Prunella Scales, actress. NYT (share link).
Other credits include “The Boys from Brazil”, “Wolf”, and “The Hound of the Baskervilles” (1978).
Obit watch: October 28, 2025.
October 28th, 2025Obit watch: October 27, 2025.
October 27th, 2025For the record (I got behind over the weekend): June Lockhart. THR.
Other credits include “Babylon 5”, “The John Larroquette Show”, “C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud”, three episodes of “Quincy, M.E.”, “Sword of Justice”…and pretty much every other darn thing.
Except she never did a “Mannix”.
Your NFL loser update: week 8, 2025.
October 27th, 2025They don’t call them the Cincinnati Bungles for nothing.
I apologize for being late in getting this up. I had a series of events (the good kind of event, not the bad kind) yesterday that had me out of the house until 7:30 PM. Among those events was driving down to Gruene to meet up with a relative I had not seen in at least 25 years, and maybe closer to 40. While it was fun, it’s also about 90 minutes each way in pretty heavy traffic, so I pretty much got home and went straight to bed.
Anyway, NFL teams that have a chance to go 0-17:
None.
Seriously, Cincinnati? 39-38?
Oh, well. There are still five winless teams in the NBA, and I’ll probably do an update on Friday.
Bonus firing:
Screenshot
Speaking of the war font…story here. ESPN. 34-14 over “four seasons”, but they’ve lost three out the past four games, and got beat 49-25 by Texas A&M on Saturday.
Texas A&M is 8-0. I’m wondering if there’s a chance that we might see a national champion from Texas this year…and it won’t be the one everyone expected at the start of the season.
Edited to add: also out now, LSU offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Joe Sloan. One story I saw said that the athletic director approached Brian Kelly and told him to fire Sloan. Kelly allegedly said “No, I want to fire these people instead,” and the response was to fire Kelly, then Sloan.
Praise where praise is due.
October 24th, 2025We’re still dealing with the fallout from the July Hill Country floods. I’ve heard that there’s still one family missing a child from Camp Mystic. (The most recent story I could find said there were two people missing, but that’s from mid-September.)
On Wednesday, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) honored a bunch of game wardens for bravery. Many (but not all) were honored for actions during the flooding.
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That’s not all of them: I just picked a few off the list.
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I hope I’m not invading anyone’s privacy here, so I’ll just say Conner Sumbera is a relative of a close friend of the blog, which is why I singled him out. But you should go read the whole press release for yourself: all of these people deserve mad props, and should never have to pay for a drink when they’re out in public ever again.
Your Friday loser update: week 3, 2025.
October 24th, 2025I had to go to the eye doctor this morning for a treatment, so I’m a little late getting this up. Also, my eyes are kind of messed up, so please to forgive any mistakes: if you leave a comment, I’ll fix them.
NHL teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:
None.
The San Jose Sharks won their first game of the season last night, and are now 1-6. This is the same record as the Tampa Bay Lightning. Just sayin’.
One door closes, another door opens.
NBA teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:
Boston Celtics
Detroit Pistons
Miami Heat
Indiana Pacers
Cleveland Cavaliers
Washington Wizards
Brooklyn Nets
Atlanta Hawks
New Orleans Pelicans
Denver Nuggets
Houston Rockets
Portland Trail Blazers
Sacramento Kings
Los Angeles Lakers
LA Clippers
Dallas Mavericks
“What we know about the Billups-Rozier NBA gambling cases” from ESPN.
Bonus quote of the day (well, yesterday, I think):
Firings watch (plus, bonus legal news!)
October 23rd, 2025I know I’ve been quiet the past few days. There just hasn’t been much going on. But today is shaping up to be interesting.
ESPN is reporting the arrest of Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups. Also arrested: Terry Rozier, guard for the Miami Heat.
According to the NYPost:
Billups, an NBA Hall of Famer, has been charged with partaking in an alleged illegal poker ring tied to the Bonanno, Genovese and Colombo crime families, sources told The Post.
