Bag of Randomness for Thursday, March 1, 2018

  • Happy March, y’all.
  • That photo was taken by an actual Reuters photographer. When I first saw it, I thought it was photoshopped or some sort of manipulated imaged. Hope Hicks is only 29 and just resigned as the White House communications director. There’s a good chance that her career has peaked before she even turned thirty. Not in terms of money, but of status and prestige.
  • Anytime I eat at Denny’s, it’s Moons Over My Hammy for me.
  • I’ve never considered a tattoo, but sometimes I see people will tattoo over a scar and think it’s neat and imaginative with what they can come up with. The idea briefly entered my mind since I will now have a scar from my back surgery. However, after a second or two I realized it I would look nothing more than a chubby guy with a tramp stamp.
  • I’m not a fan of President Trump, but I do like it when he allows cameras in the Roosevelt Room when he’s meeting with both parties and the House and Senate. The public gets to observe our elected representatives talk face-to-face on the record. It’s a tiny bit like Parliament, direct conversation instead of speaking to one another through the media.
  • The White House chief calligrapher has a higher clearance than Jared Kushner – Despite the catchy headline, an interesting history of the White House calligrapher is provided.
  • How Beto O’Rourke Explains America – Most voters have never heard of him. He’s running against Ted Cruz. And a Texas Democrat hasn’t won a statewide election in nearly 25 years. So why the hell does the El Paso congressman think he has a shot to win a Senate seat?
  • If you often work with PDFs and wonder about it’s past or future, this may be a read for you. – The story of the PDF, the portable document format that’s become one of the internet’s defining information formats. It’ll be with us after we’re long gone.
  • There have been six in Oscar history. Here’s what they were, and how PricewaterhouseCoopers plans for the drama.
  • D Magazine – Dallas’ Vanishing Middle Class, Mapped
  • I loved last night’s ‘X-Files’. The subject matter was very timely with the release of ‘Black Mirror’s “Metal Head” and the Boston Dynamics robot dog which can open a door.
    • Like ‘Black Mirror’s “Metal Head”, this episode had a very limited cast of humans and dialogue. I don’t think Mulder or Scully said a single word to each other for the first 25-minutes of the show, and they were the only two humans you saw until the end. “Metal Head”, if memory serves, only used three human actors.
    • I loved that Scully had a personal massager. It added something to the character and was a nice moment of comic relief.
    • The episode focused on the future of AI and our current reliance on technology. That said, it was funny to see Mulder have to rely on a Mapsco at one point.
  • For Asian Americans, the 2018 Winter Olympics brought unexpected joy and familiar anger
  • I thought this was a great image of Dirk, comparing his signature shot from today to his youth.
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Bag of Randomness For The Last Day Of February 2018

  • When it comes to removing dog poop from the bottom of your shoes, a good way doesn’t exist.
  • I know a handful of you are great meat smokers and barbequers, so I wanted y’all two give me your two cents on this offset smoker/pizza oven /grill contraption this guy made. After clicking the link, be sure to scroll down for more pics.
  • How Has Stephen Hawking Beat the Odds Against ALS? – ‘The honest answer is, we don’t have a clue.’
  • The Cowboys donated some cheerleading stuff to the Smithsonian. The most interesting thing to me was the original sketch of the uniform.
  • In other Cowboys news, they decided to opt-out of the NFL ticketing deal with Ticketmaster and agreed to terms with SeatGeek to be their box office partner, and will take 15% of the company.
  • Kiefer Sutherland
    • He was on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” last night and stated his full name, and this isn’t a joke, is Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland. He also said he has a twin sister.
    • I’ve been binge-watching HBO’s ‘Veep’ with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and discovered the daughter in the show is a bit of Hollywood royalty. She is played by Kiefer’s daughter. That makes three generations of Sutherlands I’ve watched over the years – Donald, Kiefer, and now Sarah Sutherland. Donald (82 years old) and Kiefer (51) have been in three films together, it would be neat if they could get on screen with Sarah (30) on day.
  • I caught a ‘Nightline’ segment about a fashion social media personality who gets paid to post. To my surprise, they are required to disclose if what they are posting is a paid ad:
    • “Last year the Federal Trade Commission stepped in to control transparency, reminding social influencers they’re required to disclose paid posts.”
  • The Toughest Oscar Vote of All: Deciding Who Gets into “In Memoriam”
  • My Taper’s Keeper: Inside the World of NBA Barbers
  • This is cool. Here’s (YouTube) the backstory.
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Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, February 27, 2018

