Random thoughts before 2008 kicks it

Sam:
Picking up heavier and heavier stuff. And throwing it farther and farther. And usually at the cat.

Cotton Bowl:
I'm nervous. Tech tends to start out slow in bowl games, then catches fire at the end. I don't know if that'll be enough this time. I'll be yelling enough to scare the neighbors anyway. Onward, ye Raiders of Red.

Speaking of football:
Here's a funny sketch that answers the question, what if you personified all the Big 12 schools, and had them throw a New Year's party? (I'm constantly asking myself such questions.) Dirty language warning.

To tell you where this site is coming from, Mizzou and Kansas State come off as the most normal, which is kind of laughable. I'll warn Aggie fans, A&M is given the role of Boo Radley. I also took some umbrage at the insults flung in Shiner Bock's direction.

Still speaking of football:
DoubleTNation pointed out this video preview of Mike Leach's upcoming interview on 60 minutes. Should be fun. Hope he's still working for us by then.


Watch CBS Videos Online


Kinda still speaking of football, which means the Cowboys:
I like Tony Romo. The fact that he refuses to go into an emotional meltdown solely to satisfy the postgame media is a good, good thing. We need more people to basically say that a football game is what it is. And especially that it really isn't that important.

I agree with Randy Galloway, who says you really can't get a decent read on how good or bad anyone on this team is, because Jerry Jones meddles with everything, and makes terrible decisions in the process. And until he steps away -- which he won't until he's five years dead -- the team is never going to be anything other than a bit better than average.

I also disagree with Galloway, who dismisses any notion that the media is too hard or overreacts to everything that happens to the Cowboys. You try spending a year with thousands of people shoving a microphone in your face and second-guessing every decision or analyzing every quote down to the last syllable and latin root, and then say you don't feel mentally tired.

T.O. seems like a jerk. I don't care. If he catches the ball and scores, other people I like can jump up and down and dump Gatorade on each other. It's not complicated. Good Lord, from the endless moaning I hear from all quarters, it's like we need to resurrect Freud and get the entire Texas sports media to sit down and talk about Troy Aikman and their mother.

Speaking of Shiner:
Tonight I got a six-pack of blond, along with New Year's champagne, to tide me over during the Cotton Bowl. I understand that Shiner Blond is actually the original beer created in Shiner, and therefore the most authentic to its Texas roots. Of course, a guy from Oklahoma told me that, so you don't know ...

The official News from Hico list of beer preferences:

1. Some $10-a-bottle junk that has a picture of a monk or a court jester on it.*
2. Give me a Rahr.
3. Got any Shiner?
4. Miller Light.
5. Bud whatever.
6. Give me a glass of water and punch me twice in the face.
7. Coors Light.

* Don't drink that often, so I make it special when I do.

Travian:
I'm currently playing a free internet based game called Travian. I'm not providing the link, and am therefore doing you a favor.

Resolutions:
Will make some time somewhere to go backpacking in Far West Texas on some trail I've never tried before. And to be a good father and husband.

Happy New Year
And remember not to get shot.

Good point on newspaper and the intertubes

A paper shuns the web. Publisher says putting content on the web for free is stupid.

And the paper is making double-digit profits and just published its largest edition ever.

From the New York Times.

It is, of course, a newspaper with a staff of 3.5 people, and is therefore almost wholly local.

But, really, it makes sense. Why would you give away your product for free, in the exact same format where other organizations are kicking your tail?

Worst combination of light saber/holiday special ever

Vanity Fair talks to some of the people behind perhaps one of the worst things ever to be on TV, the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Some interesting stories, such as the fact that Princess Leia didn't just sing, she demanded that she sing. Otherwise, you notice how everybody still refuses to take responsibility for it.

I have a fuzzy memory of the show when it aired. I remember it coming on, being thrilled when Skywalker made an appearance, and then ... Well, the other members of my family drifted off. And I didn't put up too much of a fight to change the channel.

The piece points out why things were so bad -- the writers tried to combine a serious Lucas-created plot with the usual schmaltzy holiday special-type fare.

You can't really watch it now for the kitschy fun of it. It's just too boring, unless 10 minutes of wookies talking to each other, with no translation, is your idea of fun.

Rocket ships and horsees

This one was too much fun not to pass on:

Bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification/Procedure/Process and wonder “What horse’s ass came up with it?” you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses’ asses.)

Here’s the twist. When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB’s. The SRB’s are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRB’s would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB’s had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.