A total of 31 people across the country are charged with running rigged games, which took place in Manhattan, the Hamptons and Las Vegas, sources said.
The players involved were being paid by mobsters to play in card games fixed with technology and card shuffling machines to give the house the advantage, sources familiar with the case said.
The athletes were told to take a dive when they had to and win when they were told. It didn’t appear as if they were attempting to pay off any debts, sources said.
Rozier’s arrest is tied to another case.
ESPN is suggesting this might also be tied to the Jontay Porter case.
Porter pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and admitted in court to manipulating his performance in two games during the 2023-24 season. He is awaiting sentencing in December.
Four men, including Porter, have pleaded guilty in the case. Two other men have been named as conspirators and have been in plea negotiations, according to court filings.
And I did promise a firing, didn’t I? This is a sports firing, but it’s an odd one: Ken Williamson has been “permanently suspended” as a SEC referee.
…following eleven complaints against the seasoned official and his crew during the Auburn-Georgia game on Oct. 11, sources told Yellowhammer News on Wednesday.
“According to sources, nine of those complaints were validated by conference officials,” the outlet wrote.
The game’s biggest controversy came late in the second quarter, when Auburn quarterback Jackson Arnold lost the ball near the one-yard line during a QB sneak and was recovered by Georgia cornerback Kyron Jones.
Though multiple angles from ABC’s broadcast appear to show Jackson crossing the goal line before the ball was punched out, officials ruled it a fumble — awarding the Bulldogs possession after the recovery.
Your NFL loser update: week 7, 2025. (Plus: firings!)
October 19th, 2025NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
NY Jets
And the Sharks are 0-5 in the NHL.
Next week: the Bengals in Cincinnati. Cincinnati is 3-4, and a slight favorite at the moment.
The worthless Bills had a bye this week. The game with the worthless Chargers is in progress at the moment, and what is up with that alternate uniform?
In other news: Billy Napier out as head coach of the University of Florida. 22-23 overall in “three plus” seasons, and the team is 3-4 this season. ESPN.
Jay Norvell out as head coach at Colorado State. 18-26 overall, the team is 2-5 this season, and lost to Hawai’i yesterday. ESPN.
And a non-firing, non-loser update that I don’t have room for anywhere else: Curry College is a D-III school. They beat Nichols 71-27 yesterday, and rushed for 522 yards.
Oh, wait: did I say the team rushed for 522 yards? I mean one guy, running back Montie Quinn, rushed for 522 yards by himself. 20 carries, seven touchdowns, and a NCAA record.
Obit watch: October 17, 2025.
October 17th, 2025The archiving service I use has been having issues all day, so I’m going to put this up without some links. If they fix the problems in the next day or two, I’ll go back and add them.
Kanchha Sherpa has passed away at the age of 92. (Paywalled link. Sorry.) He was the last surviving member of the Hillary-Norgay team that climbed Mount Everest.
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Ace Frehley, of KISS. NYT (share link, should be free).
I don’t have much to say about Mr. Frehley, and I feel a little bad. But I was never a fan of Knights In Satan’s Service.
Susan Stamberg, NPR host famous for her “cranberry relish” recipe. Recipe here. NYT (non-archived, paywalled link. Sorry.)
American Handgunner, the print edition. The brand is going to continue in the form of online “newsletters”, and I think Guns is still going to be around.
But to me, this is awful news. AH is one of the few gun magazines I subscribed to, and I’m not sure if signing up for all the newsletters will get me the content I want. Sure, Dr. Dabbs will still be around, but what about the “Ayoob Files” and Ayoob’s monthly column? Will the “Guncrank Diaries” still exist? If not, who’s going to tell me stories, like the one about Elon Musk’s dad killing three cannibals with two bullets? And what if I want to go back and refer to something? The website is a little skirty about pulling up older articles, even if you are a paid subscriber.
