Discovered while Wiki-wandering: Charles Nelson Reilly was a survivor of the 1944 Hartford circus fire.
Historical oddities (part 1 of, yes, yet another ongoing series).
December 7th, 2013Hymn of the Hunter.
December 7th, 2013Reverend John J. Hunter’s defamation lawsuit has been dismissed.
I’ve written about this previously. In brief, Rev. Hunter was the former pastor of the very large and influential First AME church, but was removed from that post and sent over to the Bethel AME church, which didn’t want him either.
Boomaly boomaly boomaly boom!
December 6th, 2013Earlier today, I was thinking to myself:
- Things are slow. There’s not really much worth writing about.
- “Gee, I wonder if any NFL coaches are going to be fired before the season ends. They haven’t canned Schiano yet, Jacksonville is kind of on an upswing, and I don’t think the Texans are going to fire Kubiak before the season ends…”
Well, I was wrong wrong wrongity wrong!
Wade Philips will be the interim coach. And Case Keenum will be the starting quarterback for the remainder of the season.
Analysis of Kubiak’s years here must include yin and yang, as his run with the Texans will be remembered for successes and failures. Triumphs and defeats. Ups and downs.
Mathematically, in fact, there is almost an equal number of each.
Unfortunately for him, mediocrity was the standard.
Kubiak’s overall record with the Texans was 61-64.
Edited to add: The team also fired Joe Marciano, special teams coordinator “who had been with the organization since its inception in 2002”.
Shoes for radio!
December 6th, 2013The other one has dropped. (Previously.)
(I know, this is really inside Austin, and even more, inside Austin radio. But it was the subject of some discussion among my family. Also, there’s just really not a lot going on.)
(Edited to add: my brother forwarded a Statesman blog entry that you don’t have to pay to read. Some quotes:
…
Thank you for giving actual ratings figures.
The decision to discontinue the Mix 94.7 morning show comes during the station’s annual Bikes for Kids campaign, which raises money each year to buy bikes for hundreds of needy Central Texas children.
Bikes for Kids will go on without Hager and McIlree, Entercom officials said.
“Bikes for Kids remains a part of the fabric of our station,” Thomas said. “It will absolutely continue.”
)
(I haven’t linked to Mandela obits because I figure, at this point, they’ve crossed over into “you can’t avoid them” territory.)
(Edited to add: if you’re really craving something swell to read, try the thoughtful comment by lelnet on this week’s “TMQ Watch”.)
Western Civilization is doomed.
December 6th, 2013TMQ Watch: December 3, 2013.
December 4th, 2013Instead of a musical interlude, or random snark, we’ve decided this week to bring you something we hope you’ll really like: an interview with Gregg Easterbrook about The King of Sports: Football’s Impact on America
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Ja, das ist ein Wienerschnitzel.
December 4th, 2013The latest entry into the pantheon of architectural and historic landmarks?
The very first location of Der Wienerschnitzel.
Now I’m kind of hungry.
Random notes: December 3, 2013.
December 3rd, 2013Obit watch: William Stevenson, most famous as the author of A Man Called Intrepid
(I remember Intrepid being all over the place when I was growing up. Oddly, given my interests at the time, I never got around to reading it.)
Also among the dead: noted Texas historian and author T.R. Fehrenbach.
Trial update #1: Pavel Dmitrichenko has been convicted in the acid attack on Bolshoi Ballet director Sergei Filin. Dmitrichenko was a Bolshoi soloist, who (according to the WP) felt that Fillin was not giving him “the best parts”. He’ll do six years in prison. Yuri Zarutsky, the man who actually threw the acid, will serve 10 years. Andrei Lipatov, the driver, will serve 4.
The three were also ordered to pay 3.5 millions rubles (about $106,000) in damages to Filin.
(Previously.)
Trial update #2: I am keeping an eye on the Bell/Spaccia trial. It went to the jury before Thanksgiving, and, as far as I know, the jury is still deliberating. (There wasn’t much to report towards the end; just the usual “Rizzo did it”.) I suspect the holidays threw things off quite a bit; stay tuned for details as I get them.
Trial update #3: The trial of Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli started yesterday. Ramos and Cicinelli were police officers with the Fullerton police department: they are charged with beating Kelly Thomas to death. (Previously. Graphic image warning.)
…a lot like Christmas…
December 2nd, 2013It seems to me that the Christmas season doesn’t really kick off here at WCD World Headquarters until we spot this year’s silly Pez dispensers. How can you follow Lord of the Rings or Millard Fillmore?
Would you believe…
From Satan’s personal representatives here on Earth (you young kids may not remember this, but there was a rumor when I was young and KISS was a going concern that “KISS” stood for “Kids In Satan’s Service” or “Knights In Satan’s Service”) to having your own set of Pez dispensers. Rock and roll. What a biz.
(Not really Christmas or Pez related, but in the same “what a biz” vein: if you have a spare $2 million, you can be the new owner of the old Johnny Rotten place in Malibu.)
Obit watch: December 1, 2013.
December 1st, 2013For the historical record: Paul Walker.
Throwing stuff at the wall, just to see if it sticks.
November 30th, 2013Headline and subhead on the Statesman‘s website:
Holiday quiz time! Test your knowledge of ‘Elf,’ ‘Home Alone’ and more
Last year, we ran a hugely popular quiz from Dale Roe for what might be the greatest holiday movie of all time, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”
And that was as far as I got, since:
- The article is behind the Statesman‘s paywall.
