Monday, June 22, 2009
Random Notes, Night at the Museum II edition
by Ken Houghton
So some random notes about it, and around the web:
(1) Lance Mannion did not warn me that the three cherubs are played by The Three Antichrists. Consider yourself so cautioned.*
(2) Ezra schools McMegan. Not that it will do any good.
(3) Did anyone else think Amy Adams at the end looks like a hennaed Erin O'Brien?
(4) The Hunting of the Snark did a two part post weeks ago on McMegan, bankruptcy, and health care that I'm still trying to digest. Which I mean in a good way. If rdan is reading this, yes, I think you should recruit Susan of Texas for Angry Bear; her latest post is a perfect summary of What's Wrong with Contemporary Conservative Thought. Though, as the Good Roger Ailes notes, she's developing a strong following for good reason.
(5) I assume it was the location of the theatre that got a laugh from the audience at the end of the film when Amelia Earhart leaves 77th Street and starts flying to "Canada." YMMV, but the film sorely needed laughs.
*However, since my version of H*ll would feature the "JoBros" performing "More than a Woman" and "This Song Must Drone On," their first appearance does qualify as an Adult Moment in a movie that has more of those than kid jokes.
Yes, Youngest Daughter got to pick the movie for Father's Day/her birthday. Her review: "It was boring." Even worse: that was as compared to her sixth or seventh viewing of Hotel for Dogs.
So some random notes about it, and around the web:
(1) Lance Mannion did not warn me that the three cherubs are played by The Three Antichrists. Consider yourself so cautioned.*
(2) Ezra schools McMegan. Not that it will do any good.
(3) Did anyone else think Amy Adams at the end looks like a hennaed Erin O'Brien?
(4) The Hunting of the Snark did a two part post weeks ago on McMegan, bankruptcy, and health care that I'm still trying to digest. Which I mean in a good way. If rdan is reading this, yes, I think you should recruit Susan of Texas for Angry Bear; her latest post is a perfect summary of What's Wrong with Contemporary Conservative Thought. Though, as the Good Roger Ailes notes, she's developing a strong following for good reason.
(5) I assume it was the location of the theatre that got a laugh from the audience at the end of the film when Amelia Earhart leaves 77th Street and starts flying to "Canada." YMMV, but the film sorely needed laughs.
*However, since my version of H*ll would feature the "JoBros" performing "More than a Woman" and "This Song Must Drone On," their first appearance does qualify as an Adult Moment in a movie that has more of those than kid jokes.
Labels: Erin O'Brien, Health Care, just life, Mannion, movies
Monday, May 18, 2009
Short Subjects
by Ken Houghton
The OnionESPN reports on a bodybuilding championship.
Brad DeLong says the problem isn't that Geithner isn't organized, it's that he doesn't organize, leaving that to his assistants.
Two things that, for some reason, made me think of Erin: this today and this (via The New Yorker's Book Bench).
Another discussion of Harlan, from Nancy Nall, probably via Lance.
For all the complaining some SF(F)WAns do about Scribd, you would think the place was Pure Evil, not a Marketplace for Sf/Fantasy writers (see the screen shot) (also via The Book Bench).
Apparently, not all men from Brussels are naturally "six foot four and full of muscles."
Susan of Texas has an immortal post on the housing crisis, McMegan's ratiocination, and the persistence of ignorant memes.
Brad DeLong says the problem isn't that Geithner isn't organized, it's that he doesn't organize, leaving that to his assistants.
Two things that, for some reason, made me think of Erin: this today and this (via The New Yorker's Book Bench).
Another discussion of Harlan, from Nancy Nall, probably via Lance.
For all the complaining some SF(F)WAns do about Scribd, you would think the place was Pure Evil, not a Marketplace for Sf/Fantasy writers (see the screen shot) (also via The Book Bench).
Apparently, not all men from Brussels are naturally "six foot four and full of muscles."
Labels: Erin O'Brien, just life, Mannion, pop music, sf
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Even Citizenship Demand Curves Slope Downward
by Ken Houghton
The term "gouged" seems somehow more accurate than a discussion involving the title of this blog, since the price increase provided no promise of better service or higher quality.
Then again, Jim Cramer argued this week [may be PDF link] that inflation at fast-food restaurants is a good thing ("This is a remarkable development—companies passing on costs with prices sticking and consumers accepting."), so maybe we should just consider this another aspect of creeping inflation—though probably one that will not appear in the CPI.
*Who is a great guy with a wonderful, brilliant wife. And I would be saying both of those things even if he hadn't once helped me to survive a homework assignment in DiffyQ that could have driven a Ph.D. candidate insane.
If I were Mr. Mochi-Tsuki* or Suzanne Johansson, I wouldn't even be amused:
The first is that the wait for citizenship and green cards is up — way up. Citizenship and Immigration Services reported in January that the average time to process a citizenship application had risen to 18 months, from seven, and that green cards would now take a year, instead of six months or less.
It was a sorry moment for the agency, which jacked up its fees last year with a promise to use the new money to end vast paperwork backlogs. The opposite happened: the agency is drowning in applications from people who filed before the increase to avoid being gouged.
The term "gouged" seems somehow more accurate than a discussion involving the title of this blog, since the price increase provided no promise of better service or higher quality.
Then again, Jim Cramer argued this week [may be PDF link] that inflation at fast-food restaurants is a good thing ("This is a remarkable development—companies passing on costs with prices sticking and consumers accepting."), so maybe we should just consider this another aspect of creeping inflation—though probably one that will not appear in the CPI.