I think I understand the reasons, and I still support the AH staff. But the older I get, the more change stinks.
Your NHL loser update: week 2, 2025.
October 17th, 2025NHL teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:
San Jose Sharks
So we’re down to the Sharks in the NHL, and the Jets in the NFL.
It’s like “West Side Story” up in here.
Obit watch: October 16, 2025.
October 16th, 2025Ed Williams, actor. He was 98.
Other credits include “Carnosaur”, “Hooperman”, and apparently there was a remake of “I Want to Live“?
Oh my God, it’s (NOT!) a mirage…
October 16th, 2025This is a story that’s mostly local, but it pushes enough of my buttons to document here.
“Razed”.
I can’t tell if the two halls are connected to the Mirage, or if they are stand-alone entities.
Who?
This is the part that got me.
“unsteady, combustible, illegal, and no place to put 6,000 people”. Sounds like somebody messed up badly. Or else they didn’t bribe the right people.
Yes, I would imagine that not being able to open would be “catastrophic”.
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All of these problems make me think there’s one thing going on…
Obit watch: October 14, 2025.
October 14th, 2025John Searle, philosopher. He was best known (at least to me) as a critic of artificial intelligence: not what passes for AI today, but the entire idea that computers could become conscious.
Professor Searle sought to solve the long-running debate over the division between the mind and the body by dispensing with the duality altogether. He argued that mental experiences like pain, ecstasy and drunkenness were all neurobiological phenomena, caused by firing neurons. Consciousness is not, he said, a separate substance of its own: It is a state the brain is in, like liquidity is the state of the molecules in a glass of water.
That view underpinned his thought experiment about what he called “the Chinese room,” which he made the centerpiece of provocative articles in the early 1980s that interpreted nascent research into artificial intelligence.
Suppose, Professor Searle wrote, that he, who did not know a word of Chinese, was locked in a room with boxes full of documents in Chinese script as well as a rulebook, in English, explaining how to match the various Chinese symbols together. It does not teach Chinese; it just says, in effect, “squiggle-squiggle” goes with “squoggle-squoggle.”
People outside the room pass more Chinese documents inside, and Professor Searle sends other documents back, following the rulebook’s instructions. The people passing him documents call them “questions.” The symbols he gives back they call “answers.” The rulebook they call “the program.” And Professor Searle they call “the computer.”
That situation is equivalent to the workings of A.I., he said. Both involve manipulating formal symbols to simulate understanding.
“No one supposes that computer simulations of a five-alarm fire will burn the neighborhood down,” Professor Searle wrote in his first paper on the subject, published in 1980. “Why on earth would anyone suppose that a computer simulation of understanding actually understood anything?”
Personally, I think that Dr. Searle’s argument that computers can’t think, but at best can do a clever simulation of thinking, somewhat interesting. And if I had ever met the good doctor, I would have told him that I would take this argument more seriously if he could convince me he was actually thinking, as opposed to just engaged in a clever simulation of thinking.
Clark Olofsson, Swedish criminal. I would have skipped this for notability, if it wasn’t for the fact that Mr. Olofsson was one of the two robbers in the “Stockholm syndrome” case. The obit is worth reading, as it casts a somewhat skeptical light on the whole idea of “Stockholm syndrome”.
The term was coined by a Swedish police psychologist, Nils Bejerot, after he was asked to assess the hostages’ curious behavior during the robbery. But Stockholm syndrome has never been included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the handbook of mental illness in the United States.
Some psychologists have explained the behavior as a coping mechanism, seen in victims of kidnappings and among hostages seized by Middle East terrorists, and in victims of domestic abuse. The captives, psychologists say, find a way to self-preservation by siding with their all-powerful captors.
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Although mental health experts have theorized about Stockholm syndrome for half a century, almost none thought to speak to Ms. Enmark, the bank employee central to the drama and the diagnosis.
