Posted in American Football, News, Sports, Way Cool on September 29, 2013| Leave a Comment »
It’s no secret that I despise the University of Spoiled Children, so you can imagine my glee when I read that head coach Lane Kiffen had been fired after another big loss, this time 62-41 at Arizona State. ($C alums are notoriously ruthless with the coaches.)
But, it’s the way they fired him that has me laughing out loud: outside the terminal at LAX, and then kicking him off the team bus, leaving him to find his own way home.
Well played, Pat Haden, well played. đ
Posted in Books, tagged procrastination on September 27, 2013| Leave a Comment »
More of a reminder to myself.
Dear Self, you still need to do reviews for “Eight Worlds of C.M. Kornbluth,” “The Wailing Asteroid,” and “The Hangman’s Daughter.”
Love, Me.
(Quickie reviews: “Eight Worlds” is recommended, “Wailing” is recommended with some reservations, and “Hangman’s” is recommended, highly so for fans of WFRP.)
Really, I will get around to it, someday…
Posted in Religion, RPGs on September 22, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Saw something welcome in my feed reader this morning: a new post at Blood of Prokopius, my favorite role-playing game blog. The proprietor, Father Dave, for whatever reason took much of the summer off, but now he’s back with one of his “Saintly Saturday” posts, this time on the “26 Monk-Martyrs of Zographou Monastery”. Naturally, there’s a tie-in to gaming and a very cool monster to harry your player-characters with.
Welcome back, Dave. đ
Posted in Television, tagged King & Maxwell on September 21, 2013| Leave a Comment »
“Stop grinning. We’re out of work!”
About a month ago, I expressed my bewilderment that TNT’s mediocre freshman series, King & Maxwell (ranted about here) had been renewed. Looks like the network succumbed to my mind-control satellites, because they changed their minds and canceled it, instead:
Deadline reports that TNT has decided to cancel King & Maxwell after one season. The 10th and final episode aired on August 12th.
The show revolves around a pair of Secret Service agents (Jon Tenney and Rebecca Romijn) who opened their own detective agency after they were fired. Michael OâKeefe, Chris Butler, and Ryan Hurst round out the cast.
King & Maxwell remained fairly consistent during its 10 episode run and averaged 3.11 million viewers. The premiere attracted 3.52 million viewers and the finale drew 3.50 million.
While it wasnât as big a hit as Rizzoli & Isles (5.7 million) and Major Crimes (4.9 million), it wasnât that far behind Perception (3.5 million).
In fact, I have to wonder if TNT had to choose between Perception and King & Maxwell, tossed a coin, and the latter lost. They sure didn’t show much faith in it, giving it only a ten-episode order. And what’s with first renewing it, as we read in August, and then canceling it? Odd.
Honestly, much as I criticized the show, I thought it had some potential. Were I the head of programming for TNT, I might have kept it on the condition that the writers be replaced (by shooting, preferably) and the show’s tone be made a bit more serious and darker. As it was, K&I looked way too much like the lightweight cop fare one sees on the major broadcast networks.
Hmph.
Posted in animals, Weirdness on September 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Off on a beer run…
The only thing that could top this would be a return of the Florida face-eaters:
A feral pig ransacked a campsite and drank at least 18 cans cans of beer before getting into an altercation with a cow in Australia.
The incident, which happened in a remote area of Western Australia at the DeGray River rest area, prompted officials to warn campers to keep their food and alcohol secure.
The wild pig was seen around the campsite for several days last week, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation(ABC) reported, citing officials who said the animal got into multiple six-packs of beer over the course of a few days.
You sure this wasn’t a frat boy on holiday? Best line of all:
Findley told ABC that that her crews are not equipped to deal with wild pigs, especially if they are drunk.
Yeah. Talk about “mean drunks.”
Come to think of it, a wild pig with a hangover must be a real peach to deal with, too.
Posted in animals on September 14, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Elephants show a much more sophisticated set of emotions than many of us expect. Not only does the baby elephant appear to be crying after being rejected by his mother, but it’s implied the mother might be suffering a form of postpartum depression.
A baby elephant cried for five hours after his own mother attacked and abandoned him at a zoo in China.
Shortly after the mother elephant gave birth to the calf in August at the Shendiaoshan Wild Animal Nature Reserve in Rongcheng, China, she stepped on him, according to Metro U.K. Veterinarians hoped it was an accident and treated the baby before returning him to the mother, but he was attacked again. So they removed him from her.
I wonder if a toy would make him feel better? Elephants love balls:
There’s video (narrated in Chinese) at the link.
A Seat By The Fire 