The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRB’s had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.

Let's begin Christmas week ...

With the great Texas song writer Robert Earl Keen ...


Hmmm ... Robert Earl seems to have put on a little weight.

And in other news ...

No wonder the prairie dogs have been actin' funny.
Along with other fields and playgrounds across the nation, Odessa's famous football field is sick with lead. To me, the strangest part of the story is that China apparently has nothing to do with it.


At least they didn't go nuts with *&*%#@ exclamation points.
The Abilene Reporter-News is saying nah-nah to the city's marketing department. The paper ran a poll that asked Abilenicans if they preferred the city's new marketing slogan, "Abilene Frontiering," or Fort Worth's new slogan, "You get it, when you get here."

Voters heavily favored Fort Worth's slogan 90% to 10%. The poll even got the Star-Telegram's attention. I don't know. The paper's kinda kicking a dead mule there, but I agree it's not a great slogan.

Abilene has a history of adding random exclamation points to name events, supposedly to make them sound more exciting, but everyone knows that the guy who screams all the time is eventually the guy you ignore the most. And so people see the "Celebrate Abilene!" festival and the "Frontier Texas!" road signs and just shrug their shoulders.

(I should also add that it's a real nightmare for copy editors, forced to "correct" a perfectly correct phrase by making it incorrect. I remember having to write "Celebrate Abilene! will feature face painting this year." As if that sentence deserves an exclamation point.)

This time they've made up a word -- "Frontiering." I don't mind people occasionally adding a word to the language, but "frontiering" in this sense does not mean putting ma and pa in a wagon and going off to fight Injuns for the farm. "Frontiering" in this context means putting your surly, suburbian kids in the car and going to look at old stuff. And maybe buy new cheap stuff that looks like the old stuff.

Kinda takes the ooomph out of the word "frontier."


And that's what we do
I just realized that this blog has been real heavy lately on West Texas, football, and West Texas football. Then I looked at the name of this blog. "Duh," I said.

Sammy Baugh, RIP

Arguably the greatest quarterback who ever lived passed away Wednesday in Rotan.

I don't have a personal Sammy Baugh story, and I didn't even learn who he was until I was in high school. It was easy, however, to get your own personal Sammy Baugh story. All you had to do was drive up to his farm house outside of Sweetwater and honk your horn. He'd come out, take you inside, give you a drink, and talk for hours -- without having any idea who you were. Buddy Jeremy spent an afternoon at Baugh's place for an Avalanche-Journal story, about a week after Peyton Manning had been flown in for a photo shoot.

Robert Duvall copied Baugh's mannerisms to portray Gus McCrae in the Lonesome Dove miniseries.

He was a great quarterback, but having someone who combined his fame with gregariousness and a laid-back attitude made Baugh a model for West Texans, someone people were proud to have in the extremely large metaphorical back yard of the region.

A south plains moment

Guess where this happened ...


Highlight below for answer.
Brought to you by Queensland, Australia.
Always wanted to go there. Seems kinda like home.
The video calls it a tumbleweed vortex. If Hitchcock ever wanted to make a movie in Texas, he missed a great title.

Of Santa and sadness: Terry Pratchett’s illness

I heard the news a couple of weeks ago that my favorite living writer has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease.

Terry Pratchett writes the Discworld series, a line of humorous fantasy books that I’d like to write my master’s thesis on, if I ever get around to it. The series is that good – as in that funny and that deep and that imaginative.

I stumbled onto the series about three years ago, and have been working my way through it since. I didn’t write anything here after I heard about Pratchett's Alzheimer’s, as it was announced several months ago and writing news travels slow.

His website’s here. They have a link to speech he gave to a disease research group, which is kinda heartbreaking to watch because he’s funny and everyone in the room is too sad to laugh.

Anyway, my own story little of how a good writer can affect your life:

A few years back at the Abilene Reporter-News, we had an intern on the copy desk from Oklahoma U. Smart guy – the college intellectual type you’d expect to see wearing a Che T-shirt in a most definitely not-ironic-to-him kind of way.

One night I heard him in an argument with another copy editor, who was teasing him because he had recently announced that he would never tell his children about Santa Claus. "Because I will NEVER lie to my children."

I didn’t join in, just thought about what a serious, humorless childhood is in store for some kid in the future. But the question remained with me – why teach kids about Santa? Tradition? It’s a fun thing to do? Tradition?

