Crap. I'm Old.

The Michael Jackson albumThriller was released 30 years ago.



The video came out a year later. Cable TV was in its infancy, compared to today. Most TV viewers received over-the-airwaves broadcasts; even HBO was usually broadcast in metro areas. And the comparatively few people who saw music videos saw ones where th bands were playing and maybe some scantily-clad women were dancing around the musicians. The video of Thriller changed everything.

Didn't Take Inspector Clouseau to Solve These Crimes

By now, you would think that everybody should know that downloading and possessing kiddie porn is a major-ass felony.

So you have to wonder why guys who are into child porno would even think to apply to become cops. It would be like applying to work for the DEA and listing, as a previous job, "retail narcotic sales".

But guys do it. One such clown applied to the FBI, others applied to the MO State Highway Patrol, the Chippies and the San Diego police.

These guys are even dumber than the crooks in the wind and deadbeat dads who show up to collect supposed winnings in some drawing.

Your Earworm; Dumb Ways to Die Edition

From our friends on the far side of the world:

You Gotta Be Shitting Me: Tom Cruise as "Jack Reacher"?

I saw this commercial last night and thought: Seriously? Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher??

(The commercial's been yanked, so here's the trailer)

If you've read any of the books, you'll know this: Jack Reacher is a seriously big guy. He's 6'5", weighs in at 250lbs and has a 50 inch chest. Reacher's face is plain to the point of being nearly ugly.

Tom Cruise is ten inches shorter (even when he's wearing heels lifts), probably a hundred pounds lighter and a hell of a lot prettier. Compared to the Jack Reacher of the books, Cruise should be wearing curled-toed shoes and singing about being in the Lollipop Guild. He has to be close to the worst possible actor to take on the role. It'd be like filming the story of the RMS Titanic by using a forty-foot Chris-Craft to stand in for the ship.

Reacher is big enough to have deliberately taken a .38 Special slug in the chest and then beaten the shooter to death. You could probably drop Tom Cruise with a single shot to the chest from a .25 ACP.[1]

Even Ashton Kucher would be better, for at least he's reasonably tall. Jack Reacher doesn't exactly have a wide emotional range; there are at least half-a-dozen guys in the WWF who, with a little bit of acting training, could pull it off.[2] There are at least two or three times that many in the NFL. About the only way to cast the role of Jack Reacher worse would be to have Katherine Heigl play the part.[3]

I'm not a big fan of the Jack Reacher series. After a few, they seemed to be cookie-cutter books that can be read the same way as a Louis L'Amour western: Read the first chapter, the last chapter and five random pages inbetween.

But I don't see how a Reacher fan could watch this movie without either laughing uproariously or stalking out in seething anger.
_____________________________________________
[1] As Jeff Cooper supposedly said about having a .25: "Don't load it. If you load it, you might shoot it, and if you shoot it, you might hit someone. If you hit someone, they will be very, very mad at you."
[2] They already know how to act a litle.
[3] Heigl could probably handle the emotional range. Maybe.

I'm Shocked, Shocked, to Learn That "Voter Fraud" Was a Cover For Voter Suppression By the GOP.

Big surprise, eh?

“The Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants, they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates,” [Former FL GOP Chairman Jim] Greer told The Post. “It’s done for one reason and one reason only. … ‘We’ve got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us,’ ” Greer said he was told by those staffers and consultants. “They never came in to see me and tell me we had a (voter) fraud issue,” Greer said. “It’s all a marketing ploy.”

It was all a cover for the largest voter suppression campaign since the poll tax. But they screamed "Acorn, Fraud" repeatedly on Fox News, Hate Radio and all of the fellow-traveling blogs and what not.

The smart ones knew what they were doing, but all of the Teabaggers and other Wingnuts, the useful idiots of the corporatists and the plutocrats, swallowed their bullshit hook, line, sinker and fishing pole. And for most of those clowns, they'll go to their graves believing that in-person voter fraud was a grave threat.

Night Flying

I wasn't going to write this post, but a comment on an earlier post changed my mind. Roughly ten percent of my flying time is night VFR, which means that I might know enough to be slightly dangerous.