One psychologist who did was Allan Wade, a Canadian therapist specializing in interpersonal violence, who, after meeting Ms. Enmark, called Stockholm syndrome a made-up concept meant to shift focus from the stumbles of the Swedish police.
“The whole notion was an accusation,” he told the BBC in 2021. “It was a way to dismiss what an incredibly heroic woman had been doing for six and a half days to resist, preserve her dignity and look after the other hostages.”
Battleship update.
October 13th, 2025A while back, I observed:
But can you get Battleship New Jersey 1911 grips? As far as I can tell, no.
You still can’t, as far as I can tell. (I did check the Battleship New Jersey store.)
But, weirdly, you can get Battleship New Jersey grips for your P365-XMACRO. Or at least, you’ll be able to “soon”: it sounds like this has been announced in conjunction with today’s 250th birthday of the US Navy, but the “grip module” is not actually in stock yet.
I don’t have a P365-XMACRO, but this does remind me that I owe everyone a photo: I did finally manage to get some Battleship Texas 1911 grips, and had them put on this old gun. I think they look pretty nice together, and I’ll try to get a photo up later this week if I can.
Callahan!
October 13th, 2025Brian Callahan out as head coach of the Tennessee Titans.
He was coach for roughly a season and a half. The Titans are currently 1-5. Additional coverage from ESPN.
Firings watch.
October 13th, 2025Trent Dilfer out as head coach of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
(Sorry this link is so mangled. ESPN, if you prefer.)
2-4 this season, 9-21 in “two plus” seasons.
UAB actually tried to shut down their football program a while back, but there were mass protests, etc. and they went back on that decision. Maybe it is time to reconsider.
Obit watch: October 12, 2025.
October 12th, 2025Diane Keaton. THR. IMDB.
I think her death has been very well covered everywhere, but fun fact by way of Lawrence: yes, she was a “Mannix” alumna. (“The Color of Murder”, season 4, episode 22. She was “Cindy Conrad”.) She also appeared on “The F.B.I.”.
Your NFL loser update: week 6, 2025. (Plus: firings!)
October 12th, 2025NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
NY Jets
Denver 13, NY Jest 11. It was closer than I (kind of) expected, but I did say these foreign games are unpredictable.
Next week: Carolina. At the moment, the Jets are a slight favorite.
And, in an attempt to put all the norts spews in one place for everyone:
James Franklin out after 12 years at Penn State. 104-45 overall, “the second winningest coach” in PSU history, but they lost to Northwestern 22-21 yesterday. PSU was a heavy favorite in that game.
They are 3-3 this season, and it looks like they lost their starting quarterback for the season. More from ESPN.
Trent Bray out as coach of Oregon State, which is 0-7 this season. 5-14 over “less than two seasons”, lost 13 of his final 14 games, and OSU was defeated 39-14 by Wake Forest yesterday. ESPN.
Edited to add: Lawrence pointed out that the Jest finished with…-10 yards passing. That’s not a typo: negative 10 passing yards. 45 yards passing, 55 yards lost to sacks.
Wow. Ryan Leaf.
Your NHL loser update: week 1, 2025.
October 10th, 2025NHL teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:
Tampa Bay Lightning
Buffalo Sabres
Detroit Red Wings
New York Islanders
Columbus Blue Jackets
Philadelphia Flyers
Washington Capitals
New Jersey Devils
Chicago Blackhawks
Winnipeg Jets
Utah Mammoth
St. Louis Blues
San Jose Sharks
Edmonton Oilers
Anaheim Ducks
I don’t have much to say right now. It is early in the season, and, to be honest, I don’t know that much about hockey. Any predictions I would make are guaranteed to be wrong.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#152 in a series)
October 9th, 2025Woo hoo! This is one of those flaming hyenas that makes me want to break out the AK-47 (with the shoulder thing that goes up) and do the happy dance in the backyard.
Letitia James, the corrupt attorney general of the corrupt state of New York, has been indicted.
