After dinner Saturday night, we finally watched the typeface geek movie Helvetica.
Chances are pretty good that if Helvetica is the type of movie you enjoy seeing, you’ve already seen it. But if not, and you’re interested in fonts, it is indeed worth watching.
A few random topics that came up during conversation at dinner and during the movie:
(I saw it on Gail Carriger’s Facebook feed; not sure of the original source.)
Someone needs to do a reality TV show featuring all the people claiming their father was the Zodiac killer living together in the same house. It would be like The Three Christs of Ypsilanti, except, you know, sleazy.
For the season finale they could battle the people who claim their fathers were the Black Dahlia killer in some sort of trash sports obstacle course…
Here’s the official trailer for Cold in July, the film based on the Joe R. Lansdale novel starring Michael C. Hall, Sam Shepard and Don Johnston.
I hear Joe himself is pleased with it, and his daughter Kasey has a song on the soundtrack.
Pretty promising.
I recently got a packet on my doorstop that included a small square flyer that read “If you or someone you love has been damaged by psychiatric treatment…Please call the CITIZENS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS”. Plus a number to call.
For the edification of those who received such a flyer and who were previously unaware of “Citizens Commission on Human Rights,” you should know that they are a font group for the Church of Scientology.
Personally I think most psychiatric theory (as opposed to neurochemistry) is little better than pseudoscience, but if you have been damaged by psychiatric treatment, you’d probably be a lot better off contacting the state Attorney General than inviting Scientology into your lives…
It takes a certain kind of fool to act like a desperado and stab a roommate for listening to The Eagles. She just said “I don’t want to hear any more” and went all stabby.
They’d been roommates and lovers before, so it’s not like he was the new kid in town. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had threatened to do it one of these nights before, but no, he had to take it to the limit. Stabbing him was probably the last resort, and now he’s suffering a heartache tonight, spending a lot of wasted time as a victim of love.
That’s life in the fast lane for you.
(Hat tip: Bill Crider.)
The Seattle Times has various documents up about her life, to see if anyone out there can figure out who she actually was.
Here’s the fascinating mystery behind Lori Ruff’s life. For starters, Lori Ruff wasn’t Lori Ruff: she had changed her name from Becky Sue Turner.
The problem is, she wasn’t Becky Sue Turner either, since the real Becky Sue died in 1971.
Her story “traces a path through California and Nevada, Idaho and Arizona and finally Texas.”
As of now, they still don’t know her real name.
I’m surprised that neither Dwight nor Murray Newman picked up on this one. Lonnie Blevins, a former investigator at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, has been charged with stealing over $140,000 worth of vintage comic books. The comic books were purportedly taken from evidence seized from Anthony Chiofalo, a lawyer accused of embezzling more than $9 million from a client. Chiofalo’s own lawyer says it’s possible more than $1 million worth of collectables was taken from his client.
When Blevins (allegedly) tried to sell them for about half their value at a Chicago comics convention the dealer became suspicious. To allay their suspicions, Blevins “let them photograph his Texas driver’s license and showed his badge proving he was an investigator with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.”
It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to crack this case. I could actually see this working if he was very careful and only sold one or two titles at various shows or shops, maybe mixed in with a few lesser titles he purchased. (I’d be interested in hearing some of the titles he allegedly tried to fence.) But trying to sell a whole bunch of valuable comics all at once? Yeah, that’s going to raise some flags.
More on Chiofalo’s collection, which included “a baseball signed by Babe Ruth, a first edition Playboy and the first ever Batman comic book, worth about $900,000…a boxing robe worn by Muhammad Ali, a signed first edition of Mario Puzo’s novel, The Godfather, and a baseball helmet signed by Pete Rose.”
(Hat tip: Doug Potter’s Facebook page.)
Whenever the topic of performance enhancing drugs come up, I’ve always half-seriously said that my working assumption is that all professional athletes are doping, a position that renders me immune to disappointment when someone tests positive for a PED
However, looking at the Wikipedia entry for “Doping at the Tour de France,” it appears that my supposition is in fact pretty much correct, at least for cycling. In particular, not only did every winner between 1991 and 2007 test positive at one point or another, but in 2006, every top 10 finisher was either caught doping, admitted doping, or accused of doping. And the very earliest races were soaked in alcohol, ether, strychnine and cocaine.
Was it Jon Stewart who said “The first sign that Lance Armstrong was doping when he won the Tour de France? He won the Tour de France!”
I know the Chiefs are sucking pretty bad this year, but shooting up the place won’t help.
Arrowhead Stadium is on lockdown and one player has reportedly been shot.
Putting this up mainly because I’m not seeing anything on Google News yet.
Live updates at the Arrowhead pride blog.
Update: Police are saying it was a player killing his girlfriend, then committing suicide at the facility. Unconfirmed reports are that player was linebacker Jovan Belcher.
Update 2: Confirmed? “A team source tells Jason La Canfora that LB Jovan Belcher was involved in a shooting at the team’s facility.”
Update 3: Confirmed: ” A player on the Kansas City Chiefs shot and killed his girlfriend early Saturday before shooting and killing himself at the team facility, according to police. The Kansas City Star, citing police, identified the player as 25-year-old linebacker Jovan Belcher. FOXSports.com’s Alex Marvez reports that a Chiefs source has also confirmed Belcher as the player.”
Update 4: There’s a lot of strangeness to this murder/suicide. First, Belcher reportedly killed his girlfriend overher her staying out late at a concert. Second, Belcher reportedly drove to Arrowhead stadium to thank coach Romeo Crennel and general manager Scott Pioli for everything they had done before killing himself in front of them. I know some things should be said in person, but I think in this case both of them would have preferred an email.
Only good news? Belcher and his girlfriend’s infant daughter is safe, though obviously orphaned.