Namely: Happy National Buy an AK Day!
Classic Firearms appears to have a few AK pattern rifles in 7.62×39 in stock, if you’re looking. (I don’t get any kickback from those people.)
The time has come around again.
January 20th, 2022Important safety tip (#22 in a series)
January 19th, 2022Lawrence brought up an important safety tip the other night, based on two documentaries the Saturday Movie Group has watched. (“Barry Lyndon” and “Gone With the Wind”.)
Don’t buy a horse for your child.
It never ends well.
(Did you know IMDB has a “riding accident” keyword?)
More firings.
January 19th, 2022Ken Norton Jr. out as defensive coordinator for the Teattle Teahawks…I mean, Seattle Seahawks.
Also out: Andre Curtis, “defensive passing game coordinator”.
Obit watch: January 19, 2022.
January 19th, 2022Other than “Weena” in the 1960 “The Time Machine” and “Where the Boys Are”, credits include “Jackson County Jail”, “The Black Hole”, “Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell”, “Diamond Head” (opposite Cheston!) and a “doomed surfer” in “Dr. Kildare”.
Gaspard Ulliel. He was the young Hannibal in “Hannibal Rising”, and is in the coming Marvel series “Moon Knight”. He was only 37, and died as a result of a skiing accident.
Firings watch.
January 18th, 2022Mike Mayock out as general manager of the Las Vegas Raiders.
The biggest issue seems to be that Mayock was closely tied with Jon Gruden (I’ve seen him described as “Gruden’s hand-picked choice for GM”) who, as you may recall, got fired in October.
Obit watch: January 17, 2022.
January 17th, 2022Brigadier General Charles E. McGee (USAF – ret) has passed away at the age of 102.
Gen. McGee was one of the Tuskegee Airman. He was promoted to brigadier general by President Trump in 2020.
He remained in the military after the war and served with the Air Force flying P-51s in Korea (100 combat missions) and “172 combat missions in McDonnell RF-4 photo-reconnaissance aircraft” over Vietnam.
I am having trouble determining how many of the airmen are left. The NYT obit says there were nine living (counting Gen. McGee) as of February of 2020. Wikipedia states there were 11 living as of 2019, but does not mention any deaths since then.
John Connolly, “investigative journalist”. He wrote some for “Spy” and various other magazines. He also wrote a book (“with James Patterson”), Filthy Rich: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein – The Billionaire’s Sex Scandal (affiliate link).
I hope this is completed, as I’d actually like to read that book.
NYT obits for Ralph Emery and Dallas Frazier.
Tributes to Ron Goulart: “Great But Forgotten” on “The Morning Chex Press”, and Michael Swanwick on meeting Ron Goulart’s college roommate.
Obit watch: January 16, 2022.
January 16th, 2022It has been a bad time for country music and SF writers.
Ralph Emery, noted country music broadcaster.
By way of Lawrence: Ron Goulart, SF and mystery writer.
Dallas Frazier. Among other credits, he wrote “Elvira” (“…previously recorded by Rodney Crowell before it became a smash hit for the Oak Ridge Boys in 1981”)
Dave Wolverton, who also wrote as “Dave Farland“.
NYT obit for Andrew Vachss, including quotes from Joe R. Landsdale. According to the paper of record, he passed on November 23rd, but “his death had not been widely reported previously”.
Obit watch: January 15, 2022.
January 15th, 2022Eddie Basinski has passed away at the age of 99. He was the second oldest former major league baseball player.
Interestingly, Mr. Basinski was also a trained classical violin player.
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Saousoalii Siavii Jr., former defensive tackle with the Kansas City Chiefs. This is an odd one: he died in custody at Leavenworth.
Obit watch: January 14, 2022.
January 14th, 2022Terry Teachout, critic, blogger, playwright, cultural commentator, and biographer, passed away yesterday.
“About Last Night” blog. WSJ (through archive.is). National Review.
I wrote briefly about him and his blog when his wife died. I was still an irregular follower – I tried to check in once a week – but I knew he had found a new love and was excited about that. This seems especially unfair.
I never met Mr. Teachout, though I would have liked to. He seems like one of those good decent people whose passing leaves a void in the world.
Edited to add: tribute from Rod Dreher.
Culley-ing the herd.
January 14th, 2022Well. Well well well. Well.
David Culley out as head coach of the Houston Texans after a single season. Battle Red Blog.
The Texans were 4-13 and, quite frankly, stank. But:
Also out: offensive coordinator Tim Kelly.