*Who is a great guy with a wonderful, brilliant wife. And I would be saying both of those things even if he hadn't once helped me to survive a homework assignment in DiffyQ that could have driven a Ph.D. candidate insane.
Friday, February 15, 2008
DeLong links to Hilzoy, who reminds me why DeLong Smackdown is necessary
by Ken Houghton
(On the plus side, Tom's attempt at pre-emption has saved me from having to discuss Mark Penn, about whom the less said the better, unless you are Lee Papa, which none of [the rest of] us is. Even if Papa does seem to share the ObamaNation double-standard that Their Man can go on Faux News every day, but HRC agreeing to debate him on there is Evil Calculated Pimping.)
Hilzoy continues the Cult* of Obama with a slagging of the HRC campaign almost worthy of Mr. Papa if he were taking his meds. And I blame Brad DeLong: partially because she does.
We learn, for instance, that "Hillary Clinton's seven years in the Senate have been pretty undistinguished." (Tom, for instance, knows better.) Of course, in fairness, Hilzoy disagrees with Tom about Terry McAuliffe's value: "Various Clinton insiders, including (according to Greene) Terry McAuliffe and Maggie Williams -- tried to get [Patty Solis Doyle] fired [after 2006]."**
When Hilzoy adds commentary, it is strange:
$27,000 in valet parking, in a state that includes NYC, which was visited multiple times, in multiple locations, by multiple cars holding multiple people over multiple months? The only thing amazing about that is that it the number was so low.
Consultants? For someone doing a lot of internal polling, and probably preparing for a national run and higher office? I know Hilzoy and I do everything out of the goodness of our hearts, but the Mark Penns and Mark Kleimans get paid. (Unfortunately or not, they get paid win or lose. As Toby Ziegler says in the first episode of the second season of The West Wing (roughly) "I"m a political consultant." "How many races have you won." "None."
In fairness, the $800 in interest charges looks suspicious. The rest looks like the two make-up sessions for which John Edwards's campaign paid $400 ($200 each, which NYCites will assure you is a bargain) that have been miraculously transformed into "haircuts."
Then there is the evil of HRC herself. HIlzoy quotes Josh Greene—"[A]bove all, Clinton prizes loyalty and discipline, and Solis Doyle demonstrated both traits"—as if this were unique. (See Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair piece on Obama, for instance. Or find me any politician on the national stage who doesn't prize loyalty and discipline above all.***)
Hilzoy then invokes Brad DeLong's 2003 piec—the one I discussed extensively here,; the one that self-described "progressive" HRC haters (and, now, Obama supporters) continually invoke as "proof" of her evil. (In this, they are rather similar to the people who take Obama's admission of cocaine use in his younger days as defining his abilities and accomplishments.) The one that, until October of 2007, was missing its key paragraph (even if the 'graf was, allegedly, "hoisted from the archives"):
She did, presumably, have the power to fire Sollis Doyle, and has the power to fire Mark Penn, and much of Hilzoy's post is devoted to "she didn't do it, so she's a Bad Leader" ranting.****
After quoting the two articles at length, Hilzoy coming to rather a interesting conclusion:
The sarcasm quotes around "her people" are, I hasten to note, not Brad DeLong's, and my previous, abundant respect for Hilzoy declines because of them. It is only the next sentence that causes that respect to fall off the cliff:
Yes, this is the same woman who said (before inserting some long quotes from two others) that "Hillary Clinton's seven years in the Senate have been pretty undistinguished."
Quoting my fellow sufferer of Hansen's Disease:
The end of the first, and the last, appears to be near the center of Patrick's analysis that left him "on balance I’m impressed. Not transported. Not uncritical. But impressed." with Obama. (The posting of Elise Matthesen's Straw Man, is presumably another story, one only compounded by Patrick's .*****)
Indeed, the closest thing we had to why Obama will make a good President was Hilzoy's post (cited with distinction by Patrick, Tom, and amanda as the first comment to Lance's post.) As Lance notes, "it basically makes a case I never doubted, that Obama has been one of the good guys." (My own doubts are public knowledge, and based on the public comments and publications of his circle of advisors, public [David Cutler, Cass Sunstein] and private [e.g., the "strong women" cited in Purdum's article]—but those are doubts that Obama is more a progressive Democrat than HRC, not that he'll do less harm than the Republican nominee.)
But Hilzoy's "Actually, I think we can" now appears to be selective advocacy presented as reasoned analysis.
I won't be crying that HRC (and especially Mark Penn) got out-triangulated. But it would be nice if people who claim to be Obama supporters were really more than HIllary bashers. (Tom, as noted before, does not fall into the latter category. I had hoped—apparently erroneously—that he was not alone in that.)
*Yes, Patrick, I'm calling it that; since your source asks why a man who continually invokes his religious beliefs is tagg[ed] with the term messiah,, I rest the case and await being pilloried)
**Hilzoy, among others, clearly agrees that it would have been better if HRC had followed that advice. But then I suppose she would have had to find something else about which to write.
***Barrack Obama, after all, is married to Michelle, who declared that she "might" support HRC if her husband loses the nomination, and then offered the bromide that "everyone in this party is going to work hard for whoever the nominee is."
****For the record, I'll go with DeLong and Ezra Klein on this one:
which one can say of any campaign, even Obama's. Not that I would, since Lance and I already may be the only lepers left in the colony.
*****I assume it is clear that no one would accuse me of considering Obama a "starry-eyed idealist." If it isn't, see here. Warning: it's long.
Yes, it's another Clinton/Obama post. Feel free to skip, or wait for Tom's comment and read from there to here.
