If you search this blog for the term "October Surprise," you'll find a lot of posts where I suggested in some presidential election year that the "October Surprise" was that there was no "October Surprise." This year, we're only nine days into the month and we seem to have several contenders including the fact that Donald Trump shipped Covid tests to Vladimir Putin while telling Americans that we shouldn't be testing and the fact that Donald Trump doesn't know how to deal with a state of emergency other than trying to spin it as a reason to vote for him.

Maybe that last one isn't a surprise. Oh, and I guess the latest revelations from Special Counsel Jack Smith might qualify as an October Surprise. There may be more possibilities on the way.

Something that struck me with all the interviews that Kamala Harris has done in the last few days is that I don't think she's even trying to win any Trump voters over. I think someone made a decision that Trump has roughly 44% of the vote and it's solid and that all her campaigning should be aimed at the (roughly) 8-9% of the Undecideds out there. At least, that thought came to me while watching her interview last night with Stephen Colbert. And it must gall Trump that there's no way he can go on any of those late night shows.

Here's something nice. The Huffington Post reported…

The Republican congressman who represents a western North Carolina district badly damaged by the remnants of Hurricane Helene is tired of the conspiracy theories about recovery efforts circulating online. In a lengthy statement, Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) praised the support his district has received but also noted "an uptick in untrustworthy sources trying to spark chaos by sharing hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and hearsay about hurricane response efforts across our mountains."

Gee, I wonder what "untrustworthy sources" he could be talking about. I'm glad he did that because the folks in the paths of Helene 'n' Milton need all the honest information they can get. They're also going to need supplies and medical care and a whole lot of other things. This would be a good time to donate to my favorite charity…

And here's what happened earlier this morning in Las Vegas: Huge fireworks show followed by the demolition of the remaining two towers of the Tropicana Hotel. This was a very Vegas moment…

Hey, the Pink Panther theme song and the James Bond theme song go well together. Give a listen and see if you don't agree…

Tonight in Las Vegas a few hours after Midnight, there will be an implosion/demolition of what's left of the Tropicana Hotel. It's a relic of Old Vegas that opened in 1957 and the last time I was in it, it didn't look like it had been cleaned since the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

There has been talk of its closure and razing for a decade or two now and they finally closed it last April and began emptying the place. The last two towers come down tonight right after a huge fireworks display.

The bringdown will be done by a company called Controlled Demolitions, Inc. that seems to be the leader in this field. It's owned and/or operated by the Loizeaux Family, having been founded in 1947 by John D. "Jack" Loizeaux. Around 1981, I was a writer on the TV show That's Incredible! and we had a bunch of Loizeauxs on to talk about their unusual profession and I spent an hour or so talking with them before the taping. It's really a fascinating skill because they usually have to do it to a building that's close to others that no one wants to see damaged. One of them said, "How it falls is not anywhere near as important as where it falls."

One of the Loizeauxs explained their craft in great detail to me. I didn't understand all of it then — it involved a lot of math — and I don't recall a lot of it now. I do recall that it was a lot more complicated than one might think because buildings are made of all sorts of different materials and are put together in different manners. Some years later, I was present for the implosion of the Hacienda Hotel, very near the Tropicana, and it was really an impressive thing to see in person. I'm not sure if that was a Loizeaux job. (I wrote about it here.)

Tomorrow or the next day, I'll try to find some video of the end of the Tropicana and post it here. I hate seeing part of Old Vegas go away but this was a place I don't think too many people will miss. I did win a lot of money there once at Blackjack but I don't play that anymore.

I can't believe it's that time again. Open Registration for the 2025 Comic-Con International in San Diego will take place on Saturday, October 26, 2024 commencing at 9:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time. And if it goes the way it's gone in past years, it'll be over around 9:45 AM Pacific Daylight Time. This is the moment when anyone — yes, even you — can log into their web portal and try to score badges for the convention. The convention, by the way, runs July 24-27 of next year with a Preview Night on Wednesday, July 23.

If you want to participate in this stampede for tickets, study this page well in advance. The folks who succeed in their mission that day will all have done this and they'll be ready to pounce.

