The arrival of a new year here at Hartnett headquarters can mean only one thing: Obsessive detailing of my 2001 1.8T manual transmission Volkswagen Jetta’s mileage performance.
Imagine, then, the look on my face as I imagine the look on your face immediately after you have read the following, most startling development in the history of annual mileage reporting here at Poor Hartnett’s Almanack of Annual Mileage Reporting, Bird Migration Forecasts, Liniment Formulae & Homeric Fan Fiction: I sold my 2001 1.8T manual transmission Volkswagen Jetta in September. (more…)
Voters in 10 Atlanta-area counties recently rejected a proposed 10-year, 1 percent sales tax that would have raised $7.2 billion for transportation projects. Well, I say “recently,” but the T-SPLOST vote was actually more than two weeks ago. On the other hand, suck it.
My wife and I were particularly enthusiastic about the Clifton Corridor proposal, one of the bigger projects that would have been funded by the tax, and voted yes. A whopping 63 percent of voters across the region didn’t quite share our enthusiasm, however, and the measure went down in flames despite a multi-million dollar campaign by supporters.
It should be noted that both the funding mechanism itself and the list of proposed projects (more…)
Then, to demonstrate my unwavering commitment to relentlessly pursuing this outrageous squandering of taxpayer money, I instantly forgot about the whole thing. In the meantime, just three weeks after my request, the Census Bureau responded with the exact information I was after:
The name of the company that developed the current version of the American FactFinder web application is IBM U.S. Federal and the total $33,340,681.00.
As you know, @wmhartnett is the Twitter account of 19th century Irish-American painter William Michael Hartnett. Like most careful observers, I have concluded after careful observation that the account is not authored by a reasoning, sentient being, but generated via the clever application of a computerized apparatus.
Has anyone figured out the algorithm behind the Twitter account @wmhartnett?
Red flags were raised when it was noted that 19th century Irish-American painter William Michael Hartnett is theorized to have died in 1892, though like most careful observers I believe the alternate theory that his death was faked. All that is required to definitively prove the latter theory is a long-overdue global expedition to unearth the still life of astonishing verisimilitude that he no doubt painted while carefully observing his own funeral proceedings.
"Moonrise Kingdom" writer and director Wes Anderson.
As you know, I am the acclaimed author of a long-running series of film reviews, the host of the late-night USA Network show “How-to Hartnett Reviews the Movies,”and the producer of the 1942 classic “The Magnificent Ambersons.”
Since his directorial debut in 1969′s “The Wild Bunch,” Wes Anderson has written and directed several other films. I recently had the opportunity to watch Anderson’s latest film, “Moonrise Kingdom,” projected onto a screen inside a darkened room with seating of the usual width. Power was provided by the electricals, down the wirey-pipes.
Too long; didn’t read? After several spectacular missteps, most unforgettably 2002′s “Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones,” Anderson is back at peak fitness and at last delivering on the promise shown in his 1970s classics “Straw Dogs” and “The Getaway.” I give “Moonrise Kingdom” 8,700 out of 10,000 stars.
“Moonrise” is set in the final stages of NATO’s peacekeeping mission in Bosnia in December 1995. U.S. Navy Lt. Chris Burnett, played by longtime Anderson collaborator Owen Wilson, is stationed on the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones. Burnett is shot down while on a reconnaissance mission over Bosnia, and it’s up to Liam Neeson’s renegade Admiral Shane to mount a rescue mission before the alien Predator tickles him first.
Regulars Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Luke Wilson are joined by Andersonian newcomers and high-mileage 1980s action stars Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme, to surprisingly tender dramatic effect. Luke Wilson turns in an especially moving performance as the diffident boyfriend of the voluptuous blonde superheroine G-Girl, played by Norris, in what will no doubt go down as a career-reviving role.
Of course, it wouldn’t be an Anderson film unless the swashbuckling, fedora-wearing tomb raider Indiana Jones raced his trademark Aston Martin into the fray to save the day, and as usual Shia LaBeouf does not disappoint.
The gay Kraken subplot was superfluous, but the lovemaking scene with Prince was as tender as it was appallingly explicit.
The arrival of a new year here at Hartnett headquarters can mean only one thing: Obsessive detailing of my 2001 1.8T manual transmission Volkswagen Jetta’s mileage performance. Previous editions: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010.
Now here is a driving story from 2011. As you are no doubt aware, I worked at a newspaper in Florida for more than a decade. (Newspapers used to be a thing. In 2012 they do not exist. Wikipedia it.) As of the evening of April 8, 2011, the facts were thus: My wife was enrolled in grad school in Atlanta, my wife was the temporary residence of a small human woman, the small human woman was expected to move out in two weeks, I had just completed my last day of work at the newspaper in Florida and planned to finish my many-phase move to Atlanta in two days. (more…)
As mapping and cat enthusiast who just moved to a new area, I thought it only natural to make a series of maps tracking the movements and moods of local domestic cats. However, it turns out that the domestic cat movement and mood data collected by both state and local government agencies in Georgia is not quite up to the standard of that available in Florida.
The first map shows the black population. The shading represents, from light blue on the low end to dark blue on the high end, the percentage of each block’s population that is non-Hispanic black. The height of each block shows the number of people in each block who are non-Hispanic black.