(On the plus side, Tom's attempt at pre-emption has saved me from having to discuss Mark Penn, about whom the less said the better, unless you are Lee Papa, which none of [the rest of] us is. Even if Papa does seem to share the ObamaNation double-standard that Their Man can go on Faux News every day, but HRC agreeing to debate him on there is Evil Calculated Pimping.)
Hilzoy continues the Cult* of Obama with a slagging of the HRC campaign almost worthy of Mr. Papa if he were taking his meds. And I blame Brad DeLong: partially because she does.
We learn, for instance, that "Hillary Clinton's seven years in the Senate have been pretty undistinguished." (Tom, for instance, knows better.) Of course, in fairness, Hilzoy disagrees with Tom about Terry McAuliffe's value: "Various Clinton insiders, including (according to Greene) Terry McAuliffe and Maggie Williams -- tried to get [Patty Solis Doyle] fired [after 2006]."**
When Hilzoy adds commentary, it is strange:
[T]he NYT story Greene quotes says that the campaign spent "$27,000 for valet parking, paid as much as $800 in a single month in credit card interest and — above all — paid tens of thousands of dollars a month to an assortment of consultants and aides."
$27,000 in valet parking, in a state that includes NYC, which was visited multiple times, in multiple locations, by multiple cars holding multiple people over multiple months? The only thing amazing about that is that it the number was so low.
Consultants? For someone doing a lot of internal polling, and probably preparing for a national run and higher office? I know Hilzoy and I do everything out of the goodness of our hearts, but the Mark Penns and Mark Kleimans get paid. (Unfortunately or not, they get paid win or lose. As Toby Ziegler says in the first episode of the second season of The West Wing (roughly) "I"m a political consultant." "How many races have you won." "None."
In fairness, the $800 in interest charges looks suspicious. The rest looks like the two make-up sessions for which John Edwards's campaign paid $400 ($200 each, which NYCites will assure you is a bargain) that have been miraculously transformed into "haircuts."
Then there is the evil of HRC herself. HIlzoy quotes Josh Greene—"[A]bove all, Clinton prizes loyalty and discipline, and Solis Doyle demonstrated both traits"—as if this were unique. (See Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair piece on Obama, for instance. Or find me any politician on the national stage who doesn't prize loyalty and discipline above all.***)
Hilzoy then invokes Brad DeLong's 2003 piec—the one I discussed extensively here,; the one that self-described "progressive" HRC haters (and, now, Obama supporters) continually invoke as "proof" of her evil. (In this, they are rather similar to the people who take Obama's admission of cocaine use in his younger days as defining his abilities and accomplishments.) The one that, until October of 2007, was missing its key paragraph (even if the 'graf was, allegedly, "hoisted from the archives"):
t is hard to tell how much power Hillary Rodham Clinton had. Certainly she did not effectively manage the process. But I did see Ira Magaziner in action. And it seems to me that the process was impossible to manage as long as Ira Magaziner was involved, and perhaps she did not have the power to fire him.
She did, presumably, have the power to fire Sollis Doyle, and has the power to fire Mark Penn, and much of Hilzoy's post is devoted to "she didn't do it, so she's a Bad Leader" ranting.****
After quoting the two articles at length, Hilzoy coming to rather a interesting conclusion:
[DeLong] later decided that he had been unfair: according to "her people", "she has done an awful lot more over the past fifteen years, and done almost all of it very successfully."
The sarcasm quotes around "her people" are, I hasten to note, not Brad DeLong's, and my previous, abundant respect for Hilzoy declines because of them. It is only the next sentence that causes that respect to fall off the cliff:
I have never really known what that "awful lot more" was, so I've never felt competent to judge what Hillary Clinton's people say.
Yes, this is the same woman who said (before inserting some long quotes from two others) that "Hillary Clinton's seven years in the Senate have been pretty undistinguished."
Quoting my fellow sufferer of Hansen's Disease:
I have read and heard plenty of good arguments making the case that Hillary Clinton will not be an ideal or even a good President. I've heard and read plenty of good arguments that she won't be the best candidate.
I have yet to read or hear a good argument making the case that Obama will be an ideal or a good President or even a better one than Clinton.
Mostly I've heard and read are arguments based entirely on the hope that he will be any or all of those things.
And I've heard and read a lot arguments based entirely on the fear of what the Presidential campaign will be like if Clinton's the nominee.
The end of the first, and the last, appears to be near the center of Patrick's analysis that left him "on balance I’m impressed. Not transported. Not uncritical. But impressed." with Obama. (The posting of Elise Matthesen's Straw Man, is presumably another story, one only compounded by Patrick's .*****)
Indeed, the closest thing we had to why Obama will make a good President was Hilzoy's post (cited with distinction by Patrick, Tom, and amanda as the first comment to Lance's post.) As Lance notes, "it basically makes a case I never doubted, that Obama has been one of the good guys." (My own doubts are public knowledge, and based on the public comments and publications of his circle of advisors, public [David Cutler, Cass Sunstein] and private [e.g., the "strong women" cited in Purdum's article]—but those are doubts that Obama is more a progressive Democrat than HRC, not that he'll do less harm than the Republican nominee.)
But Hilzoy's "Actually, I think we can" now appears to be selective advocacy presented as reasoned analysis.
I won't be crying that HRC (and especially Mark Penn) got out-triangulated. But it would be nice if people who claim to be Obama supporters were really more than HIllary bashers. (Tom, as noted before, does not fall into the latter category. I had hoped—apparently erroneously—that he was not alone in that.)