First off, have flashlights. If you're not sure if you have enough flashlights, carry more. A chemlight tube or two can work as backup panel lights.

Second, raise your limits for weather. "Legal", according to FAR 91.155, will probably get you killed. I want better than five thousand and five if I am going to do pattern work and double that if I am leaving the pattern. Keep an eye on the temperature/dewpoint spread and be aware that if it is not terribly great, evening cooling can bring ground fog.

Third, night VFR is kinda-sorta-instrument flight. No, you don't need to lock onto the gauges, but the "six pack" should be in your scan. Especially out over rural areas and on moonless nights, which way is up isn't always going to be readily apparent.

Fourth, use all of the tools. If your airport has a localizer, tune it in. If your airplane have the gear for it, use the glideslope. Obviously, if the airport has VASI or PAPI, use it.

Now for some really opinionated stuff:

If you are not going to use any one tool for landing on a lit runway at night, don't use the landing lights. Landing lights can encourage "spotting", or focusing only on the area that is lit up. You need to consider the entire runway and keep your visual focus on the far end, just like you did when you were learning to land. If you are not comfortable landing without a landing light, then go get some more dual instruction.

This is also a matter of self-preservation: Other than the new (and very costly) LED landing lights, if any light is going to burn out in flight, it's probably going to be the landing light. The incandescent ones have a lifetime of maybe 10-20 hours, the halogen ones last longer.

Unless you have terrain issues, then this is the time to be flying like you have elderly nuns for passengers and nitroglycerine for cargo. Fly gently. Don't do steep "cowboy" turns, for that way lies vertigo. Don't hang on the prop in a climb. And your approaches should be stable like the jet drivers do it; motor on calmly down the glideslope and cut power when you're over the threshold. If you're too high, don't descend rapidly, go around and get set right.

Whatever you do, don't go low on the glideslope. Go around and do it right the next time.

Remember, the airplane can't tell the difference between day and night. It's all up to you.

A Little Night Work

Sunset is now before 5PM in these parts, which means that it is time for night flying. These are the flashlights that I have with me on a night flight:

The two mini-maglights with cords attached have red filters. I wear one of them around my neck. The other two are unfiltered.

The D-cell flashlight has multiple uses. I use it for preflighting, of course. With the butt end in a door side pocket, the wand makes a useful cabin red emergency floodlight if the panel lights fail. And it is very good for walking around a dark ramp to ensure that I am seen by other people.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

The VC-10 went out of airline service over 30 years ago. The RAF intends to retire theirs next year.

New York Times to Obama: "Now That You've Been Re-Elected, Please Commit Political Suicide."

Sometimes you have to wonder if they purposefully put political idiots onto the editorial board of the Times. For only those kind of fools could come up with this:

[I]n his first term, Mr. Obama did nothing to cross the gun lobby, and he actually signed legislation allowing loaded firearms to be carried in national parks. Let’s hope Mr. Obama shows more courage on guns in his second term.

Even those oxygen-deprived morons on West 43rd know that nothing would be done without Congress and that the House is in Republican hands. Not to mention that there are Democratic senators from states where passing new gun control legislation would be a sure-fire guarantee of defeat the next time they ran.

But hey, those knuckleheads on the editorial board probably live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It's a good bet that unless they were in the service, none of them has ever seen a gun that wasn't either in a cop's holster or in a thug's hand. They likely suffer heart palpitations at the notion of anyone having a concealed carry permit.

Caturday; Retro Edition

This is my 8,000th post on this blog. It seems appropriate that it be a Caturday post. All of the photos for today are almost eight years old.

This was George. I'm not sure how he got up on that vanity shelf.

Gracie was wrapped up in a fleece blanket.

This was Teddy. Back in the `90s, there was a big black feral tomcat in the neighborhood; it was possible that he was the father to both George and Teddy.

Teddy and Rocky. Teddy was seven months older than Rocky and Rocky adored him. Rocky was Gracie's half-brother from a litter 18 months later.

Teddy had a short life because of struvite crystals. He was a trouper about it, even putting up with a regimen of subcutaneous hydration. He died in 2006. Gracie, George and Rocky all passed earlier this year.

For this post, it seemed appropriate to remember them.