  • We had Hamburger Helper for the first time in a long time. So long, in fact, it was the first time the kids ever ate it. I think Hamburger Helper is one of those foods that taste better as a leftover than when it’s first cooked.
  • I never really thought about it before, but the smallest state in our union is more populous than our largest state.
  • Local Republican commercials:
    • I’m not a Republican nor do I live in any of these districts so I’m just observing from the sidelines.
    • I think incumbent Phillip Huffines is winning in the television commercial sector over Angela Paxton. Angela is the wife of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who is under indictment on criminal charges for securities fraud. The race is the most expensive state Senate race in Texas.
    • Incumbent Charlie Geren is airing a creepy and annoying commercial. The commercial references the late “American Sniper” Chris Kyle’s widow almost repeatedly and how his opponent wronged her. It also shows a paper cutout of his opponent’s face placed in front of the keyhole of the front door as the doorbell is rung repeatedly. It’s the latter which ticks me off because it drives DogGeedingII nuts.
    • I’m not a fan of Dan Patrick, but I think he’s running positive and smart commercials.
  • Dallas Morning News interactive – Secrets of Dallas’ Dead – Autopsies give glimpse into how Dallas County residents died — and how they lived
  • Time to vent about something and be somewhat jovial about it, so don’t think this is directed any anyone and don’t take this personally:
    • When it comes to making the bed every morning, I prefer substance or function over fashion or style (or whatever the correct saying is), no matter what Admiral McRaven may say. It makes no sense to make your bed if no one is going to see it. It’s not practical or efficient when you are just going to get into bed again and mess it all up. Some make the faulty argument it provides some sort of sense of accomplishment you can build on. OK, sure, it might make you feel good. You know what else you can do? Bush your teeth every morning. Not only will brushing your teeth provide a sense of accomplishment, but you also improve your hygiene and strengthen your teeth. I replaced every instance of “make your bed” with “brush your teeth” in McRaven’s speech and found I improved it. Hey, if you want to make your bed because you simply prefer it made, go for it, just don’t sound like a condescending two-bit motivational speaker telling me it will make my life better, we have Tony Robbins and Joel Osteen for that.
    • Grima
    • Note: I actually really like and admire McRaven. And once again, I’m just trying to jovially vent about a saying which annoys me. We all have “that” something. I’m not calling anyone out or trying to take any personal shots.
  • The creative director of Medieval Times did a Reddit Ask Me Anything yesterday. I learned they breed their own horses on a ranch outside of Sanger, TX and anyone who interacts with the horses reviews and signs a horse treatment contract annually.
  • It’s hard to not like Jennifer Lawrence. She was a delight on last night’s ‘Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ and on ’60 Minutes’.
  • Random celebrity death prediction for 2018 – Barbara Walters, sometime in the early fall, perhaps late September or early October, close to the World Series.
  • Kevin Smith wrote about his massive heart attack on his Instagram account and shared some insightful thoughts about his encounter with death. Here’s a little bit of what he shared:
    • if I hadn’t canceled the second show to go to the hospital, the Doc said I would’ve died tonight. For now, I’m still above ground! But this is what I learned about myself during this crisis: death was always the thing I was most terrified of in life. When the time came, I never imagined I’d ever be able to die with dignity – I assumed I’d die screaming, like my Dad (who lost his life to a massive heart attack). But even as they cut into my groin to slip a stent into the lethal Widow-Maker, I was filled with a sense of calm. I’ve had a great life: loved by parents who raised me to become the individual I am. I’ve had a weird, wonderful career in all sorts of media, amazing friends, the best wife in the world and an incredible daughter who made me a Dad. But as I stared into the infinite, I realized I was relatively content.
  • 1988 – The Year That Changed Hip-Hop Forever
  • I’m reminded of a certain birth certificate fiasco the U.S. when through – Rumor that Justin Trudeau is Fidel Castro’s love child leads Canadian government to issue denial
  • Monica Lewinsky wrote a piece for Vanity Fair and opens with an interesting tidbit. In a chance encounter at a New York restaurant on Christmas Eve of last year, she met Ken Starr for the very first time. That’s right, they never met. While their exchange was respectful, it wasn’t necessarily pleasant for her:
    • I found myself shaking his hand even as I struggled to decipher the warmth he evinced. After all, in 1998, this was the independent prosecutor who had investigated me, a former White House intern; the man whose staff, accompanied by a group of F.B.I. agents (Starr himself was not there), had hustled me into a hotel room near the Pentagon and informed me that unless I cooperated with them I could face 27 years in prison.
    • Ken Starr asked me several times if I was “doing O.K.” A stranger might have surmised from his tone that he had actually worried about me over the years. His demeanor, almost pastoral, was somewhere between avuncular and creepy. He kept touching my arm and elbow, which made me uncomfortable.
    • I turned and introduced him to my family. Bizarre as it may sound, I felt determined, then and there, to remind him that, 20 years before, he and his team of prosecutors hadn’t hounded and terrorized just me but also my family—threatening to prosecute my mom (if she didn’t disclose the private confidences I had shared with her), hinting that they would investigate my dad’s medical practice, and even deposing my aunt, with whom I was eating dinner that night. 
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