*Yes, Patrick, I'm calling it that; since your source asks why a man who continually invokes his religious beliefs is tagg[ed] with the term messiah,, I rest the case and await being pilloried)
**Hilzoy, among others, clearly agrees that it would have been better if HRC had followed that advice. But then I suppose she would have had to find something else about which to write.
***Barrack Obama, after all, is married to Michelle, who declared that she "might" support HRC if her husband loses the nomination, and then offered the bromide that "everyone in this party is going to work hard for whoever the nominee is."
****For the record, I'll go with DeLong and Ezra Klein on this one:
[T]he Clinton team has run a pretty good campaign. [B]etter, indeed, than what I thought they'd run. It may or may not prove to be enough, and looking back, there will surely be identifiable mistakes and botched opportunities.
which one can say of any campaign, even Obama's. Not that I would, since Lance and I already may be the only lepers left in the colony.
*****I assume it is clear that no one would accuse me of considering Obama a "starry-eyed idealist." If it isn't, see here. Warning: it's long.
Labels: 2008, Brad DeLong, Hillary Clinton, Mannion, ObamaNation, Politics
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Holiday Season: Please Hit Blogger Tip Jars
by Ken Houghton
Please hit the tip jars of Gary Farber (who is in long-term need) and/or Lance Mannion (whose squeeze may be more temporary than Gary's, but is still a squeeze—and one that can also be ameliorated by using his Amazon store link, making both of you happier).
I'm slightly beyond tapped out right now, so the best I can do is make everyone else feel guilty.
Please hit the tip jars of Gary Farber (who is in long-term need) and/or Lance Mannion (whose squeeze may be more temporary than Gary's, but is still a squeeze—and one that can also be ameliorated by using his Amazon store link, making both of you happier).
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Political Connections save Householders
by Ken Houghton
There is, of course, no reason to believe there would be anything suspect about such a transaction. Contrast, for instance, this statement:
with the reality:
And the follow-up statement to it:
It's also fraud.
Then again, it's the lovable and much-loved-by-the-Beltway Rudolph, so it must not be important.
In the midst of claims that Northeast real estate is going to drop 15-40%, some transactions are off-market:
As for Hazleton,[Pennsylvania,] the Giulianis are buying more than gas there these days. On Nov. 1, records show, the couple purchased Nathan's childhood home from her parents for an unspecified sum.
There is, of course, no reason to believe there would be anything suspect about such a transaction. Contrast, for instance, this statement:
"Nobody was trying to hide anything."
with the reality:
One document dated June 26, 2000, shows how money from five such offices - the Mayor's Office of People with Disabilities, the Community Assistance Unit, the Assigned Counsel Administrative Office, the Loft Board and the mayor's liaison to the United Nations - was used to prepay an American Express account to the tune of $60,000...
Carbonetti said that the document - dated four days before the end of the city fiscal year - simply showed how unused money from agencies was being used to prepay bills. [emphases mine]
And the follow-up statement to it:
"It's fiscally responsible to anticipate predictable expenses and prepay them," he argued.
It's also fraud.
Then again, it's the lovable and much-loved-by-the-Beltway Rudolph, so it must not be important.
Labels: 2008, fiduciary responsibility, High Finance, Housing Bubble, Mannion, Politics, Republican Party, RudyG
Monday, November 19, 2007
I Was Going to take a picture of my car this morning
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Time-Shifted "Events"
by Ken Houghton
The above is not a typo, but note the IMDB Tagline:
The movie is available now at Disney Channel On Demand.
The same is true of Californication, the new Showtime series starring David Duchovny as (I gather) a less-scrupled version of Dustin Hoffman in Kramer v. Kramer (instead of just a naked Jo Beth Williams, there will be many naked women, as Duchovny "tries to juggle...his appetite for beautiful women."
I don't know how many balls Duchovny will have in the air Monday night, when the series officially premieres. I'll probably find out from when Mannion's posts (assuming the man ever finishes Year 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
But I wonder what impact leaking the two shows, both heavily advertised, will have on their ratings. (This is especially true in the case of the Disney movie, where the commercials that are not present On Demand will give many people the chance to opt out before the end.)
And what happens if my daughter goes to gymnastics camp tomorrow and tells people about the movie? The greater the contagion, the more likely the effect. And the more clear it will be that the incentives are mis-aligned.
Of course, On Demand isn't perfect. I'm still going to have to wait for Meadowlands to air before it become available that way. (That show is Mannion's fault as well, and I thank him for it occasionally.) But if the mode of the future is On Demand before Scheduled Broadcast, will the Social Network become more On Demand and less Branding?
We watched High School Musical 2 last night. (Well, the Eldest Daughter did. I got bored fairly quickly.)
The above is not a typo, but note the IMDB Tagline:
On August 17th, are you ready for the start of something new? [emphasis mine]
The movie is available now at Disney Channel On Demand.
The same is true of Californication, the new Showtime series starring David Duchovny as (I gather) a less-scrupled version of Dustin Hoffman in Kramer v. Kramer (instead of just a naked Jo Beth Williams, there will be many naked women, as Duchovny "tries to juggle...his appetite for beautiful women."
I don't know how many balls Duchovny will have in the air Monday night, when the series officially premieres. I'll probably find out from when Mannion's posts (assuming the man ever finishes Year 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
But I wonder what impact leaking the two shows, both heavily advertised, will have on their ratings. (This is especially true in the case of the Disney movie, where the commercials that are not present On Demand will give many people the chance to opt out before the end.)
And what happens if my daughter goes to gymnastics camp tomorrow and tells people about the movie? The greater the contagion, the more likely the effect. And the more clear it will be that the incentives are mis-aligned.
