Lake Travis is currently at 683.94 feet (measured by the Lower Colorado River Authority at Mansfield Dam).
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The lake is considered “full” at 681 feet. The top of the Mansfield Dam spillway is at 714 feet, and the actual top of the dam is at 754 feet. So we’ve got a ways to go.
Mostly, I just want to immortalize this for history. The lake hasn’t been this full in six years, and there were a lot of people running around saying it was never going to be full again.
Right now, LCRA has one spillway at the dam open, and plans to open a second spillway around 1 PM local time today. I’m hoping I get a chance to see this, as I drive over the dam a fair amount…
Major League Baseball is at the all-star break, so I probably owe everyone a loser update.
I haven’t really been keeping up this year because there hasn’t been anyone historically bad this year.
The lowest winning percentages in MLB right now are the Los Angeles Angels and the Kansas City Royals, both 38-59 for a .392 winning percentage. After that, the Colorado Rockies come in at 39-59 for .398. The White Sox are actually on top of their division (50-45, .526).
Happy 46th anniversary of Disco Demolition Night! I think I may have used this before, but it has been a minute I believe:
Obit watch: Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina). NYT. WP (archived). Lawrence.
You know, for a movie that is often called one of the worst movies to win the Academy Award for Best Picture1…”The Greatest Show On Earth” is actually pretty swell. Is it better than “High Noon”? I don’t know that you can make a head-to-head comparison, but I thought “Show” was much more fun. And sometimes that’s what you want out of a movie: fun. (And I say this as a person with conflicted views about circuses.)
Which raises the question: if you don’t have animals, clowns, or a ringmaster, are you still Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus? Heck, are you even still a circus at all?
We all know that Jimmy Stewart was one of the greats, but he’s brilliant in this. Especially since he spends the entire film in clown makeup, for reasons.
And how many movies can you think of that have a love…pentagon? Brad is in love with Holly, who loves him. But she takes up with The Great Sebastian, who returns her affections (though, honestly, it seems like The Great Sebastian would return the affections of anything female). He also has a past with Angel, who also falls for Brad, but is claimed by the pathologically jealous elephant trainer Klaus. (I wonder if this is patient zero for the evil elephant trainer in fiction. See also.)
…and three episodes of “Mannix”. (“Deadfall“, parts 1 and 2, season 1, episodes 17 and 18. She was “Gail Mason”. “Shadow of a Man“, season 2, episode 16. She was “Barbara Sanderson”.)
While that may be technically correct, there was certainly a lot of discussion of Roy DeSoto’s home life and Johnny Gage’s dating life. Their personal lives were not complete ciphers.
Other credits include “Walker, Texas Ranger”, “Battlestar Galactica” (1979), and “The Bold Ones: The Senator” (the two-part episode “A Continual Roar of Musketry”: as I’ve noted before, Harlan Ellison praised this episode highly in one of the “Glass Teat” essays).
Peter Van Norden, actor. Other credits include “The New Odd Couple”, “Hardcastle and McCormick”, and “Madman of the People”.
…”Happy 250th birthday, America!” like getting your photo taken with a person in a beaver costume.
(I respect Ben Franklin, but he was wrong about symbols. The bald eagle was absolutely the right choice for the United States. If you had to pick a second choice, the beaver would be the one: industrious, useful, and capable of violence if crossed. The wild turkey is useless, unless it comes out of a bottle.)
Carl Rinsch was sentenced yesterday. He was convicted last year of defrauding Netflix of $11 million for a series he never completed. (Previously. Previously.)
Would I do time, in what will probably be a white-collar resort prison, for $4,400,000 a year? Certainly not, as there are things I value more. But I can see that the tradeoff might work for some folks.
Also: “…$638,000 on two mattresses”. How do you spend $319,000 on a mattress? Not from those Internet mattress people for sure.
“…plus another $295,000 on luxury bedding and linens”. What is this I can’t even.
