The start of the NFL season sort of snuck up on me while I was out of town.
The loser update will return sometime on Tuesday (should be back by then) to allow for the results of the Monday night games.
Loser update update.
September 13th, 2026Obit watch.
September 8th, 2026Still on the road, but I want to get a quick post up now.
I just found out that one of my close friends was murdered yesterday.
I don’t have a lot of details. There have some press reports, but they don’t name the victim. Law enforcement is still carrying out the notification of the family, as far as I know.
Once I have more details, I’ll post a full obit here and at the SDC blog.
Road trip!
September 7th, 2026Traveling once again. Blogging will be intermittent until September 14th or possibly later.
TMI Bagatelle. (#148)
September 4th, 2026Inspired by “Hey Borepatch – Nice Gleason score!” and a recent medical report, which states:
The Boston Bowel Prep Scale score total is 9.
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A Boston Bowel Preparation Scale (BBPS) score of 9 is the highest possible score, meaning your colon was completely clean and provided an ideal view during your procedure.
Remember that test they gave you in school? “I AM THE BEST AT FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS!”.
(I brought this up with several of the nurses, right before they shot me full of Michael Jackson juice, and they all remembered it, too.)
(Also, folks: get yourself checked out. Dave Barry would approve, but I don’t think he’s sending out those certificates any longer.)
Quel fromage!
September 2nd, 2026Previously on WCD:
Guess what? I was wrong, WRONG, wrongity-wrong!
The NBA on Wednesday announced severe punishments for the LA Clippers — including the loss of five future first-round picks and a fine of $30 million — for violating salary cap circumvention rules when they signed star Kawhi Leonard in 2022.
In a statement, the NBA said a near-yearlong investigation “found a pattern of misconduct and multiple significant rules violations by the Clippers organization, a prior offender of the salary cap circumvention rules.”
There are some other penalties, too. The one that jumps out at me:
Owner Steve Ballmer is suspended from all league and team activities for one year.
Obit watch: September 1, 2026.
September 1st, 2026Roger Beasley, prominent Austin automotive dealer.
Wendell Berry, agrarian writer. NYT (share link, may require registration or an email address or something). I’ve never read any of his books, but he published articles in the old “Country Journal” back when my people subscribed to it. I thought he was an interesting guy, but frankly kind of a crank.
Not quite an obit, but:
Quotes of the day.
August 31st, 2026Yes, more than one.
“Ferret people, we are a lot,” said Michele Paulhus, who drove her ferrets from Massachusetts to the show in Columbus, Ohio. “You kind of have to be because they are freakish little animals.”
“But I don’t think we’re as bad as the reptile people,” said her friend Skyla Fay.
Wait, wait. It’s not legal to lock a 2-year-old or a teenager in a cage? Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?
Obit watch: August 30, 2026.
August 30th, 2026Borepatch put up an excellent obit for Dolly Parton, much better than anything I’ve written or could write. I strongly, strongly encourage you to go over and read it.
(I’d never heard the “my aunt had a sofa just like it” story before. And it made me laugh. Hard.)
The NYT has a nice obit for Azriel Blackman (may require registration or an email address or something).
Mr. Blackman is another one of those people who wasn’t necessarily famous, but who the paper of record does a good job of covering.
He was an airline mechanic for American Airlines. He worked for them for 80 years.
No, that’s not a typo. Eighty years. Eight. Zero.
The first aircraft he worked on was the amphibious Sikorsky flying boat. He serviced more than a dozen kinds of planes over the next eight decades, including the Douglas DC-3, the Convair CV-240, the Lockheed Constellation, the Boeing 377 and the McDonnell Douglas MD-80.
After enlisting in the Army, he served in the Korean War, repairing helicopters for Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals. Following his discharge in 1952, he returned to American at LaGuardia, then moved as a crew chief to New York International Airport, better known as Idlewild Airport, in 1960, three years before it was renamed for President Kennedy.
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In 2012, American honored Mr. Blackman’s tenure by flying him around New York City in a restored, propeller-driven DC-3, part of the airline’s fleet that carried passengers between the mid-1930s and the late 1940s. He sat in the cockpit as it flew along the Hudson River, over Central Park and past the former site of Aviation High.
“He was taken aback by all of that,” his son said. “He didn’t really know how to accept praise of that magnitude. In his mind, he didn’t feel he had done anything extraordinary. He loved going to work. He considered the people he worked with family, and it was enjoyment to him. That was his real reward.”
