“Ignorance of How To Bake a Cake Is No Excuse,” They Rule
Consultants From Germany Ordered To Help Make American Bundt
Archive of entries posted on 28th November 2024
Cool Name, and He Definitely Made His Mark on Our Culture
Vic Flick, Guitarist on the James Bond Theme Song, Dies at 87
Hollywood Reporter | 11/19/24 | Mike BarnesVic Flick, the famed British session guitarist who picked out the twangy riff for the James Bond theme song introduced to moviegoers on Dr. No, has died. He was 87.
His death on Thursday after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease was announced by his family on Facebook.
Flick also played on No. 1 hits for Peter and Gordon (“A World Without Love”) and Petula Clark (“Downtown”); performed on Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual” and “Ringo’s Theme” (This Boy) for A Hard Day’s Night (1964); and collaborated with the likes of Jimmy Page, George Martin, Herman’s Hermits, Cliff Richard, Eric Clapton, Dusty Springfield and Engelbert Humperdinck.
Be Careful Out There, the Rest of You
(This is filed under “One Shots,” but that’s a misnomer.)
Driver Charged After Allegedly Ramming Into Stranger’s Car and Shooting at Him on Road
ABC13 | Monday, November 25, 2024 | Alex BozarjianA man in Montgomery County [TX] is facing charges for allegedly ramming into a stranger’s car and then shooting at him, according to investigators.
The incident happened just before noon on Sunday at the intersection of Hardin Store Road and Trailwood Estates Drive.
According to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, they first got reports that 53-year-old John Dyer was shooting at cars in the area.
It wasn’t until after deputies started speaking to witnesses that they realized Dyer had nearly shot a person.
The victim said he was on the phone with his brother when Dyer rear-ended him, not once, but three times.
“The next thing I knew, he started shooting at me, and my back window exploded. I am still on the phone with my brother, and I am saying, ‘He is shooting at me. He’s shooting at me,” said the victim, who asked us to conceal his identity.
The victim said Dyer then attempted to drive beside him, but he swerved, causing Dyer to lose control.
He said that’s when the shooting stopped. The victim was able to pull over into an Exxon, where he checked his body for bullet wounds.
“One of them went through the windshield where my head would have been if I hadn’t ducked down. One of them went into my back seat where my right shoulder would be, and my tailgate is full of bullet holes,” the victim said.
The sheriff’s office indicated the motivation was road rage, but the victim said it was completely random and unprovoked.
“This dude tried to execute me on the road. This wasn’t road rage,” the victim said.
Walrus, Be Careful Out There
Florida golfer, 65, beaten to death with own clubs in ‘random act of violence,’ authorities say
Fox News | November 27, 2024 | Greg NormanA 65-year-old golfer died at a course in Florida after being attacked with his own clubs in what appears to be a “random act of violence,” police say.
…
“At this time, it does not appear that Boucher had any legitimate purpose for being at the golf course. This appears to be a random act of violence where Boucher used the victim’s golf clubs as weapons and viciously attacked the victim, ultimately killing him,” Palm Beach Gardens Police Chief Dominick Pape said at a news conference Tuesday.
“Clubs” . . . plural?
“After the attack, Boucher stripped off his clothes and fled into the woods”
Oh.
What Day Is It Today, Joe?
Straight Line of the Day: So, What Does the World’s Oldest Writing Say?
World’s oldest ALPHABET is discovered: Ancient 4,400-year-old text is found on clay cylinders from a tomb in Syria – and it upends everything we thought we knew about the origin of writing
Daily Mail | 21 November 2024 | Jonathan ChadwickFor decades, it’s been a common belief that the Ancient Egyptians were responsible for the very first alphabet.
Now, a shocking finding challenges this assumption, pushing back the age of the first known alphabetic writing by about 500 years.
…
The finger-length cylinders were found at Tell Umm-el Marra, a former city located in today’s northwestern Syria, once a bustling crossroads for two trade routes.
Carbon dating techniques reveal that the objects date back 4,400 years to 2400 BC – preceding any other known alphabetic scripts by roughly 500 years.
…
However, the academic admits he ‘can only speculate’ exactly what the writing says.
…
Before the alphabet, humans relied on hieroglyphics, according to Professor Schwartz, who found the cylinders in 2004.
‘Alphabetic writing changed the way people lived, how they thought, how they communicated,’ he said.
‘This new discovery shows people were experimenting with new communication technologies much earlier and in a different location than we had imagined.’
With colleagues from the University of Amsterdam, the professor co-directed a 16-year-long archaeological dig at Tell Umm-el Marra, one of the ancient Near East’s oldest cities, located on a crossroads of two trade routes.
At Umm-el Marra, the archaeologists uncovered tombs dating back to the Early Bronze Age – a period stretching from about 3500 to 2000 BC.
One of the best-preserved tombs contained six skeletons, gold and silver jewelry, cookware, a spearhead and intact pottery vessels.
Next to the pottery was four of the ‘lightly baked’ clay cylinders or tubes with what seemed to be alphabetic writing on top.
Now, the researchers have used carbon-14 dating, a scientific method that can accurately determine the age of organic materials as old as 60,000 years.
So, they found clay cylinders, which are very old, with images that can’t be deciphered. Got it.
