Liveblogging the draft ...

Twenty-nine picks in and no one's taken placekicker Mason Crosby. I can't imagine what the Jets were thinking.

Idiots.

And that will be all.

Notes ... Willie and the horse

I've been lax in passing on some jokes lately, so from John ...

Drunken man parks horse in bank foyer
BERLIN - An early-morning bank customer had a bit of a shock when he found a horse at the automatic teller machine.
The horse's owner, identified only as Wolfgang H., had a bit too much to drink the night before and decided to sleep it off inside the bank's heated foyer, police said Tuesday.
The 40-year-old machinist told Bild newspaper he had had "a few beers" with a friend in Wiesenburg, southwest of Berlin, and decided to hit the hay in the bank on his way home.
Confronted with the lack of a hitching-post, he brought the 6-year-old horse, named Sammy, in with him.
When a customer came across the horse and sleeping rider in the bank at 4:15 a.m. Monday, he called police, who then came and woke the owner up and sent him on his way.
No charges were filed, but there might be some cleanup needed: Apparently Sammy made his own after-hours deposit on the carpet.

Let's talk about our Willie:


The Great Nelson has been in the news, mainly for getting caught with marijuana. Again. He will get no jail time. Damn straight. A nation glanced up at this kabuki theater with a western soundtrack and went back to its Doritos.

What's more interesting is this bit from Dave, that this year's Fourth of July picnic will NOT BE HELD WITHIN THE STATE OF TEXAS. Somebody needs to take a close look at Willie. Underneath the grizzle is the goatie of his evil twin.

Back to camp:

I haven't written much about the backpacking trip last weekend, mainly because it went so well, and the good times are never as interesting as the bad. (For a look at the bad times, check this post out.)

But to review:

• We went to Caprock Canyons State Park. It's near Quitaquay.


• The hike to camp was all of one mile.


• I successfully put my hand in a cactus.


• Boy Scouts don't look as bad-ass when you're 35.


• We broke camp because storms were a-comin'.


• They a'came about the time we made it back to the car.


• We spent the night at a cheap hotel in Childress, drinking whiskey, listening to rain, and watching the "World's Strongest Man" competition on ESPN.


• This is perhaps the most successful campout I've ever had.

Here's one more picture. Our camp was the white dot in the lower right corner.

Thanks to Elizabeth, or whatever your name is

My post on the Katie scandal was linked in a bit by Dan Goldberg on the Columbia Journalism Review Daily web site. My joke as quoted doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the context in which it's printed, but I'm not complaining*.

(I was referring to the statue's attributes and Goldberg had already made a boob joke earlier in the piece. Explaining my bit would've just dragged it down.)

Anyway. Cool. Thanks to the link, my daily visitor count rocketed into the stratosphere of the mid-20s.

Someday, I'll get 30. (Clinching fists, looking at ceiling.) Someday.

*ON FURTHER REVIEW, it still makes sense as a joke, Goldberg just used my quotes to make his own joke. I've spent too much time on this ... that is all.

Camping

Recently went. Here's a picture*.

Can you tell I've been tired lately?

*Thanks to johnzzzzz... dkaly ;l6y89KDY0'PSttt

A large truth ...

Leadership positions are usually filled by people too dumb or too crazy to realize no one else wants the job.

Good freaky stuff from the Associated Press:

Press club award inquiry expanding
A scandal ensnaring one of the Southwest's top journalism awards may extend back two more years than previously thought, officials with The Press Club of Dallas said Monday.

The entries for the 2006 Katie Awards apparently never went before judges, and the competitions from 2004 and 2005 are also under investigation, club President Tom Stewart said.

Stewart said he believes that the competitions might have been rigged by the club's former leader, who has won 10 Katies in the past four years and has a criminal history of passing bad checks and a personal history of erratic behavior. Former press club president Elizabeth Albanese was fired Saturday...

After repeatedly being asked about her background last week, Albanese acknowledged that she had been arrested in Texas and Virginia on charges of passing bad checks. The Associated Press has found records confirming those arrests, as well as additional arrests for fraud, theft and forgery in Maryland.

Those records indicate Albanese's name is Lisa J. Albanese and that she is 41. In an interview last week, she had said her name was Elizabeth M. Albanese, and that she is 37.

Several board members of The Press Club of Dallas said Albanese was also known for making outlandish and sometimes conflicting claims.

She has told people that she entered the University of Texas as a 16-year-old and was a cheerleader there. After the allegations became public, press club members compared notes and discovered that Albanese also told some people she had been a widow, others that she survived several types of cancer.

Just to add some background to those that don't know. The Katies are pretty much the biggest journalism awards available in Texas and the surrounding states. You win a couple of those, you've got a pretty good shot of actually moving up to a position that doesn't pay joke wages.

They were also very popular because the awards used to be in the shape of a naked, well-endowed lady. They eventually uglied her up to make it less offensive.

Tho, now with this scandal thing, I want one even less.

Feeling numb

It's a huge sign of vanity to take a national tragedy and obsess over how it makes you feel, so I'll keep this short.