He was 100 when he passed.
Random crankery.
August 29th, 2026First off, a matter of somewhat pecuniary interest, since I’d like to keep good relations with Jacob and the Widener’s blog folks.
Jacob was kind enough to send over a link to a recent post: “1986 VS 2026: Guns And Ammo Pricing“.
Jacob goes through and compares prices between 1986 and 2026, and does some historical and cultural analysis of the changes during that period (the rise of the Internet, regulatory factors, panic buying after certain events, etc.)
In 1986, a box of 9mm cost $22.50, or about $0.45 per round.
In 2026, it averages $10.00 per box, or $0.20 per round.
Even without adjusting for inflation, that’s a dramatic decrease. When adjusted for inflation, 9mm is significantly cheaper today than it was in the 1980s.
My main quibble with Jacob here is: that’s really the only place where he mentions “adjusted for inflation”. Though he does say:
Firearms: Moderately more expensive, but roughly in line with inflation
I would have liked to see more of a breakdown of this.
The two inflation calculators I use are: the US Inflation Calculator and the CPI Inflation Calculator from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
If we plug some of Jacob’s numbers into those calculators and compare 1986 to 2026 dollars:
- The $249 in 1986 Glock 17 would be $758.63 in 2026. A veritable bargain, since Jacob has it for $649!
- The $79 Ruger 10/22 would be $240.69 today. MSRP on the cheapest 10/22 I could find on Ruger’s site is $339, Jacob has it for $349 (which is also correct: Ruger has various models with various prices, of course.)
- The Colt AR-15 Carbine that was $499 would go for $1,520.30 adjusted for inflation today. I find it hard to do a direct comparison, because so much depends on configuration, but MidwayUSA lists a Colt AR15A4 for $1136.41. Another bargain! (Jacob has it for $1,099.)
- Your $5.49 .22 LR ammo would come out to $16.73 in 2026 dollars.
That’s probably enough examples. I’ll leave additional analysis as an exercise for the reader. I’ll note that both of the calculators I use gave exactly the same numbers for the 1986-2026 comparisons: I suspect they draw from the same source. Generally, $1 in 1986 is equal to $3.05 today, so you can use that as a factor when doing your math.
I like Jacob’s post. I just think it would be worthwhile to do a direct 1986-2026 dollar value comparison as part of the analysis. Jacob (or anyone else, for that matter) is welcome to flame me in comments if they think I’m wrong.
After the jump, a couple of books, mostly because I’m done with them and would like to move them from the downstairs stack to the upstairs shelves.
Obit watch: August 28, 2026.
August 28th, 2026I am reliably informed by a reliable source who sent me a private message (that I don’t have permission to share here) that “Rocky Horror Picture Show” is actually still a thing, in Austin and in Washington, DC. (“The wash dc monthly showings still draw hundreds of people.”)
It is nice to leave a legacy behind you.
NYT obit for Jaye P. Morgan, for the record. (May require registration or an email address or something.)
King Harald V of Norway (NYT share link, yadda yadda.)
This is an interesting obit. The king’s daughter-in-law was close to Jeffrey Epstein. Her son is serving time for rape. And his daughter married “a self-proclaimed shaman who counted Gwyneth Paltrow among his celebrity clients and friends.”
Several people sent me obits for voice actor Peter Cullen: NYT (you know the drill). The Internet Movie Voice Actor Database.
And a burning in Hell watch: Ratko Mladic, the “Butcher of Bosnia”.
On the eve of the Srebrenica massacre, he promised to avenge the conquest of Serbia centuries before by the Ottoman Muslim Turks. Over 10 days, his soldiers hunted down, captured and summarily executed thousands of Bosnian Muslims, lining them up with hands tied behind their backs and shooting them. Women were raped. International pleas for restraint were ignored.
Serb forces buried the remains, dug them up again and scattered them in distant mass graves in an organized effort to hide damning evidence of war crimes.
Obit watch: August 27, 2026.
August 27th, 2026Tim Curry. NYT share link (may require registration or an email address or something).
Oddly, I have never seen “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. I didn’t move in the right circles when I was in school, and now it seems like that particular moment has passed.
Other credits include “Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties”, the 2000 “Charlie’s Angels”, “The Blues Brothers Animated Series“, and “Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain”.
