Month: July 2002

It turns out that British doctor who liked offing his patients ended up killing at least 215 of them. That’s getting into real-life Henry Lee Lucas territory.
If you’re crazy and would like to kill lots of folks, becoming a doctor’s a pretty good way to do it. Reminded me of the last big story I did for my old newspaper, about Michael Swango — the British doc’s American counterpart. (James B. Stewart from the Journal wrote a great book about the Swango case.)

Another assignment for faithful crabwalk.com readers! As part of the newspaper‘s continuing youth push, I’ll be writing occasionally for the Texas Living section. My first assignment is for a new occasional column called “Cheap Date,” in which Your Hero goes out on a date somewhere in the Metroplex and spends less than $30. Creativity is encouraged.
If anyone has a great idea on how to have a night on the town for two on three sawbucks, please let me know. I need inspiration. (By the way, evidently one quick path to a cheap date — she pays — won’t work here. We’re talking $30 total expenditure. I guess that means The Mansion‘s out.)

Reason No. 3,972 Google is better than cheeseburgers: I’m sitting at someone else’s computer this week as I work on a dallasnews.com project, and his version of IE is hosed. Everytime you enter a URL in the address bar, it crashes. But you can click through links on other pages with impunity. So (a) Google’s skill at “I Feel Lucky” lets me skip the address bar in most cases, and (b) when I can’t, all I have to do is enter the address in the search field — the error page always includes a link to that URL.
Sorry, folks — this may be the most boring post in crabwalk.com history. They can’t all be about murderous relatives, you know.

It’s always good to read your first cousin (twice removed) has been arrested for hiring a hit man to kill his daughter.

Even an Apple nut like me can’t help but be underwhelmed by today’s Macworld keynote. OS X 10.2 looks nice and all, but $129? For a 10.x upgrade? When the whole operating system, built from scratch, cost only $99? No discount for early adopters? Geez. I might just wait for 10.3 — the feature set seems underwhelming. (An AOL-compatible IM app — already plenty of those out there. Sherlock 3 — blah. A better Mail.app — still not up to par with Eudora or Entourage. Et cetera.)
The only highlight: the entry-level iPod is finally down to $299, which might make me turn my technolust into credit card debt.
(In other OS X news, RealPlayer is finally in beta — that leaves Photoshop as the only Classic app I ever use. And Palm sync for Office v.X is also finally a reality.)

Anybody notice that Morocco invaded Spain the other day?
Other fun geography links:
– How did I miss the creation of a new ocean? What was I doing in the spring of 2000 that was so distracting that could make me miss a new ocean?
– Who owns the Northwest Passage? (I vote Jamaica.)

Once again, I’m a little behind: Behind the Music that Sucks.

Yahoo! Mail edits your email. (Although I tried to repeat the bug/feature detailed and couldn’t get it to happen.)
For example, if your HTML newsletter contains the sentence “A common expression in the English language,” and you send this newsletter to a Yahoo Mail account, the sentence will actually be changed to read: “A common statement in the English language.”

Anyone in the DFW area interested in being a PE teacher and girls’ volleyball coach at an area private school? No certification needed, but some sort of previous coaching experience necessary. A friend’s looking for some help. Lemme know if you’re interested.

Seeing The Road to Perdition last night with Erica, we saw the trailer for Punch-Drunk Love. That’s the new Adam Sandler movie from Paul Thomas Anderson, young wunderkind of Boogie Nights and Magnolia fame. While I started boycotting Adam Sandler movies a long time ago (first for Cajun Man, then for The Waterboy, two major affronts to my people), I’ll make an exception for what looks like an interesting film.
Paul Thomas Anderson trivia: In the 1960s, his father Ernie Anderson used to host the late movie on Channel 13 in Toledo, dressed up in a fright wig and calling himself Ghoulardi. P.T. calls his production company Ghoulardi Films in his honor. (Ernie Anderson was later the announcer on America’s Funniest Home Videos.)
And to keep the Toledo connection going, P.T. keeps hiring Philip Baker Hall, Toledo’s finest actor, in all his movies. He was the star of Anderson’s first movie, Hard Eight, had a small part in Boogie Nights (memorable quote: “I like simple pleasures, like butter in my ass, lollipops in my mouth. That’s just me. That’s just something that I enjoy”), and was the game show host in Magnolia. He’s the classic “Hey! It’s that guy!” actor. (Of course, most people know him only as Lt. Bookman on Seinfeld.)
Apologies to Jamie Farr for naming Philip Baker Hall as Toledo’s finest actor. The truth hurts sometimes, Jamie.