Battle Red also reports that, while Culley had a five-year contract, only the first two years were guaranteed. So he’ll get paid a mere $4 million instead of $12 million to $14 million if all five years had been guaranteed…
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#79 in a series)
January 14th, 2022Marilyn Mosby, Baltimore prosecutor, indicted on federal charges of “perjury and making false statements”.
Additional coverage from the NYT.
What do we always say, folks?
Obit watch: January 12, 2022.
January 12th, 2022Jean Ramirez, catcher for the Tampa Bay Rays. He was 28.
I have no joke here…
January 12th, 2022…I just want to observe that you can get “The Day of the Dolphin” on blu-ray from Amazon at a not unreasonable price (affiliate link).
Firings watch.
January 12th, 2022Sorry for the lack of a clever headline, but the NY Post cut me off at the pass on this one.
Joe Judge out as coach of the New York Football Giants. Two seasons, 10-23 overall.
Obit watch: January 11, 2022.
January 11th, 2022Lawrence sent this over for the “Burning In Hell watch”, but I have to say: I don’t have the strong feelings about Durst that I’ve had about other criminals who I hope are roasting. Durst was almost certainly nuttier than a Stuckey’s pecan log roll, and was probably guilty of the crimes he was convicted of.
Admittedly, I only followed the trials from the fringes, but it did seem to me that there was a lot of…stuff…that made me go “hmmmmmmm”. I wasn’t on any of the juries, I didn’t hear all the evidence, but I’m not sure there was enough there to convince me beyond a reasonable doubt.
At this point, it doesn’t matter: he knows, God knows, and that’s good enough.
Rules of the Gunfight.
January 11th, 2022I did some training this past weekend at the KR Training facility. (KR Training, official firearms trainer of Whipped Cream Difficulties.)
Before I talk about this, I feel like I need to address an elephant in the room. It seems like there are two schools of thought in the gun blogging community:
- “Why aren’t you running out every weekend and traveling 500 miles, and then 500 more, to attend tactical operator fantasy camp where you learn how to operate tactically in operations using tactics? Aren’t you serious about this stuff? Don’t you have a job that lets you travel and pay thousands of dollars multiple times a month to take training courses?”
- “Fark you, I don’t have the time or the money to travel every weekend and play pretend ninja with my gun writer buddies. I have a job that doesn’t involve shooting guns or people, a family to take care of, and I don’t get free training classes because I’m a gunwriter.”
I hate to be lukewarm, but I totally get both sides of this issue. Training is good. Training is fun. I should do more of it. But I don’t have time or money to train every weekend, so I pick my opportunities carefully.
I’m lucky in that KR Training’s facilities are just a little over an hour away from my house (an hour and a half if I stop at Buc-ee’s on the way). I’m also lucky in that KR Training concentrates almost entirely on practical training for private citizens. (I do not get free training from KR Training, even though they are the official trainer of WCD. I would not accept free training if it was offered: I insist on paying real American money for their services. They do not accept Bitcoin or Dogecoin yet, as far as I know.)
In this case, KR Training was offering two classes from John Hearne. Yes, they were a little expensive. But I decided to treat this as a personal indulgence. I’ve heard Karl talk about Mr. Hearne’s presentations at the Rangemaster conferences, and figured this was worth taking a flyer on.
(These two classes were the second and third I have taken in roughly a month, so you can throw stones at me now. However, the first class was Red Cross First Aid/CPR/AED certification: also through KR Training because that was convenient, but you can pretty much do that anywhere these days. And you should, in my ever so humble opinion.)
tl,dr: If John Hearne is teaching near you, go if you can. He’s worth it.
I’m putting in a jump here because this is going to run long. I can feel it.
Obit watch: January 10, 2022.
January 10th, 2022Playing catch-up from the weekend:
His most famous role was as the title character on “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis”. Other roles included “Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis?”, “Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis”, “How to Stuff a Wild Bikini”, and “Sergeant Orkin” in “The Youth Killer” episode of “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”.
Marilyn Bergman. She and her husband Alan were Hollywood lyricists.
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NYT obit for Max Julien, for the record.
Lani Guinier, historical footnote. Bill Clinton nominated her for the post of “assistant attorney general for civil rights” in 1993, but was forced to withdraw her nomination after some of her views came to light.
(Hattip: Lawrence.)
Blood in the streets!
January 10th, 2022While this would be an appropriate title for an after-action report on the training classes I went to over the weekend, this is not that report. I hope to be able to write that sometime this week.