You might also consider attending WonderCon Anaheim which will take place March 28-30 next year at the Anaheim Convention Center. WonderCon is run by the same folks who operate Comic-Con International but it's a smaller convention. It's whelming. It's just not overwhelming. Badges for that are not yet available and when they are, they probably won't sell out as rapidly. I'll try and let you know when they go on sale.

I expect to be at both conventions, my ankle permitting. And before someone asks — because someone always asks — I don't expect to be at any other conventions next year.

The New York Times/Siena College poll — which has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 points — says Harris/Walz is three points ahead of Trump/Vance. That ain't bad news but it's still closer than it oughta be. If you look around, you can easily find one that shows either ticket in a better position.

Jonathan Chait argues that Harris is running a terrific campaign by being more centrist than a lot of her supporters would like.

Ed Kilgore explains how the Trump campaign is trying to twist and exploit the hurricanes ravaging the southeast.

And Ed Kilgore (him again) lists all the different things that the Trump campaign claims constitute "Election Interference." It's pretty much anything that anyone says against voting for Trump.

I don't imagine anyone visiting this site needs to hear any additional reasons to vote for the Harris/Walz ticket. If you're not going to by now, you're probably not going to. But just in case, here's another one that they'll probably claim is "Election Interference"…

I spoke the other evening to a friend in Florida who's between hurricanes. He's not too worried for his area but pretty concerned for folks not-all-that-far from him. If you live in an area that's threatened and you're reading this, I hope it's from a safe place even if you had to evacuate to get to it.

And it's hard to think of much more beyond that at the moment but I'll try to come up with one thing…

Oh, I know. I'm getting a ridiculous number of spam calls lately from folks who claim to be calling from Walgreens Pharmacy — a business which has no business whatsoever with me. They've never filled a prescription for me or sold me anything more medicinal than a bag of Cheetos. Nevertheless, the callers want to "update" my records with them and they have all sorts of medical-type questions they want to ask me. If I play along at all, the questions go like this…

LYING CALLER: We need to verify the name of your primary care physician. Could you let me have that please?

ME: Don't you have that in your files?

LYING CALLER: Yes but we have so many names here. Please tell me the name of your primary care physician.

ME: Read me some of those names and I'll tell you when you get to the right one.

LYING CALLER: There are too many here to read to you. Just tell me the name of your primary care physician.

ME: It's Boombatz. Dr. Vinnie Boombatz. Do you see him there on your list?

LYING CALLER: Ah, yes. There he is…

But I actually had one of these lying callers go honest on me. He told me he was calling from Walgreens and I said, "No, you're not. You're just trying to gather information that's none of your f'ing business and you're going to ask me to name my primary care physician." And he said, "You're right. This is just a scam deal but it's the only job I could get" and he hung up. This guy would never make it in politics.

The auctions are open! A group of cartoonists have done or donated drawings to the cause of electing Guess Who as the next President of These United States. As I understand it, the funds collected go to groups backing the Harris/Walz ticket so here's your chance to score a lovely piece o' art and contribute to that effort.

Here's a 1986 profile of Joe Barbera on 60 Minutes. First, some notes: The voice actor you'll see briefly is Stanley Ralph Ross, who was more of a writer (he wrote the Adam West Batman show and developed the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman show among many other credits) but he sometimes acted and did voices. Huckleberry Hound was not the first product of the Hanna-Barbera studio. That honor belongs to The Ruff & Reddy Show.

There's a scene in there where Barbera is pitching to NBC execs and I, who pitched to them myself many times, recognize Phyllis Tucker Vinson and Sam Ewing. There's a creative meeting with writers and artists at the H-B studio and I recognize Glenn Leopold, Tom Ruegger and Iwao Takamoto.