The NFL Pro Bowl. Awful Announcing. Enough said.
Obit watch: August 26, 2026.
August 26th, 2026Dolly Parton. NYT share link (may require registration or an email address or something).
Everyone was on this yesterday: I held off, per the policy of this blog, and I think pretty much everything that can be said has been, or will be. I only have two thoughts:
1. I know this isn’t original to Ms. Parton (it’s actually a cover of a Neil Young song, with a slightly modified lyric) but I find this to be incredibly haunting.
2. She was a zealous advocate of literacy. She wanted to put books in kid’s hands. I swear I read somewhere (but can’t find it now) that she believed books were the best way for kids to broaden their horizons and lift themselves up from poverty.
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. You know, just in case you feel like tossing a few bucks in.
Dolly Parton’s letter to Eminem.
In other news: Jaye P. Morgan. Yes, from “The Gong Show”. (Kids, ask your parents about “The Gong Show”.)
You are not going to space today.
August 24th, 2026Dana Brown out as general manager of the Houston Astros.
The Chron calls it a mutual parting of the ways, but it sure sounds like a firing to me.
ESPN.
Obit watch: August 24, 2026.
August 24th, 2026Shelley Fabares, actress. THR.
Previously on WCD. Credits other than those in the headline and “Hello, Larry” include “The Incredible Hulk”, “The Rockford Files”, and “Longstreet”.
Her “Mannix” was “A Step in Time“, season 5, episode 3. She was “Gwen Townsend”.
(Edited to add 8/25: NYT share link, may require registration or an email address or something.)
Dave Marsh, cantankerous music critic. (NYT share link, may require registration or an email address or something.)
Another one of the publications that I used to read when I holed up in the UT library was “Rock & Roll Confidential”. I liked Marsh’s prose style, even if I would probably have disagreed with him on a lot of things. Then again…
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#161 in a series)
August 21st, 2026Before I begin this latest entry, I want to give folks a brief peek behind the scenes of how the sausage is made.
Every once in a while, I run across a story that might be blog worthy, but that I won’t blog because I think the details are just too much for my readers, even with a warning. There was a flaming hyena I saw the other day, but didn’t blog for exactly that reason. I realize my readers are all adults (well, I hope so anyway), but there’s just some things that I don’t feel like I need to blog.
This story is right on the edge, for what that’s worth.
William Monroe Palmer is the president of the “San Francisco Sheriff’s Department Oversight Board”.
Allegedly, he picked up the young woman two days later, (allegedly) got her into his car, (allegedly) took her back to his place, and (allegedly) spent the next five days smoking drugs and having sex with her.
At one point, she was told she had to be resuscitated from an overdose. The drug use made her unsure in her decision-making, she said.
“I felt hesitant, but I took my clothes off because he told me to take my clothes off,” she said. “I felt very messed up, I couldn’t tell if I wanted to have sex or not.”
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Meanwhile, her mother reported her missing on July 3, panicking about her daughter’s whereabouts. Four days later, an unidentified man called the mother and said her daughter was at an art studio near Market Street.
The mom called the police, who found both her daughter and Palmer together. Officers handcuffed Palmer and placed the woman in a mental health hold, but he was eventually released.
But wait, there’s more.
Palmer later tried to visit the woman at San Francisco General Hospital using his official position, but was turned away. He reportedly even emailed the district attorney’s office that he was “deeply” concerned about how police had ended his “trauma-informed intervention” in the woman’s life.
According to Palmer, he said he took care of the woman. He spotted her and got her out of a situation she didn’t belong in, he said. He allegedly took her to acupuncture sessions, and Palmer said he gave her a drink that he claimed turned people into a “total different person.”
“I’m her life coach,” Palmer told the Chronicle. “I talked to her and told her the things that she needed to hear to snap out of the lifestyle she was in and to get into the life that she wants to be in.”
He refused to confirm whether he had sex or did drugs with her.
But wait, there’s more.
But wait, there’s more. He was appointed to the board because they were looking “to include people with ‘lived experience’ to shape the jail system.” What was his “lived experience”? If you said “doing time”, take two gold stars and advance to the next blue square.
He had served 31 years of a life sentence in prison for a crime he committed as a teenager.
There’s an effort underway to remove him, but (quel fromage!) that’s not an easy thing for the SF Board of Supervisors to do.
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