Me and my wife didn't talk about Virginia Tech until about a day had passed. This is partly due to us being away from the news for most of the day it happened.

Since I've found out about it, the only thing I've really paid any attention to is just who this whacked-out jackass was. Maybe because it's good to remind myself who to look out for, maybe it's just morbid fascination.

(First question: How does a guy with two pistols take out 30 people? That just doesn't make sense.)

I did listen to the memorial service, mainly out of a feeling of obligation.

My main reaction so far has just been numbness. Maybe it's because of the "Columbine: Part II" reaction people are having. Maybe it's seeing numbers like "60" and "50" coming out of Iraq or that it's hard for anything to have a huge emotional impact after 9/11.

Maybe it's the way that pundits on both sides started pontificating on this about two seconds after the first story came through.

The biggest frustration is seeing this happen and knowing there's not a damn thing I can do about it. I suppose I could do the usual "write your congressman" type stuff that has more to do with making me feel better than having any real affect.

But it doesn't really matter. I wish I could do more. I can't. I'll pray for the victims and hope their families can do some good in the memory of those who died.

And wish there's something else that I could do before moving on. But I doubt it.

Good shots

First thoughts:

• Must have been a bad day for Coleman. He forgot to shave.
  It's 80s down to the footwear: Ostrich boots for Hasselhoff and velcro laces for Gary.


• I wonder if the smiles and thumbs up have to do with Dana Plato being passed out in the back seat.


• Did Kitt* have a back seat?


• I don't see how David Hasselhoff's toothpick legs were able to support the head and hair. A man with that build makes "Flounder" from Animal House look like a more credible action star. He must be slouching because standing straight up would have snapped his spine in two.


• The dude in the back is wearing a pancho.


• The dude wearing the pancho and the desert missionary set makes me think that this was a crossover between Diff'rnt Strokes, Night Rider and the A-Team. While being perhaps the greatest crossover ever, I doubt that the 80s TV infrastructure could have handled such a core density of awesome.

Thanks to John, who passed on this piece of evidence to me. He seems to have noticed a recent obsession with the 80s here.

*Correction: It's Kitt, not Kip. Kitt apparently stood for Knight Industries Two Thousand. I hope this makes you happy.

To hell* with the Olympics

From The Chicago Tribune:

"WASHINGTON -- It seemed surprising when Mayor Richard Daley, who once dismissed bidding for the Olympics as a con game, announced a year ago he was forming a committee to explore the idea of having Chicago bid for the Olympics. It seemed improbable for a city that had almost no involvement with Olympic sports for nearly a half-century suddenly to want the Games themselves.

"Daley convinced the one man he needed that the city was dedicated to the effort, and the result Saturday was Chicago's selection over two-time Olympic host Los Angeles as the U.S. candidate for the 2016 Summer Games."

I gotta say I agreed with the mayor the first time.

There's been no reason since Atlanta '96 for any American city to want the Olympics. The games are a huge political freaking mess. And by God, if you don't figure out a way to feed the Tibetans right and you don't bus 150 separate countries to the shuffleboard arena on time, YOU'RE DAMN WELL GOING TO HEAR ABOUT IT FOR THE NEXT FOUR YEARS, YOU IGNORANT, STUPID JERK.

After which time it'll be another poor sap country's turn to take up the baton (HA!) in the race to be sniveled at.

Olympics may or may not be moneymakers. They definitely are the ego baby of the usual rich civic-minded people who otherwise got bored with helping out the unfortunate.

Also -- I no longer care.

At one point I watched the games because I really wanted to see the Russians go down. And I didn't much like the Albanians. The only country I get excited about taking out now is China, which I understand is really good in diving.

"Greg Louganis jumps off the platform! Do you believe in miracles? Ker-splash."

*Remember Stryper? Remember when you discovered they didn't mean it? I haven't. Please don't tell me.

Movies

My favorite movie critic is Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post, and my first thought when I saw the info for "Pathfinder" -- about a white boy raised by the Indians, who then goes out and protects his brown people from other white boys -- was "I hope Stephen Hunter reviews this."

Booyah --
Stephen Hunter's review for "Pathfinder."

"The record shows that Native Americans were extremely adaptable warriors, who quickly solved tactical problems offered by technologically expert foes. Ask the 7th Cavalry; they know that tale all too well."

I've written about this before. White anthropologists in the 60s and 70s tended to view Indians as peaceful, non-thinking folk who followed the exact same peaceful paths for every generation. Therefore, the only people capable of saving them from change were white anthropologists casting themselves in the role of hero. That this kind of thinking is pretty much academically dead doesn't mean people can't make a movie.

Then, as a bonus, Hunter also reviewed the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie and enjoyed it. Good days.

Yes, I'm still using "Booyah." Leave me alone.

Workee Work! Busy Bee!

Sorry that I haven't had much in the last few days, but I've dedicated myself to writing a book review on a book that isn't bad but isn't easy to get through either. I'll try to get back, but I think I already missed the boat on the Anna Nicole thing. The large, impossibly bouyant and shapely dead boat.

