Pimlico Race Course is a horse-racing track in Baltimore, Maryland. The course is likely best-known for being the host of the annual Preakness Stakes on the third Saturday in May; the race is the second of three races which comprise the Triple Crown.
The track takes its name from its location; in the 17th century, English settlers named the area after Olde Ben Pimlico’s Tavern in London.
In 2018, Justify became the 13th horse to win all 3 races that comprise the Triple Crown (Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes). There are 23 horses that have won the first two legs, but failed to win the Belmont. The last of these was California Chrome in 2014, who finished fourth in the Belmont Stakes.
Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) was a Deputy United States Marshal for the District of Kentucky, of which he was a native son, in the TV series Justified, based on the works of Elmore Leonard.
Timothy Olyphant portrayed real life sheriff Seth Bullock in Deadwood, the best cocksocking western series ever made.
In spite of the resemblance to the word “elephant”, the Anglo-Scottish name “Olyphant” or “Oliphant” is believed to have come from the Normans, referring to an olive branch.
Pat Oliphant is an Australian-born American best known for his political cartoons, which he drew for nearly 60 years until his retirement in 2016. Early in his career, Oliphant began to include a small penguin in almost every one of his political cartoons, who he named Punk. Punk adds a second layer of commentary to the subject of the panel. He is often placed in conversation with another tiny figure.
Olifant (an alternate spelling of the word elephant) was the name applied in the Middle Ages to ivory hunting horns made from elephants’ tusks. One of the most famous olifants belonged to the legendary Frankish knight Roland, protagonist of *The Song of Roland.
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In The Song of Roland, Roland carries his olifant while serving on the rearguard of Charlemagne’s army. When they are attacked at the Battle of Roncevaux, Oliver tells Roland to use it to call for aid, but he refuses. Roland finally relents, but the battle is already lost. He tries to destroy the olifant along with his sword Durendal, lest they fall into enemy hands. In the end, Roland blows the horn, but the force required bursts his temple, resulting in death. The *Karlamagnussaga *elaborates (V. c.XIV) that Roland’s olifant was a unicorn’s horn, hunted in India.
Roland Deschain, a spiritual if not literal descendant of the great Frankish knight Roland, is the protagonist of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. Idris Elba portrayed Roland in the widely-panned 2017 film, also called The Dark Tower.
The Dark Tower series originally consisted of 7 novels. The first of these novels was released in 1982; the last two were both released in 2004. An 8th novel (which takes place between #4 and #5 of the original series) was released in 2012. The eight novels comprise 4,250 pages.
The sf noir detective film Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott, was first released in 1982. It is set in November 2019. Scott and others have tweaked the movie several times; there are, by Wikipedia’s count, seven different versions of it.
While developing the Vampire movie Blade, based on a Marvel Comics character, the executives of New Line Cinema felt there were only three actors who could possibly do the role: Wesley Snipes, Denzel Washington and Laurence Fishburne. While Snipes got the role, Fishburne has appeared in two Marvel movies, voicing the Silver Surfer in *Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer *, and as Dr. Bill Foster in Ant-Man and The Wasp (2018).
In 2008, Wesley Snipes was convicted on three misdemeanour counts of failing to file tax returns, in a prosecution instituted by the IRS. He was sentenced to three years in federal prison. Prosecutors alleged Snipes was using a tax evasion technique associated with Sovereign Citizens / Freemen on the Land. Snipes appealed to the Circuit Court, which dismissed his appeal. The Supreme Court denied his application for certiorari.
Previous thread: “Those federal blood-suckers took down Blade!”
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13891878
In On the Banks of Plum Creek, the third of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series, the Ingalls girls are jeered at on their first day of school because of their rustic appearance. They have bare legs and no stockings and their dresses are shabby and too short, showing that the family is too poor to afford more fabric. The other children compare them to awkward birds, yelling insultingly “Snipes! Snipes! Long-legged snipes!” until another girl stops them, while Nellie Oleson derisively calls them “country girls.”
Plum Creek is located in Redwood County, Minnesota, near the town of Walnut Grove. Although the Ingalls girls presumably went to school in that town, its name is not mentioned in the book.
The Ingalls Building, built in 1903 in Cincinnati, Ohio, is the world’s first reinforced concrete skyscraper. The 16-story building was designed by the Cincinnati architectural firm Elzner & Anderson and was named for its primary financial investor, Melville E. Ingalls. The building was considered a daring engineering feat at the time, but its success contributed to the acceptance of concrete construction in high-rise buildings in the United States.
The Ingalls building is bordered by East 4th Street and Vine Street in the Cincinnati Central Business District.
“Plum” as in “plum crazy” has nothing to do with the fruit. It was originally the British word “plumb” and meant “completely, utterly.”
The name plumber, of whom some doubtless are both plum crazy and live in Cincinnati, comes from the Latin plumbum, or lead, the standard material for Roman pipes. Although the material is no longer used in the trade, the name persists.
Well played. ElvisL1ves…
In play:
A Roman candle is a traditional type of firework that ejects one or more stars or exploding shells. Despite their name, Roman candles did not originate in Ancient Rome, or in Italy. Rather, they originated in China, but first became popular in Western culture during the Italian Renaissance.
There were recurring proposals for a sequel to the hit 1953 romantic comedy Roman Holiday, to which costars Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn were said to be receptive, but one was never made.
In the 1977 movie MacArthur, Gregory Peck played the role of United States General Douglas MacArthur. In the 1978 film The Boys from Brazil, Peck starred as the Nazi SS physician (and later war criminal) Josef Mengele.