spell is starting to break. After the jump, this week’s TMQ. Plus: viewer mail!
Obit watch: January 18, 2018.
January 18th, 2018Dan Gurney, one of the all-time great racing drivers.
…
…alternating with his fellow American driver A. J. Foyt, he won the 24 Hours of LeMans in France in a Ford prototype. It was the first time in that race’s 45-year history that it had been won by an American driver in an American car.
A week after that, Gurney won the Grand Prix of Belgium in a 416-horsepower American Eagle, a car he had designed and built himself. He was the first American in 46 years to win a world championship race in an American car.
Like Steve McQueen…
January 15th, 2018Hand to God, when I mentioned Steve McQueen cosplay yesterday, I had no idea this was a thing.
Remember the Titans?
January 15th, 2018They lost to New England on Saturday.
And head coach Mike Mularkey was fired today.
He was 21-22 overall.
Obit watch: January 14, 2018.
January 14th, 2018Some more from the past couple of days:
Keith Jackson, legendary announcer.
Edgar Ray Killen is burning in Hell.
David Toschi passed away a week ago Saturday. FotB RoadRich mentioned this to me in the middle of the week – he saw it on a low-rent cable channel – but I had a lot of trouble finding a good obit. I couldn’t find the actual obit on SFGate: I was only able to get at an arthive.org version.
Anyway, “David who”? He was a famous San Francisco PD detective. He was one of the lead investigators on the Zodiac killings.
He was removed from the case after revelations that in 1976 he had sent several letters praising his own work to a San Francisco newspaper writer under fake names.
“It was a foolish thing to do,” he acknowledged at the time.
I don’t remember where I picked up this detail (maybe in the archive.org version), but that “newspaper writer” the NYT doesn’t name? Armistead Maupin, who was working as a reporter for the SF Chron at the time.
But that wasn’t the only reason he was semi-famous, at least among us common sewers connoisseurs:
Mr. Toschi was a personality in the police department even before his involvement with the Zodiac case, so much so that Steve McQueen had borrowed from him for the fictional police officer he played in the 1968 movie “Bullitt.”
“They literally were filming in my dad’s office,” Ms. Toschi-Chambers said. “My dad took off his jacket, and Steve McQueen said, ‘What is that?’ And my dad said, ‘That’s my holster.’ And Steve McQueen told the director, ‘I want one of those.’ ”
(I wonder what that holster was: and if it’s out of production, how much do vintage ones go for? There’s a discussion on defensivecarry.com, but I can’t judge how accurate it is.)
(Damn shame. He missed out. And I still haven’t seen “Zodiac”.)
Edited to add: this might lead to a longer post later, but: there are certainly worse hobbies in the world than engaging in Steve McQueen cosplay. Though I will concede that could get expensive quick, especially if you go full “Bullitt” and start looking for a Mustang.