Contact update

Folks, feel free to check out my profile. I've updated my e-mail and have installed Instant Messenger on the machine.

Congrats, Pa

Just a public note of congratulations to an old buddy of mine, Dave Thomas, who has a blog at the Austin American-Statesman.

Dave, who seems to be in the running for "scariest paternal expression", just had a baby boy.

Friday Night Lights confluency

I hadn’t watched Friday Night Lights in three weeks. Too many other distractions. Hell, I’m even getting my football jones on by playing the 2003 version of EA Sports College Football.


And I’m watching with some trepidation here. Every TV-based article I’ve read lately has mentioned the show’s on the bubble for another year, and I don’t want to get too involved with something that’s not going to be around for much longer.

I don’t really feel like I have much to add to the conversation here: virtually everyone who has watched TV knows what it’s like now. The good shows get yanked after one year before they have a chance to build an audience. Meanwhile, The Bachelor is still on the freaking air.

My wife has gotten into watching the Jeff Goldblum detective show, which she says has no chance of lasting another season. The plotlines on Friday Night Lights have been wrapping up lately, so I suspect the writers know something.

I’ll let it go with dignity. I don’t want to be one of the "Firefly" fans, endlessly coming up with some other rumor that the show really really is coming back, and with the same cast, even though they killed half of them in the movie.

Anyway, some notes from my recent Friday Night Lights viewing:

The 20th episode was ridiculous. Insane.

First off, the plot revolves around the fact that the high school has set up a home game for state semi-final playoff. Wha? t?

Football playoff games are played at neutral sites. Usually. State semi-final games aren’t played at home. Ever.

Then the coach decides to make a point by renting a cow pasture and turning it into a football field, "so it can just be about football."

Oh, Reeally? For people who don’t follow football, I’ll just say that this has no precedent in any kind of reality. It’s like – hell, I can’t think of anything. It just doesn’t make sense. I have to change my conception of reality just to fit in the fact that some writer out there thinks this is a good idea.

When the episode was over, I could only figure that either no one on this show has ever watched a football game in their lives, or that they've been to Texas and are now trying to piss us off.

I then immediately watched the next episode. Pretty good.

One more thing ...

• I could have sworn for a second that a skyline in one background shot looked like Lubbock. Then I noticed trees, hills and grass. Can't be it.
• A college on the show is obviously UT, but, for some reason they can't call it that. Instead, they call it "TMU." (Texas Mechanical? Texas Magical?) Meanwhile, when the poorly educated white trash girl starts thinking that she may be able to just barely get into a college, that college is named as "Texas Tech." Gee, thanks.
  

Run Ricky run

From the Associated Press:

Ricky Williams applies for reinstatement
NEW YORK (AP) _ Ricky Williams, the former NFL star who played in Canada
last season after being suspended for a year for substance abuse, has applied
for reinstatement.
Williams' agent, Leigh Steinberg, said the running back, who will turn 30
in May, had sent a letter asking that he be allowed to return to the Miami
Dolphins.

I was going to be your running back ...
but then I got high.
I was working on my comeback ...
but then I got high.
Now I'm uh asking for re-instatement and stuff ...
and I know why ...
(yeah, yeah)
Because I got high,
Because I got high,
Because I got high.
Da da dah da da dah ...

Journal Entry: The Chicken Fried Steak Attempt (No. 15)

Wednesday, April 4, 2007: I’m still going through the latest operation with a certain amount of doubt. The meat was fine, the gravy was the best I’ve ever created, but the texture of the crust was a soggy failure. No crispness. At all. A chicken fry from the swamp monster served on a humid day.

Any number of reasons could explain this – wrong temperature, meat too greasy, God hates me – but I feel like I’m stumbling in the dark here. I think next time I’ll try less grease and more flour.

Some funnies

Must be spring. Alanis Morisette's takeoff of My Humps* was all the rage at work today. Maybe it's all left over gags from April Fools. Maybe everyone's like a Texas Ranger fan right now, and ready for a decent joke.


Here's one from John (Scroll slowly):

CROWDS PANIC AS FLOOD THREATENS IRELAND
We've all seen the faces of those ravaged by the floods of Sri Lanka and New Orleans. This "award-winning" photograph of the recent floodwaters rising in Ireland captures the horror and suffering there. Keep these people in your thoughts.

If it was Texas, they'd be smoking a brisket.



This next link from Jeremy is good, only I post it with a small amount of empathy: Without the interruption of marriage and Hico life, this dude is me. Only maybe I'd dress up like the guy in Halo. (Warning: Plenty of cursing and X-rated jokes.)

* I didn't really find it funny. I have a hard time associating the words "Alanis Morissette" and "funny." I also don't think Fergie is that good-looking in the first place, meaning that the joke is about one unattractive granola chick making fun of an average-looking woman's slutty rap song. And in her own songs, the unattractive granola chick can't go eight beats without talking about what she's done with her private parts. And that's been enough material for about 22 albums so far.