What the hell was I thinking when I doubted that the alcoholic rapist Trump appointed to head the Defense Dept would sail through confirmation? Did I really think a toad like Joni Ernst would show some spine? After a few calls from Magalomaniacs, she fell right into line.
It’s the best appointment ever! The lunacy is already gushing in. This is from the NYT yesterday:
Senator Rick Scott of Florida told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he was “disgusted” that the woman who alleged that Hegseth sexually assaulted her was not “willing to go on your show or some show and have you ask them all the questions.”
Tapper pointed out that Hegseth made her sign a nondisclosure agreement.
D’oh!
Are you dreaming of a brown Christmas? If you are, and you live in Rumford, Maine, your dreams have already come true. A malfunction at a paper mill caused the release of “spent black liquor” resulting in a brown snowfall.
Town officials took to Facebook to reassure residents that the public safety concern is “minimal.” But residents were advised — don’t ingest it or let it get on your skin, and don’t let your kids play with it. And your pets — keep your pets away from it. It’s perfectly safe though, absolutely.
Andy Spragg posted the following in the Dull Men’s Club (UK) along with the photo, below, which is of the cast of a popular old sitcom in Britain.
Good moaning. The time has come to tread another fine line between whinge and dull. I wish to raise the topic of my Huawei P30 Pro mobile phone. I bought it a couple of months ago on the basis of its superlative camera; if it hadn’t been for that USP, I would have given up on trying to commission it, a process involving replacing both the phone and the memory card I wanted to use with it before I finally got a combination that played nicely with each other. But that’s not important right now.
What I have observed is an apparent inverse correlation between the quality of the camera and the quality of the keyboard. I find myself having to constantly correct adjacent-key errors, a problem that I have never had on either of my two previous mobiles (yes, I know the rest of the world replaces their mobile every 18 months on average; I laugh in the face of such short-termism).
What makes it worse is that because three of the five vowels are adjacent to one another, it’s like being in an endless episode of ‘Allo ‘Allo (see cast, below). It’s possible, of course, that my digital proprioception suffered a step change for the worse at around the same time I changed to this new mobile, but I think most would agree that this is very much the less probable scenario.
Can we seriously countenance the possibility that keyboard quality (however that is implemented) has been skimped upon in order to provide unrivalled camera quality without excessive cost?
Jeremy Ping replied:
Gut moaning. In the photo the scene behind the cast is Lynford Hall, Mundford, Norfolk. For us, in years past, it was a favourite venue for occasional afternoon teas with very best friends. So when we eventually escaped to life in France we brought the boxed set of ‘Allo Allo’, as one must. I’m typing on my laptop because when it comes to the incumbent (Somsang Goloxé) mobile phone I can’t hit the correct ‘key’ for toffee. The old Blackberry had a slide-out physical key pad that was the greatest invention ever until the screen went green so I can’t gauge whether the camera is any good or not. Hope that helps.
Andy Spragg replied: Thank you, Joramy Pung, vory halpfil.
[BTW, the initialism USP, above, stands for “unique selling point.” The show Allo Allo ran for ten years up to 1992. It sounds great: “In France during World War II, René Artois runs a small café where Resistance fighters, Gestapo men, German Army officers and escaped Allied POWs interact daily, ignorant of one another’s true identity or presence, exasperating René.”]
Amazingly, the word Spraggs used above, proprioception, I only learned for the first time ever yesterday in the note about senses I included in OC. How does stuff like that happen?
David Polshaw of the DMC (UK) shared that a crossword puzzle he solved recently had what must be the dullest clue and answer ever. Clue: Sponge. Answer: Sponge. Andy Spragg took it further in his comment: That would be a great (one-off) crossword compiler’s trick: a crossword for which every answer is the same as the clue.
Rocco “Rocky” Colavito, Bronx boy, died on Tuesday at his home in Bernville PA. He was 91. He played most of his career with Cleveland, and it is in Cleveland’s Little Italy that a statue of him stands. He was honored by the-then-Indians on his 80th birthday with induction into their Hall of Fame.
Rocky was a respected slugger in his day, hitting 374 home runs, driving in 1,159 runs, and batting .266 lifetime. He was an All-Star nine times. He hit four homers in consecutive at-bats in Baltimore on June 10, 1959. Exactly 25 years later, to the day, Linda and Avi were married in Prospect Hall, Brooklyn, NY.
Indian GM Frank Lane stupidly traded Colavito to Detroit for Harvey Kuenn in a trade that rocked baseball and, some maintain, set a curse on Cleveland. They have not won the World Series since 1948. When pressed, Colavito insisted that he did not put a curse on the team. “Frank Lane did,” he said.
Remember the famous pine-tar incident with George Brett and Billy Martin in 1983? Colavito was very much involved. He was a coach for KC at the time and was ejected for arguing with the umps and trying to keep the bat from them.
Colavito returned to the Bronx in 1968 to end his career with a short stint with the Yankees. His skills had largely abandoned him by then, but he did hit a home run in his first game as a Yankee. And he came in to pitch for them once, pitched 2.2 scoreless innings, and earned the win when the Yanks rallied. He was the last position player to earn a win for over 30 years, until Brent Mayne did so in 2000.
Colavito was movie-star handsome and, as you can see below, quite a hit with the ladies.
He married his wife Carmen in 1954 and they were married for 70 years (!) until his death did them part. Carmen survives him along with their three kids, five grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and the entire city of Cleveland, grateful for its adopted son from the Bronx.
Speaking of baseball, Dick Allen and Dave Parker were voted into the Hall of Fame this week by the Classic Baseball Era Committee. Bravo, gentlemen — well-deserved. I was shocked, shocked, to learn that my autograph collection was missing both of these sluggers. OMG. I rectified it forthwith by finding two nice samples on ebay. Can’t wait for them to arrive!
As promised a few posts ago, here are Gillian and David:
Hope you’ve had your fill of nonsense for the day. See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 