Text of the indictment from the NYT (archived).
Statement from the Department of Justice.
It looks like there’s two counts: bank fraud, and “making false claims to a financial institution”.
James, 66, bought the three-bedroom, one-bathroom home in August 2020 for roughly $137,000, most of which was financed with a $109,600 loan that prohibited it from being used as a rental investment property, prosecutors alleged.
That allowed her “to obtain favorable loan terms not available for investment properties,” they noted in the five-page filing, saving her “approximately $18,933 over the life of the loan.”
When a Post reporter visited the Norfolk home in April, neighbors said they had never seen James at the property.
Meanwhile, her income tax forms designated the home as a rental that brought in thousands of dollars in additional income.
You may remember the corrupt Ms. James from her long legal battle with the National Rifle Association, which ended up with…not much of anything, really. Or her legal battle against Donald Trump, which also ended with not much of anything, really.
Loser update update.
October 8th, 2025I think I am going to try to do a loser update for the NHL. (Hattip: Angus McThag.)
However, looking at the NHL schedule, I think I should hold off on doing this until Friday. While the regular season has started (as I understand it) it looks like most of the games are Thursday night.
This might become a regular Friday thing.
Your NFL loser update: week 5, 2025.
October 6th, 2025NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
NY Jets
The worthless Bills lost.
The worthless Chargers lost.
New Orleans won, but they were playing the New York Football Giants, so that wasn’t exactly a titanic achievement.
And Tennessee narrowly defeated the Cardinals.
This leaves the Jets as the last team standing. Their next game is against Denver in London early Sunday morning. Denver is a heavy favorite, but in my opinion there’s never anything certain about London games.
I’ll try to get the loser update up as early as I can on Sunday.
Mendoza!
October 3rd, 2025Obit watch: October 3, 2025.
October 3rd, 2025Patricia Routledge, noted British actress. She was 96.
…from the beginning she was a stage performer, and an acclaimed one.
Ms. Routledge won a Tony for her 1968 Broadway appearance in the musical “Darling of the Day” (a tie with Leslie Uggams, for “Hallelujah, Baby!”) and its British equivalent, the Laurence Olivier Award, as the Old Lady in a 1988 production of “Candide” at the Old Vic.
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Many of Ms. Routledge’s biggest fans, from “Appearances” and from “Hetty Wainthropp Investigates,” the detective series she starred in afterward (1996-98), may never have even known about her time with the Royal Shakespeare Company or her stage roles on the West End.
She was the temperamental character actress Dotty Otley and a harried housekeeper in the farce “Noises Off” (1982), the imperious Lady Bracknell in “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1999), the title character in “Little Mary Sunshine” (1962), Madame Ranevskaya in “The Cherry Orchard” (1975), Queen Margaret in “Richard III” (1984), the confused Mrs. Malaprop in “The Rivals” (1976), the earthy Nettie Fowler in “Carousel” (1992) and a religious fanatic in “And a Nightingale Sang” (1979).
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Other American stage appearances included the 1980 Shakespeare in the Park production of “The Pirates of Penzance,” with Kevin Kline, as Ruth the pirate maid; and the London comedy “How’s the World Treating You?” (her Broadway debut, in 1966), as a frumpy 1940s mom.None of her Broadway shows had long runs. In 1968, “Love Match” (her second time portraying Queen Victoria) never opened, because of a disappointing Los Angeles run.
Her most notable flop was the Broadway production of Leonard Bernstein’s “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” in which she played a series of American first ladies. It opened on May 4, 1976, and closed on May 8. She looked back on the experience as a composer-lyricist mismatch, telling the London newspaper The Telegraph in 2007, “I think Alan Jay Lerner was frightened of Lenny.”
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IMDB.
She was best known as “Hyacinth Bucket” (pronounced by the character “Bouquet”) on “Keeping Up Appearances”, a show (and a character) beloved by many people in my family.