- Everybody knows the greatest holiday movie of all time is the original “Die Hard“.
(Speaking of the holidays, I guess now I can start listening to my favorite Christmas song and get my favorite Christmas book
(Though the less cynical side of me thinks The Annotated Christmas Carol
And speaking of annotated books, I was delighted to learn of this (by way of the Publishers Weekly blog): Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: The Autobiography of Martin Gardner
When I was younger, my family had a subscription to Scientific American, and I loved “Mathematical Games” (though I didn’t really have the mathematical background at the time to follow many of Gardner’s columns). When I was older, I encountered him as a skeptic, in the pages of the Skeptical Inquirer as well as in Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus
And, of course, Gardner memorably annotated a few books: his The Annotated Innocence of Father Brown
Anyway, my point (and I do have one) is that this a very good thing. I’m not sure how many Gardner fans are out there in my audience, and if any of them already knew about this; but if you did know, why didn’t you tell me?
Random notes: November 28, 2013.
November 28th, 2013Some thoughtful posts on the FDA and 23andMe: Derek Lowe. Popehat. Overlawyered.
This is how I want Lawrence‘s tax dollars to be spent: safety tips on turkey frying from the Round Rock Fire Department.
All the Vermeers on the Eastern Seaboard.
(There was a period of time when I was going to see a lot of movies at the Dobie Theater here in Austin; this was before the Alamo Drafthouse, and Dobie was the “art” film theater. Anyway, it seemed like every movie I went to see had the trailer for “All the Vermeers in New York” in front of it. Drove me absolutely bugf–k nuts. The trailer was so annoying, it killed any desire I might have had to see the movie.)
Photographer Saul Leiter passed away on Tuesday. I had not heard of Saul Leiter until I started listening to the “On Taking Pictures” podcast (which is my new favorite podcast in the world): Saul Leiter is an obsession of theirs, to the point where he made it into the OTP drinking game.
To be serious, I wish I had found Leiter’s work much earlier. There’s some good stuff over at the NYT Lens blog about him as well.
TMQ Watch: November 26, 2013.
November 27th, 2013Over the past few years, we have come to the conclusion that the word “professional” is becoming the most abused word in the English language. “Professional grade” pickup trucks; as a dedicated amateur, can I save a few bucks by purchasing a non-professional grade one? “That’s not professional” has become a commonly used phrase in business; what that really means, as we see it, is “I don’t like it, but if I invoke the word ‘professional’, you can’t argue with me.”
What does this have to do with TMQ? Well, in this week’s edition, after the jump…
Is it just me…
November 27th, 2013….or is the whole “Elf on the Shelf” phenomenon simultaneously stupid and creepy?
“Hi, kids, you’re being watched all the time!” I guess that prepares them for a lifetime of NSA surveillance…
Just some random krep.
November 25th, 2013The FDA has told 23andMe to stop selling their DNA interpretation service.
I note this for a couple of reasons:
- Earlier this year, they were advertising all over many of the podcasts I listen to.
- I’ve flirted with the idea of getting a 23andMe kit as a Christmas or birthday present. (Hey, you get one for a family member, you get many of the benefits of purchasing your own, plus you’ve got that whole gift thing taken care of.)
- I did not complete the purchase process, but as far as I can tell, 23andMe is still selling their product.
- “This product is a device within the meaning of section 201(h) of the FD&C Act, 21 U.S.C. 321(h), because it is intended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions or in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, or is intended to affect the structure or function of the body.” Nope. Not seeing it. At best, it tells you that you have some genetic markers that may indicate a predisposition towards a condition. I have serious questions about the way the FDA is interpreting the regulations here.
- What business is it of the federal government how people get their genetic information and what they do with it? “But what if they’re wrong?” Seems to me you have the same recourse as you would with any other consumer product; complain to the maker and ask for a refund or a do-over. But that’s apparently not good enough for our government, which feels like it has to do something about the scourge of non-goverment-approved genetic testing labs.
The Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas is dumping the pirate show. I can remember seeing it (more or less) twice: once in the “original” version, which was more of a straight-forward pirate battle, and once in the “Sirens of TI” incarnation, where the “pirates” included scantily clad young women. Treasure Island is dumping the pirates in favor of more retail space. Sigh.
Questions. So many questions.
- Isn’t it kind of crappy to let one of your most popular personalities go right in the middle of the annual “Bicycles For the Crippled Orphans Left Behind By the Widow of the Unknown Soldier for Christmas” campaign? Yes, his contract was apparently up (“at the end of the year”, which, to me, implies December 31st), and yes, it isn’t unprecedented to let people go around this time of year (Not that I’m bitter or anything) but couldn’t they have worked out something to at least let him stay and finish out this year’s charity campaign? I think it makes the station look bad.
- Why does a morning radio show need four on-air people?
- “In the most recent Nielsen (formerly Arbitron) ratings period, Mix 94.7 placed 12th. Its morning ratings, however, are much higher.” How much higher, you jackass? You’re the one with the AllAccess account! (According to a post from the same blogger back in October, JB and Sandy didn’t crack the top five.)
- Dudley and Bob are still on? Wow.