a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
I opened the second of my 6 LEGO Looney Tunes minifigure packets this morning and .. rats! it was another Road Runner. So I opened the third one, and inside was Sylvester the Cat.
Sylvester the Cat is another character from the golden age of American animation— full name Sylvester James Pussycat, Sr. His name “Sylvester” is a play on Felis silvestris, the scientific name for the European wildcat.
LEGO’s little articulated figurines (‘minifigures’) have been around a long, long time – since 1978. Sets of ‘collectible’ ones were introduced starting in 2010; they usually come as sets of 16 in blind bags, so the collector may very well end up with duplicates before having a complete set.
I had resisted the sets of monsters, masqueraded characters, Harry Potter figures, Star Wars figures and all that, thus far. There is a new Looney Tunes™ series out, though, that has Bugs Bunny, Lola Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, Sylvester, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Porky Pig, Petunia Pig, Speedy Gonzales, Tasmanian Devil and Marvin the Martian. And so the other day, I caved in and bought 6 blind bags, each with one of the characters in.
Back in the day in South Africa, these would be called ‘lucky packets’. (Bags with a piece of candy and a surprise toy inside).
It’s a shame that it had to come down to a penalty shootout.
Tesla’s highly anticipated beta* version 9 of its Full Self-Driving software is out. This is the version of the software that is called Tesla Vision (camera) only; so it is not using the radar sensor’s input. (I don’t have FSD. I opted out of the FSD functions when I bought my car).
*A version of a piece of software that is made available for testing, typically by a limited number of users outside the company that is developing it, before its general release.
Gali @Gfilche on Twitter took his Model Y for a test drive through the streets on Capitol Hill here in Seattle at 2 a.m. this morning. Here are a few screen shots of a video (on YouTube channel HyperChange) that he posted shortly thereafter.
[Still from video on HyperChange channel on YouTube, posted on Jul 10]
[Still from video on HyperChange channel on YouTube, posted on Jul 10]
[Still from video on HyperChange channel on YouTube, posted on Jul 10]
[Still from video on HyperChange channel on YouTube, posted on Jul 10]
I found this display of two chatty dinosaurs on a rock by the sidewalk close to 18th Ave.
Our social tennis group had a little soirée after the tennis tonight, by the tennis courts at Woodland Park. There was something to drink, and a few snacks, while we hung around and chatted.
It felt great.
I thought it would never happen, but here we are: former president of South Africa Jacob Zuma (age 79), is actually in jail as of Wednesday night*.
It gives me hope that a former president of the United States of America, can be found guilty (it should not hard, to do that), and be sentenced to serve a long time in jail as well. Lock him up.
*15 months, for contempt of court. After all that he had done, Zuma deserves to go for 15 years.
NKANDLA, South Africa — Jacob Zuma, the former president of South Africa, was taken into custody on Wednesday to begin serving a 15-month prison sentence, capping a stunning downfall for a once-lauded freedom fighter who battled the apartheid regime alongside Nelson Mandela.
The Constitutional Court, the nation’s highest judicial body, ordered Mr. Zuma’s imprisonment last month after finding him guilty of contempt for failing to appear before a commission investigating corruption accusations that tainted his tenure as the nation’s leader from 2009 to 2018.
Under Mr. Zuma, who was forced to step down, the extent of crony corruption within the governing African National Congress Party became clear, turning a once heralded liberation movement into a vehicle of self-enrichment for many officials. The corruption led to the gutting of the nation’s tax agency, sweetheart business contracts and rivals gunned down in a scramble for wealth and power.
Mr. Zuma, 79, voluntarily surrendered on Wednesday, 40 minutes before a midnight deadline for the police to hand him over to prison officials. He was driven out of his compound in a long convoy of cars and taken to the Estcourt Correctional Center, the corrections department said. The arrest followed a week of tense brinkmanship in which the former president and his allies railed against the high court’s decision, suggesting, without evidence, that he was the victim of a conspiracy.
-John Eligon reporting for the New York Times
It has been 22 days since we had any rain, and there is none really, in the forecast for the next 7 days (‘chance of drizzle’ for tomorrow morning).
July is the driest month on the Seattle weather calendar, but even so, its average is about 1 in. of rain.
My dishwasher is 19 years old and kaput.
I thought I could just waltz into the Albert Lee appliance store today, and order a new dishwasher.
I was wrong.
There is a widespread home appliance shortage in stores: wall ovens, refrigerators, dishwashers.
I want a machine from German manufacturer Miele. ‘You can pay in full to get a place in line’, said the saleslady, ‘but be prepared to wait 4 to 6 months’.
At home I checked Amazon, Home Depot, Lowes, Best Buy. No dice. Looks like I might just have to wash my dishes by hand for a while.
This Fourth of July, we are reminded that patriotism isn’t just about our loyalty to country – it’s about our loyalty to one another, to our communities, to those in need, whose names or stories we may never know, but to whom we are connected by compassion and by resilience.
-Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, referring to the collapse of the condominium tower in Surfside, Miami-Dade County. The remainder of the partially collapsed building has now been demolished.
Happy Independence Day to my fellow American citizens!
The first week of action is over at the world’s oldest, and arguably the most famous, tennis tournament: Wimbledon in London, England.
It’s hard to believe that I had taken this picture 40 years ago, on Thursday, July 2, 1981. Bjorn Borg (25 at the time, Sweden) was playing Jimmy Conners (28, USA) in the semi-final.
Regrettably, we had to leave early. We had dinner reservations, with a business associate of my dad’s. After dinner, we did not want to wait for the newspaper in the morning, and inquired from the hotel’s doorman if he knew who had won the match. He did.
I had $50 gift card for Walmart from my insurance company, one that could only be redeemed in the store.
So off I went this morning to the Walmart in Factoria, on the Eastside.
‘For Pete’s sake, get something that you want with the card, not food or soap, or something like that’, I thought as I drove out there.
There were several spots of empty shelf space at Walmart. So they still have some supply-chain challenges, like many other stores.
The brutal heat of Monday had given way to cooler weather on Tuesday & Wednesday.
Here in the city we had 73 °F (23 °C) for a high today— perfect for going out and playing a little tennis.