One of those family members sent me this, which I rather like:
I’ll be turning 95 this coming Monday. In my younger years, I was often filled with worry — worry that I wasn’t quite good enough, that no one would cast me again, that I wouldn’t live up to my mother’s hopes. But these days begin in peace, and end in gratitude.
My life didn’t quite take shape until my forties. I had worked steadily — on provincial stages, in radio plays, in West End productions — but I often felt adrift, as though I was searching for a home within myself that I hadn’t quite found.
At 50, I accepted a television role that many would later associate me with — Hyacinth Bucket, of Keeping Up Appearances. I thought it would be a small part in a little series. I never imagined that it would take me into people’s living rooms and hearts around the world. And truthfully, that role taught me to accept my own quirks. It healed something in me.
At 60, I began learning Italian — not for work, but so I could sing opera in its native language. I also learned how to live alone without feeling lonely. I read poetry aloud each evening, not to perfect my diction, but to quiet my soul.
At 70, I returned to the Shakespearean stage — something I once believed I had aged out of. But this time, I had nothing to prove. I stood on those boards with stillness, and audiences felt that. I was no longer performing. I was simply being.
At 80, I took up watercolor painting. I painted flowers from my garden, old hats from my youth, and faces I remembered from the London Underground. Each painting was a quiet memory made visible.
Now, at 95, I write letters by hand. I’m learning to bake rye bread. I still breathe deeply every morning. I still adore laughter — though I no longer try to make anyone laugh. I love the quiet more than ever.
I’m writing this to tell you something simple:
Growing older is not the closing act. It can be the most exquisite chapter — if you let yourself bloom again.
Let these years ahead be your *treasure years*.
You don’t need to be famous. You don’t need to be flawless.
You only need to show up — fully — for the life that is still yours.
With love and gentleness,
— Patricia Routledge
Obit watch: October 2, 2025.
October 2nd, 2025Lt. Colonel George Hardy (USAF – ret.). He was 100.
Colonel Hardy, a Philadelphia native, was 19 and had never even driven a car when he began aviation cadet training in September 1944 at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama. By early the next year, in the closing months of the war in Europe, then-Second Lieutenant Hardy was assigned to an Army Air Forces base in Italy, from which he flew 21 missions accompanying bombers to their targets over southern Germany in early 1945.
In addition to those high-altitude missions in P-51 Mustang aircraft, he made strafing runs on German trains, trucks or river barges and was once struck by small-arms fire. He knew he was hit, he recalled to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, when he saw a flash of light coming through the cockpit floor, which was usually dark.
He also flew 45 missions during the Korean War, and 70 during the Vietnam War.
Wikipedia says he was the last surviving member of the Tuskegee Airmen who saw combat during WWII.
Updated NYT obit for Jane Goodall. This includes corrections that were added today.
Marilyn Knowlden, child actress. She was 99. IMDB.
…Ms. Knowlden’s parents did not even take her to see her own films, fearful that she would develop a titanic ego. Her father, who managed her career, refused to let her be bound by a studio contract.
As a result, “I was always a freelance actor, so I had complete freedom to choose my roles,” she told Mr. Thomas. “If you were under contract like Judy Garland or Shirley Temple, you went to a studio school and really lost your ordinary life. I went to public school, had a very normal life, and then occasionally would go off and make a film.”
Firings watch.
October 1st, 2025Brian Snitker is out as manager of the Atlanta Braves.
This is questionably a “firing”, as the team says he’s moving into an “advisory role”. He’s been around the organization for 49 years, and won the World Series in 2021.
But Atlanta was 76-87 this season, which seems to have made the retirefiring decision easier.
(I apologize for the ESPN link, but the AJC is unreadable without a subscription. And my attempt to archive the story resulted in garbage.)
Bill Schmidt out as general manager of the Colorado Rockies. That’s the 119 loss Colorado Rockies, for those of you keeping track at home.