This is your “Monday morning after the end of the NFL season” firings watch. So far, there’s a lot of “sources say”. I’m going to leave these unlinked for right now, and update when there’s better confirmation.
“Sources say” Mike Zimmer is out as head coach, and Rick Spielman is out as general manager of the Vikings.
Edited to add: Story from the Star Tribune, though it is still “according to a source familiar with the team’s decision-making”. I can’t find any evidence that there’s been a press release, press conference, or other official announcement.
Zimmer had led the team to the postseason in three of his first six years, earning a second contract extension from the Wilfs before the 2020 season. Shortly thereafter, the Vikings gave Spielman a three-year deal to match the length of Zimmer’s, rewarding the general manager who’d had full control of the roster since 2012 and hired Zimmer to replace Leslie Frazier in 2014.
Zimmer finished his eight years in Minnesota with a 72-56-1 mark, ranking third in team history in wins, games coached (129) and winning percentage (.559). He was the seventh-longest tenured head coach in the NFL; all six who’ve been in their jobs longer than Zimmer have won Super Bowls.
Edited to add: this is now official, with a statement from the team ownership.
“Sources say” Matt Nagy is out as head coach of da Bears.
Edited to add: Chicago Tribune, “according to league sources”, Sun Times.
More as events break.
Edited to add: going back a day, Denver Post coverage (by way of archive.is) of the Vic Fangio/Broncos firing.
Edited to add: Brian Flores out as head coach of the Dolphins. This appears to be an official team announcement, not “sources said”.
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Edited to add: Dave Gettleman out as general manager of hapless the New York Football Giants. It seems like the official spin on this is that he “retired”.
Firings watch.
January 9th, 2022Very very quick, as I’m using downtime: Vic Fangio out as coach of the Denver Broncos.
Look! I made another thing!
January 7th, 2022
Honey-Sriracha Chex Mix.
I have written before that Chex Mix is one of the traditional foods of my people, dating back to the before time. My maternal grandmother would make it for the holiday season, before Chex Mix became the popular prepackaged snack product of today. This was so long ago that Chex hadn’t even started selling pre-made Chex Mix spice packages (affiliate link).
My sister made the Honey-Sriracha variant for the holidays a few years ago, and I immediately adopted it as a favorite seasonal snack. You can still find the recipe on the Chex web site. But I don’t trust the Chex people not to reorganize their site someday, so here’s an archive.is version as well.
I’ve made this enough times that I feel comfortable experimenting. Also, some people have issues with nuts. So I generally leave the peanuts out when I make this. In this batch, I substituted oyster crackers (and, as a supply chain note, it took me almost a week to find oyster crackers) and Cheez-Its for the popcorn and peanuts. I also doubled the amount of butter, Huy Fong Sriracha, and honey. Each pan is about three cups of corn and rice Chex, about a cup of oyster crackers, and about a cup each of Cheeze-Its and waffle pretzels, with four tablespoons butter, six tablespoons sriracha, and four tablespoons honey in each.
I personally prefer to use the oven rather than microwaving, but no judgment on you if you use the later. It takes about an hour to do this in the oven, stirring every 15 minutes. I’d store the finished product in gallon-sized zipper bags, in my refrigerator or freezer to avoid it going stale.
To my taste, this is spicy, but in a subtle way. The sriracha gives it sort of a slow pleasant burn. This would make a good spicy bar snack. Have a refreshing beverage at hand.
Speaking of refreshing beverages, I did whip up a batch of hot buttered rum batter, and have made hot buttered rum twice now. The first time, I think I used too large a mug: my proportions were off, and I thought it tasted too watery. The second time, I used a normal sized mug, and I can see what the fuss is about: it seemed to be nearly perfectly proportioned, not too watery or too buttery or too rummy. I could have easily sucked back another one of those.
Still haven’t tried homemade eggnog yet, and this weekend is going to be action packed. Maybe sometime next week, if it stays cold.
(And speaking of spicy bar snacks: another recipe I want to try.)
Obit watch: January 7, 2022.
January 7th, 2022Very quick, because I have only a tiny bit of downtime between doctor’s appointments: Sidney Poitier. THR. Variety.
More later, maybe, depending on how long this second appointment takes and how long it takes to get more than breaking news obits.
Obit watch: January 6, 2022.
January 6th, 2022Lawrence N. Brooks. He was 112 years old, and, at the time of his death, was the oldest surviving veteran of WWII.
