Dept. Q (TV 2025)

Rotten Tomatoes

Dept. Q (TV 2025): Scottish police procedural. Matthew Goode plays an insolent cop who gets banished to the basement and told to work on cold cases. He assembles a team of misfits and digs into a nasty case. Great show to watch when Slow Horses is between seasons. B+

Netflix

Richardson's 2025-2027 Key Tactics

Source: Ramsee Consulting Group.

In my fourth installment of what happened during the Richardson City Council's 5-hour goal-setting worksession, I reported this about the tactics the council came up with:

After a lunch break, the council broke into two groups of four (with the City Manager added to the seven council members). They were tasked with coming up with their top ten or so tactics. I was confused. There are 13 strategies, but only 10 tactics? Rick Robinson explained that council will decide the top ten tactics, but staff will come back with a long, full list of tactics. When the council came back together they had eight unique tactics, which I wasn't able to capture. Rick Robinson will take the list and do some combining and type them up. The council as a whole then talked about other tactics they wanted to add. Individual council members offered individual tactics. There was little attempt at voting to accept or reject the ideas offered, only some wordsmithing, as always, so I don't know how this discussion will move forward. It seemed to me they ran out of time to produce what I most wanted, a SMART set of short-term action items for the next two years.

Source: Ramsee Consulting Group.

At the August 11, 2025, Richardson City Council meeting, we got to see more. Not the final version, but more.

Death of a Unicorn (2025)

Rotten Tomatoes

Death of a Unicorn (2025): Satire in which the billionaire capitalists are idiots, Paul Rudd is a sellout, and Jenna Ortega mind-melds with a unicorn, giving her a psychedelic look into another world. Other than that, the unicorns are monsters. Makes no sense. The CGI is disappointing. C-

HBO Max

Richardson Town Hall at Tzu Chi

Source: Mark Steger.

Mayor Amir Omar and Councilmember Dan Barrios held a town hall meeting at the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation. About 100 persons attended. I grade the exercise an "A" for turnout, participation, and openness of the mayor and council member in their answers to questions raised by the audience. The two hour time allotted to this seemed right to me, but there wasn't enough time to get to all the questions.

POTD: Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

"First night together,
Rome glows with celebration.
Chestnuts crack and steam."

— h/t ChatGPT

From 2024 12 22 Rome

Today's photo-of-the-day is of Piazza Navona in Rome. It was the first night of our whole family being together to celebrate Christmas in Rome. A holiday tradition all over Italy (and in plenty of other places in the world) is roasting chestnuts (castagne arrosto) over open charcoal braziers. They are served piping hot in paper cones. Here, a stranger enjoys the tradition.

A bonus photo is after the jump.