Of course, On Demand isn't perfect. I'm still going to have to wait for Meadowlands to air before it become available that way. (That show is Mannion's fault as well, and I thank him for it occasionally.) But if the mode of the future is On Demand before Scheduled Broadcast, will the Social Network become more On Demand and less Branding?
Monday, July 09, 2007
Five (well, Four) Ways to End the New York Times
by Ken Houghton
As I said, the graphic is worth checking out. But if this is the NYT's attempt to appeal to a contemporary audience, Rupert Murdoch is buying the wrong newspaper.
It's not just that this is unimaginative (though the graphic worthwhile). It's that it is the best the NYT could do. I'll summarize the pieces, so you don't have to read them:
- The Boy Who Died: An attempt to turn HP into a bad episode of Lost, by one of the people who writes bad episodes of Lost and isn't happy to get called out for it.
- When Harry Met Davey: A trivialization by the author of The Princess Diaries. Is that sentence redundant?
- Made in Hogwarts: If you have to read one, this is the one. Likely gets one thing spot-on (Harry being the final Horcrux), and a decent imitation of the atmosphere. Falls apart at the end. This is the best of the lot, and if Mannion or Russell Arben Fox had written it, they would laughed out of the blogsphere. And not in a comic way.
- Hermione Tells All: The worst of the lot. Bloody near libelous, and unworthy of even Ann Althouse at her most Jessica-has-tits moments. Memo to the NYT: If you're determined to hire bitter, nasty people to be your free lancers, you should hire ones with a sense of wit.
As I said, the graphic is worth checking out. But if this is the NYT's attempt to appeal to a contemporary audience, Rupert Murdoch is buying the wrong newspaper.
Labels: Harry Potter, Journamalism, Mannion
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Programming Note: The Man Comes Around
by Ken Houghton
I volunteered to take one for the team, but Lance is stepping up to the plate himself—his only live appearance during the Burnoff Episodes of Studio 60.*
That in itself should make it worth being there at 10:00pm Eastern. The other questions:
These, and other questions, Tonight at Mannion's Place. Be there.
*My wife thinks she saw in EW that the show has been renewed. Fortunately, this rumour is unconfirmed.
**Robert Klein reference.
***"My pl*ms, y**r g*ms" doesn't seem likely to be Matt/Harriet dialog. Whether this means anything is left as an exercise.
****One of the best lines in the book, but curiously (yeah, right) left out of the adaptation so far, which has lasted several months and may have gotten to Page 60.
"Nothing is forgotten/Or Forgiven/When It's Your Last Time around."
I volunteered to take one for the team, but Lance is stepping up to the plate himself—his only live appearance during the Burnoff Episodes of Studio 60.*
That in itself should make it worth being there at 10:00pm Eastern. The other questions:
- Will Joshua Molina make an appearance, or will his Every-Sorkin-Show-Ever-Recorded** streak end with a whimper?
- Will The Boss really be the Special Musical Guest?
- Will Lance work in any references to Meadowlands*** (the series, not to be confused with the last place I saw The Boss)?
- Will Pen-Elayne hold true to her Nevermore vow?
- Will my DVR again refuse to record the episode?
- Now that Gigi has been "Cruised"**** herself, will Hour 932 of The Starter Wife beat S60 in the ratings?
These, and other questions, Tonight at Mannion's Place. Be there.
*My wife thinks she saw in EW that the show has been renewed. Fortunately, this rumour is unconfirmed.
**Robert Klein reference.
***"My pl*ms, y**r g*ms" doesn't seem likely to be Matt/Harriet dialog. Whether this means anything is left as an exercise.
****One of the best lines in the book, but curiously (yeah, right) left out of the adaptation so far, which has lasted several months and may have gotten to Page 60.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
PSA
by Ken Houghton
His lead-in piece is a must-read whether you watch the show or not.
I'm live-blogging S60 tonight at Mannion's Place, ca. 10:00pm.
His lead-in piece is a must-read whether you watch the show or not.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Mannion To The Ready
by Ken Houghton
Starting Thursday, May 24th (mercifully, the first day after sweeps), head over to Mannion's Place for The Last Throes:
Can't wait for the inevitable reaction from Ken Levine as well.
Need to deal with the time between S3 and Shrek3 and the film of HP5 and HP7?
Starting Thursday, May 24th (mercifully, the first day after sweeps), head over to Mannion's Place for The Last Throes:
Highly touted but low rated drama Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which has been on hiatus since mid-February, will return on NBC Thursday in place of ER on May 24 at 10 p.m. ET....
It is not expected back next season when NBC makes its fall 2007 prime-time schedule announcement (at New York City’s famed Rockefeller Center) on May 14.
Can't wait for the inevitable reaction from Ken Levine as well.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Dept. of Read the Whole Thing
by Tom Bozzo
Lance Mannion on Harry Reid, Broderella, and the Lost War.
Labels: Iraq, Journamalism, Mannion
Saturday, April 14, 2007
My Last (I hope) word on Imus
by Ken Houghton
My last word follows from Mark Cuban's:
And I fully expect that Imus (and, unfortunately, 'The I-Man') will end up on HBO or Sirius or XM or some other non-public airwave.* Which is fine; there are enough straight white males on the public airwaves trying to make other SWMs feel superior to others as a substitute for accomplishing anything themselves.
Let's see him survive in the private sector. As with the comedians Mannion and Mahablog were discussing, there's probably a demand; the question is whether it will produce a return on capital, or is already mature and declining. I know which way I would bet.
Let's see if Mark Cuban decides to put his money where his mouth is.