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Mr. Brooks said he considered himself fortunate to have been spared combat duty when later in the war troop losses forced the military to send more African American troops to the front lines. In 1941, fewer than 4,000 African Americans were serving in the military; by 1945, that number had increased to more than 1.2 million.
“I got lucky,” he said. “I was saying to myself, ‘If I’m going to be shooting at somebody, somebody’s going to be shooting at me, and he might get lucky and hit.’”
By way of Lawrence: Willie Siros, noted Austin SF fan, book collector, book dealer, and a personal friend. (Apologies if that Facebook link is wonky: for some reason, I can view it on my phone, but I can’t view it on the big computer even in incognito mode. At least, not without logging into my non-existent Facebook account.)
Peter Bogdanovich. Ordinarily I would wait until tomorrow, but it looks like they had this one in the can. (And it has already been corrected once.) THR. Variety.
Before the end of the ’70s, however, Mr. Bogdanovich had been transformed from one of the most celebrated directors in Hollywood into one of the most ostracized. His career would be marred for years to come by critical and box-office failures, personal bankruptcies, the raking of his romantic life through the press and, as it all unspooled, an orgy of film-industry schadenfreude.
“It isn’t true that Hollywood is a bitter place, divided by hatred, greed and jealousy,” the director Billy Wilder once observed. “All it takes to bring the community together is a flop by Peter Bogdanovich.”
I wouldn’t mind seeing “Paper Moon”. I saw “What’s Up, Doc?” many many years ago, and would welcome seeing it again. And we’ve watched “Last Picture Show” recently. I’d also like to read those MoMA monographs.
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Tweet of the day.
January 5th, 2022Took kids to a dinosaur park. At souvenir shop, Liam was eyeing a paint set.
Clerk: Great choice! I did that triceratops.
Me: That’s really excellent, how do you say in Japanese, dry brushing?
Clerk: *startles*
Clerk: 40k?
Me: Fantasy.
Clerk: The Emperor protects, bro.— Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) December 28, 2021
Explained:
Two men having a chance encounter in the presence of art supplies discovered they had a mutual interest in painting fantastic army men despite being born approximately 8 time zones and 14 time zones away from where those army men are from, respectively.
— Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) December 29, 2021
Runner-up:
And from Liam (4 years old) demonstrating that the only important thing in art is picking up the brush: pic.twitter.com/LfwOzqm06c
— Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) December 29, 2021
Random thoughts.
January 5th, 2022I think it is time that we admit “Imagine” is a bad idea.
Not just a bad song, which it is, but we should admit it is just a bad idea in general and toss it on the dustheap of history. No more airplay, no more covers, no acknowledgment that this song even exists.
I have no strong opinion about Lennon’s other songs. But I have left instructions in my will telling my pallbearers to open carry at my funeral, and that they should use any degree of force necessary to stop “Imagine” from being played.
Today’s example of why I feel this way.
I happened to note this the other night, and I’ve seen other people point it out since then. But for the record: 2022 is the year of “Soylent Green”.
(Make Room! Make Room! (affiliate link) was set in August of 1999, for comparison’s sake.)
Obit watch: January 3, 2022.
January 3rd, 2022Richard Leakey, paleoanthropologist.
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Dan Reeves, former Dallas Cowboys running back and later NFL coach.
Reeves played and coached with the Dallas Cowboys during a stellar period when they won two Super Bowls, one when he was a player-coach and one when he was an offensive coordinator, working for Coach Tom Landry. After several seasons as an assistant to Landry, he was hired as the Broncos’ head coach in 1981, replacing Red Miller.
Over 12 seasons in Denver, his teams had a record of 110-73-1 and were among the best in the American Football Conference. Led by quarterback John Elway, they lost the Super Bowl in 1987, 1988 and 1990 by wide margins to the New York Giants, the Washington Redskins and the San Francisco 49ers.
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Jeanine Ann Roose. She was the young “Violet” in “It’s a Wonderful Life”, and…that’s it.
She went on to attend UCLA, becoming a psychologist and later a Jungian analyst, according to TMZ, which quoted her as once having made a comparison between her life and the movie’s story line.
“It’s a Wonderful Life was the only movie that I was in and it been an amazing lifetime experience to have been in such a collectively meaningful picture. … It became clear that my desire was specifically to help others who were struggling with finding meaning in their life — not unlike Clarence in the movie who helps George see the meaning of his life,” she said.
Max Julien. He was “Goldie” in “The Mack” (opposite Richard Pryor). Other credits include “Mod Squad”, “The Bold Ones: The Protectors”, and “The Name of the Game”.