And I think when Joe is talking about networks laundering his shows, he's overstating the problem somewhat but I've written about this elsewhere here. It is a nice portrait of a fascinating man who was a great salesman and an important part of a lot of lives, mine included. Thanks to "John G." for sending me this link…

Something of interest will be here later today. No, let me amend that: Something will be here that's about as interesting as anything ever is on this blog. You'll be the judge of whether it's of interest to you…as this post probably is not. But I'm dealing with deadlines and meetings these days and I'm also looking in horror at what the poor folks in the path of that one-two hurricane punch may be living through..and of course, we hope they all live through it.

Marjorie Taylor Greene says that someone somewhere is controlling the weather. I wish that was so because then maybe more benevolent weather controllers could take over and stop this horrible destruction. I don't think that's possible but maybe we could do a lot more to prepare for events like this.

Did you ever see this? It's a music video for Herb Alpert's rendition of "Puttin' on the Ritz" and it's said to have been shot in one continuous take with no edits. One online page says it's a creative collaboration between Alpert, artist Glenn Kaino, filmmaker Afshin Shahidi, producer Kerith Lemon and choreographers Napoleon & TabithaD'umo. The lead dancer is Vincent Noiseux. This has been around for a while but somehow I never was aware of it until recently…

The Charlotte Observer, a newspaper in hurricane-devastated North Carolina, has published an editorial entitled "Shame on Donald Trump for worsening NC's Helene tragedy with political lies." You can read the entire piece here but I'll quote just the beginning…

Western North Carolina is trying to pick up the pieces left behind by Hurricane Helene, which decimated the region, leaving communities destroyed and a death toll in the triple digits. This is not a situation to capitalize on for political gain. But former President Donald Trump has politicized the situation at every turn, spreading falsehoods and conspiracies that fracture the community instead of bringing it together.

And it ain't much nicer to Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the self-described "Black Nazi" who's running for governor and is only, according to the latest poll, seventeen points behind his opponent.

What is with these guys who don't understand that human lives are involved here? That people are killed, homes are destroyed, businesses are outta business, etc.? I don't think there's any greater test of leadership than leadership in a time of life-threatening emergency.

Less than thirty days to Election Day, it looks a lot closer than anyone would like but I'm still optimistic. Yeah, it's maddening that they continue to lie and lie and lie — and you know who I think "they" are — but it's looking more like desperation than anything else. Here's Politifact face-checking a speech Trump gave the other day. And here's Jonathan Cohn debunking JD Vance's claim that Trump "saved Obamacare."

I do get that there are people in this country who are super-paranoid about "immigrants" to the point there they don't differentiate between the legal kind and the illegal kind. And I get that that fear is not lessened even if they recognize that some or all of the Trump/Vance horror stories are fabricated. I still think Harris/Walz will triumph…and that if they don't, that'll be the main reason.

Apparently, Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't believe that nature can change the weather but that secret cabals of humans can.

The new document dump from Special Counsel Jack Smith is even more damning than we first thought and new details keep emerging. Josh Kovensky covers some of them.

And to wrap up for now, here's a new commercial from The Lincoln Project that I would think would swing some votes in the right direction…

Jim Walton, who originated the role of Franklin Shepard in the musical Merrily We Roll Along sings a tune from that show…

We are still interested in what becomes of the Jim Henson Studio Lot — formerly owned by all sorts of people including Herb Alpert, Red Skelton and Charlie Chaplin — over on La Brea Boulevard in Hollywood. Rupert Murdoch's New York Post and other outlets reported it had been purchased by the Church of Scientology and that caused all manner of reactions across the Internet. But the Henson folks have now issued a statement saying, "In regards to recent rumors about the sale of the La Brea studio lot, the Henson family is not in any business dealings with the Church of Scientology, and that organization is not in consideration as a potential buyer of the property."

So we dunno what's happening there but it seems pretty certain it is not a done deal the way the Post and other sources were claiming. A lot of those getting it wrong also seemed to think that Scientology was acquiring the famous Muppets as well, which could never be the case. Most of the known Muppets are either owned by Disney or are in business relationships with the folks who bring us Sesame Street. They wouldn't come with the buildings. The Jim Henson Company as it now stands owns current projects that it has developed — like Puppet Up! — and I suppose it could be sold but there is no indication that it has been or that the family is willing to part with it.