Note to readers: I've deleted several comments in the thread below by mutual agreement between Gary Farber, Bill Patterson, and me. If you've arrived here via a link at alt.fan.heinlein, I commend Patterson's forthcoming Heinlein bio for all the information provided in the deleted comments and much, much more.
*Assuming he doesn't just decide that, at age 67, he can take some time for his charity and his second family. (He appears to have forgotten his first, a la Robert A. Heinlein.)
The basketball team has continued to be the only classy thing about the whole episode, and it may well have cost us a governor, though that can't be blamed on Imus or Rutgers, but rather...well, let Jim MacDonald at Making Light explain.
My last word follows from Mark Cuban's:
Now for one last comment. If the Imus show was on HDNet would I have fired him ? Hell no. I would have expected him to apologize, but he would have kept his job. Firing him would just get him a job on HBO.
And I fully expect that Imus (and, unfortunately, 'The I-Man') will end up on HBO or Sirius or XM or some other non-public airwave.* Which is fine; there are enough straight white males on the public airwaves trying to make other SWMs feel superior to others as a substitute for accomplishing anything themselves.
Let's see him survive in the private sector. As with the comedians Mannion and Mahablog were discussing, there's probably a demand; the question is whether it will produce a return on capital, or is already mature and declining. I know which way I would bet.
Let's see if Mark Cuban decides to put his money where his mouth is.
Note to readers: I've deleted several comments in the thread below by mutual agreement between Gary Farber, Bill Patterson, and me. If you've arrived here via a link at alt.fan.heinlein, I commend Patterson's forthcoming Heinlein bio for all the information provided in the deleted comments and much, much more.
*Assuming he doesn't just decide that, at age 67, he can take some time for his charity and his second family. (He appears to have forgotten his first, a la Robert A. Heinlein.)
Labels: commonweal, Imus, Mannion, public v. private, Rutgers
Thursday, April 12, 2007
The Way It's Going, No One Knows
by Ken Houghton
But I note that Vonnegut's work for the NYT (as well as reviews of his work)—including "Torture and Blubber," the piece mentioned by d of LG&M in his appreciation —are available without a TimesSelect subscription here (probably only free for a limited time).
Jessica of Indexed posts 1,000 words.
(POST UPDATED, likely with more to come. And so on.)
As with Mannion, the full post will take me a while to write (even in the context of my legendary procrastination abilities).
But I note that Vonnegut's work for the NYT (as well as reviews of his work)—including "Torture and Blubber," the piece mentioned by d of LG&M in his appreciation —are available without a TimesSelect subscription here (probably only free for a limited time).
Jessica of Indexed posts 1,000 words.
(POST UPDATED, likely with more to come. And so on.)
Labels: Kurt Vonnegut, Mannion, memorials
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
A Mathematician Looks at the Yankees, Misses the Pitching
by Ken Houghton
I have no love for the Yankees. But even I don't want to see them treated this badly in the popular press, especially not when it will likely become impossible by, say, 3/4 of the way (120 games) into the season.
(The full projected standings are here, for the curious. Note that their prediction requires that the AL be 16 games over .500 in Interleague play.)
I don't disagree much with Scott, who notes correctly that there are greater weaknesses in Boston and Toronto than in previous years. But when he says
I have trouble getting around the first part of that to the second.
Last night produced the first win by a Yankee starter this year, six games in. But it's worse than that: last night was the first time a Yankee starting pitcher went more than five innings. (And the guy who went five, Kei Igawa, gave up seven runs.)
Now, I'll grant you that it's early in the season, but the pitching staff as a whole (hole?) is ninth in Batting Average and 10th in ERA. I don't care how many runs you score, that's a deep hole to dig out of.
Worse yet, the year they won 114 games, more than 60 of them were at home. (114-54 = 60 from this table.) A roster with three aging right-handed starters (Rasner, the youngest by far, is 26) is not built to win 3/4 of its home games.
Could they end up 30 games over .500 (96-66)? Possibly. Forty over (101-61)? If the breaks all go their way. Fifty over (106-56)? Not the way to bet.
The oddsmakers put the Yankees at an Over/Under of 97.5 wins. Bukiet is predicting 12.5 more, almost a 13% increase.
We'll see. It just remains Not the Way to Bet.
I wasn't going to blog about this, but it keeps coming up (this time as a link from the article Mannion cites here).
I have no love for the Yankees. But even I don't want to see them treated this badly in the popular press, especially not when it will likely become impossible by, say, 3/4 of the way (120 games) into the season.
(The full projected standings are here, for the curious. Note that their prediction requires that the AL be 16 games over .500 in Interleague play.)
I don't disagree much with Scott, who notes correctly that there are greater weaknesses in Boston and Toronto than in previous years. But when he says
The biggest caveat is that they have an old and/or injury-prone finesse rotation, but I think they'll win more than 100.
I have trouble getting around the first part of that to the second.
Last night produced the first win by a Yankee starter this year, six games in. But it's worse than that: last night was the first time a Yankee starting pitcher went more than five innings. (And the guy who went five, Kei Igawa, gave up seven runs.)
Now, I'll grant you that it's early in the season, but the pitching staff as a whole (hole?) is ninth in Batting Average and 10th in ERA. I don't care how many runs you score, that's a deep hole to dig out of.
Worse yet, the year they won 114 games, more than 60 of them were at home. (114-54 = 60 from this table.) A roster with three aging right-handed starters (Rasner, the youngest by far, is 26) is not built to win 3/4 of its home games.
Could they end up 30 games over .500 (96-66)? Possibly. Forty over (101-61)? If the breaks all go their way. Fifty over (106-56)? Not the way to bet.
The oddsmakers put the Yankees at an Over/Under of 97.5 wins. Bukiet is predicting 12.5 more, almost a 13% increase.
While Bukiet is the first to admit he’s not a baseball expert, in five out of the past six years, he says that his model has produced more correct than incorrect predictions.
“I thought it was neat that you can do just as well as the so-called experts,” he said.
We'll see. It just remains Not the Way to Bet.
Labels: baseball, Mannion, sabremetrics, Yankees
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Now we know why she's dating Justin Timberlake...
by Ken Houghton
Be afraid. Be VERY Afraid.
*Be very happy this link is to a 30-second sample. Either I'm looking out for you, or no one wants to make (especially) the fourth track on this album available for listening. If you really feel a need, here's the Rhapsody link.
Bidding fair to the be the Late-Period Linda Ronstadt of her generation (which I do not mean as a compliment; think the period of all those covers where the listeners are screaming "Stop Her Before She Kills Again*"), one of Lance's somewhat favorite women is releasing an album of covers:
Even Scarlett Johansson feels the need to weigh in with a record called Scarlett Sings Tom Waits.
Be afraid. Be VERY Afraid.
*Be very happy this link is to a 30-second sample. Either I'm looking out for you, or no one wants to make (especially) the fourth track on this album available for listening. If you really feel a need, here's the Rhapsody link.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
HP 7: The First Three Chapters
by Ken Houghton
Chapter 1:
Comedies end in weddings; tragedies end in death. As this volume is not a comedy, and Ms. Rowling wants to leave no doubt of that, the book opens not with the promised Bill/Fleur nuptials, but rather a scene reminiscent of the last book, in which Draco, Lucius, and Nausicaa Malfoy, along with Severus Snape, recapitulate the climax of HBP, the death of Albus Dumbledore.
And neither Malfoy parent is pleased. This was to be Draco’s crowning achievement, the signal that he was a worthy inheritor of his father’s position as Voldemort's right-hand man. Draco’s powers had been specifically developed over the previous summer so that even Harry’s invisibility cloak could not prevent his perception. While there had been rumors throughout the school year that Draco had engaged in some problematic actions (crying in the bathroom where Moaning Myrtle had seen him, for instance), theMalfoys had always been certain Draco would, when faced with his ultimate duty, be able to perform. And now Severus was suggesting it had not been so.
There could be little doubt the description was accurate; there had, after all, been other witnesses to the death of Albus Dumbledore, witnesses who corroborated that it had not, in the end, been that Draco had come through.
And so it was that Draco learned that his mother Nausicaa was the true power behind the Malfoy family, that it was she who ensured their chosen position within the Death Eaters. It was a lesson he would not soon forget. And one he swore (to himself, at least) that Harry Potter would learn as well.
Chapter 2
The Weasley household’s wedding preparations are in full swing. In part because of the success of Fred and George’s business, the family would be traveling in style to the marriage of Bill Weasley to Fleur Delacour. Hermione would travel with them, as would—a pleasant surprise that—Hermione’s parents, who had decided that the site of the wedding would be an excellent place for this summer’s holiday. (That they would also be able to spend some time getting to know the Weasley family, with whom they expected to have close relations in the future, was no small part of their calculation.) Indeed, the only slight damper on the preparations was the absence of Harry Potter, who was living at the Dursleys for the summer.
It wasn’t that he wanted to be there, but he was mindful that Aunt Petunia, his only living blood relative, provided him the protection that even 12Grimauld Place in London could not, especially with Dumbledore dead. (Indeed, with Snape apparently returned to the other side, 12 Grimauld Place could in no way be considered a safe house for anyone, let alone Harry, which Lupin had noted to him with no small degree of regret.)
So Harry was spending the first part of the summer with the Dursleys, dreading to go out of the house—his encounter with the Dementors and Dudley two years previous weighed heavily on his every move—communicating daily by owl with Hermione and Lupin (who were doing the heavy research) while trying to figure out how best to convince Headmaster McGonagall to allow him to use the Pensieve to find the reliquaries he would need to destroy.
Chapter 3
The wedding celebration of Bill and Fleur begins with Hermione and Ron running into Victor Krum, looking splendid. He tells them he has been hired to teach Transfiguration at Hogwarts and Hermione immediately begins to discuss procedures that leave Ron jealous, and noting wryly that Victor’s English appears to have improved much from the “Hermio-ninny” days.
A summer away has returned Ginny to herself, and she is focusing on her new school year, and most especially her OWLs, as well as the upcoming Quidditch season, with the need to find Gryffindor a new Seeker. Always practical, and not one to let grass grow under her feet, Ginny is now dating Neville Longbottom.
All seems settled as the ceremony begins. An attack by Death Eaters, which leads to the death of Molly Weasley, changes the mood of the celebrants and the course of the book.
Ginny and Harry discuss his next steps. She offers Harry all of the details she can about her possession by Tom Riddle, including the sensations and memories from the diary of what the other reliquaries might be. Ginny avows a suspicion that the Diary was not the first relic, and notes that it might be fruitful for Harry’s search if he were to return to Hogwarts.
Harry notes that he can’t very well search for the reliquaries and maintain the full schedule of a seventh-year Hogwarts student; as he does this within the hearing of Headmaster McGonagall and the Minister of Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour, who proposes a solution: Harry shall return to Hogwarts on a reduced class schedule, with additional duties as the Special Assistant to the new teacher for the Defense Against the Dark Arts. Harry agrees to this on the condition that StanShunpike be freed, without knowing who that teacher will be.
Channeling an act of this blog's patroness in her most recent movie, and fulfilling a promise made at Mannion's place several weeks ago, we now present for your amusement, a summary of the first three chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (BOOK SIX SPOILERS FOLLOW):
Chapter 1:
Comedies end in weddings; tragedies end in death. As this volume is not a comedy, and Ms. Rowling wants to leave no doubt of that, the book opens not with the promised Bill/Fleur nuptials, but rather a scene reminiscent of the last book, in which Draco, Lucius, and Nausicaa Malfoy, along with Severus Snape, recapitulate the climax of HBP, the death of Albus Dumbledore.
And neither Malfoy parent is pleased. This was to be Draco’s crowning achievement, the signal that he was a worthy inheritor of his father’s position as Voldemort's right-hand man. Draco’s powers had been specifically developed over the previous summer so that even Harry’s invisibility cloak could not prevent his perception. While there had been rumors throughout the school year that Draco had engaged in some problematic actions (crying in the bathroom where Moaning Myrtle had seen him, for instance), theMalfoys had always been certain Draco would, when faced with his ultimate duty, be able to perform. And now Severus was suggesting it had not been so.
There could be little doubt the description was accurate; there had, after all, been other witnesses to the death of Albus Dumbledore, witnesses who corroborated that it had not, in the end, been that Draco had come through.
And so it was that Draco learned that his mother Nausicaa was the true power behind the Malfoy family, that it was she who ensured their chosen position within the Death Eaters. It was a lesson he would not soon forget. And one he swore (to himself, at least) that Harry Potter would learn as well.
Chapter 2
The Weasley household’s wedding preparations are in full swing. In part because of the success of Fred and George’s business, the family would be traveling in style to the marriage of Bill Weasley to Fleur Delacour. Hermione would travel with them, as would—a pleasant surprise that—Hermione’s parents, who had decided that the site of the wedding would be an excellent place for this summer’s holiday. (That they would also be able to spend some time getting to know the Weasley family, with whom they expected to have close relations in the future, was no small part of their calculation.) Indeed, the only slight damper on the preparations was the absence of Harry Potter, who was living at the Dursleys for the summer.
It wasn’t that he wanted to be there, but he was mindful that Aunt Petunia, his only living blood relative, provided him the protection that even 12Grimauld Place in London could not, especially with Dumbledore dead. (Indeed, with Snape apparently returned to the other side, 12 Grimauld Place could in no way be considered a safe house for anyone, let alone Harry, which Lupin had noted to him with no small degree of regret.)
So Harry was spending the first part of the summer with the Dursleys, dreading to go out of the house—his encounter with the Dementors and Dudley two years previous weighed heavily on his every move—communicating daily by owl with Hermione and Lupin (who were doing the heavy research) while trying to figure out how best to convince Headmaster McGonagall to allow him to use the Pensieve to find the reliquaries he would need to destroy.
Chapter 3
The wedding celebration of Bill and Fleur begins with Hermione and Ron running into Victor Krum, looking splendid. He tells them he has been hired to teach Transfiguration at Hogwarts and Hermione immediately begins to discuss procedures that leave Ron jealous, and noting wryly that Victor’s English appears to have improved much from the “Hermio-ninny” days.
A summer away has returned Ginny to herself, and she is focusing on her new school year, and most especially her OWLs, as well as the upcoming Quidditch season, with the need to find Gryffindor a new Seeker. Always practical, and not one to let grass grow under her feet, Ginny is now dating Neville Longbottom.
All seems settled as the ceremony begins. An attack by Death Eaters, which leads to the death of Molly Weasley, changes the mood of the celebrants and the course of the book.
Ginny and Harry discuss his next steps. She offers Harry all of the details she can about her possession by Tom Riddle, including the sensations and memories from the diary of what the other reliquaries might be. Ginny avows a suspicion that the Diary was not the first relic, and notes that it might be fruitful for Harry’s search if he were to return to Hogwarts.
Harry notes that he can’t very well search for the reliquaries and maintain the full schedule of a seventh-year Hogwarts student; as he does this within the hearing of Headmaster McGonagall and the Minister of Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour, who proposes a solution: Harry shall return to Hogwarts on a reduced class schedule, with additional duties as the Special Assistant to the new teacher for the Defense Against the Dark Arts. Harry agrees to this on the condition that StanShunpike be freed, without knowing who that teacher will be.
Labels: Anne Hathaway, Harry Potter, Mannion
Monday, February 12, 2007
Programming Note
by Ken Houghton
The comments are usually interesting, at least. (Occasionally moreso than the episodes.)
TiVo permitting, I'll be live at Mannion's place tonight, trying to explain why pc = wL + V s.t. T = L + l does not apply to Studio 60.
The comments are usually interesting, at least. (
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Before Reading My Flu-Finally-Fading Posts Below
by Ken Houghton
(Yes, this is a placeholder because I want to do variation on two of those posts; but the first is a primer to netiquette, and I only skipped the Lenny Briscoe post because I am and will be speechless, being able only to refer everyone to Madeleine's post on Jerry Orbach's death at her own blog before she basically moved to Eat Our Brains and Deep Genre.
Check out some of the brilliance of Lance Mannion.
(Yes, this is a placeholder because I want to do variation on two of those posts; but the first is a primer to netiquette, and I only skipped the Lenny Briscoe post because I am and will be speechless, being able only to refer everyone to Madeleine's post on Jerry Orbach's death at her own blog before she basically moved to Eat Our Brains and Deep Genre.
Labels: Harry Potter, Mannion, Oscars