A couple of months ago, I Netflixed the Pratchett books that had been turned into films. (All the films are terrible, by the way.) The best was Hogfather, a live-action take on Pratchett’s bizarre take on the Santa myth.

As mentioned, it wasn’t a good movie, but it made a point that I’ll remember. Borrowing from the phraseology that’s still in my head, it went something like:

You can sift through every inch and all the matter that makes up the universe, and you’ll never find a single atom of justice or compassion. These things exist only because men believe in them. And before you can believe in the big things, you have to be taught to believe in the small things.

It’s a great sentiment. A guy who writes about what trolls drink to get drunk came up with it.

And a moment of focused hope ...

Update: Mules win.

For another West Texas town. Muleshoe is playing today in its first state championship game. This is a long-odds, never-saw-it-coming deal, for one of the best little towns of the South Plains.





Give 'em hell.


Another story brought to me by the Avalanche-Journal's George Watson.

Everyone please remove their hats and take a freakishly large moment of silence

The man they called "Hoss" would've been 80 years old Wednesday.

Dan Blocker's hometown O'Donnell, which I understand has a museum exhibit in his honor, recognized the event, and will recognize it some more this weekend, according to the Avalanche-Journal.

True story -- this morning my wife got back from shopping, and noted, "It was slim pickens at the bread store today." And I had this brief vision of Slim going over the baked apple pies and expressing consternation at the Boboli. Then I remembered his glorious beatdown with Hoss on Bonanza, pretty much my favorite TV western fight in anything until Deadwood.

And then the A-J reminded me it was Hoss's b-day.


Fight starts at 4:47.

Note: The A-J reporter meant to refer to Hoss as a "gentle giant" but added an "i" in the wrong spot, thus noting that Hoss was a large man of the Christian persuasion (since corrected). Several people showed up to jeer in the story's comment section, thus hacking off this former copy editor. I feel the urge to show some surliness.

Snow hits Houston

You know, in some parts of the state, people may say that hell really has frozen over.

Not me, of course. Just some people. In some parts of the state.

On the other hand, an El Paso high school team made it to the area round of the football playoffs this year, so very strange things are happening.

Sagitarians (Sagitarriuses?) get off to a great start

So my wife read me perhaps the most doom-laden "If your birthday is today" bit I've ever heard, in this morning's Star-Telegram horoscope section. It said basically, "You no longer listen to anyone, you jerk. And don't even think about making any major changes until next year."

Then I read in the news that I share my birthday with a very special someone:

Gov. Blagojevich was born December 10, 1956, on the Northwest side of Chicago.

A spree of obscenities would be fitting here, but I fear my future employers will read this someday.

Gun Loaded? Check. Pepper-spray? Check. Riot shield? Check. All right, we're off to see the robot mouse.

Greatness in the Wall Street Journal, on the rash of violence at Chuck E. Cheeses.

"The biggest problem is you have a bunch of adults acting like juveniles," says Town of Brookfield Police Capt. Timothy Imler. "There's a biker bar down the street, and we rarely get calls there."

The primary cause? I blame the fact that children of baby boomers are now trying to raise kids, and are doing so poorly.

Small thoughts, small posts

And the rest were about Christmas costumes for dogs ...

Standing in the Wal-Mart checkout line the other day, looking at the magazines and tabloids. Hmmm ... let's see ... one ... two ... three ... four ... five. Five magazines with Britney Spears prominently on the cover. Three about her on drugs or gaining weight. One about her turning over a new leaf. And one about Kevin Federline turning over a new leaf after his ex-wife got on drugs and gained weight. Of course there might have been more, but I couldn't see all the covers.


Cranfills Gap goes to Vegas

Yaay. Maybe you've heard of the promotion -- people from Las Vegas searched for a town that would be entertaining to take gambling, and they settled on this little crossroads about 20 miles away from Hico. My only reaction was -- of course. Reality shows (and lately, reality-PR campaigns) have been happening with such regularity in the Cross Timbers region that people are going to start counting on it as part of the economy.

The reasons for the attention: The people are genuine when they say things like "all hat and no cattle." They make for good pictures when they see a dancing woman in a sparkly headdress and nothing else except for a few well-placed nickels. ("Well, gosh," they might say. Or perhaps "Yee-haw." Makes good commercial dialogue.)

I also think that they keep going to the Cross Timbers because, as a population, the people have a pretty good ratio of the ugly to the good-looking. As opposed to, say, Missouri, where the ratio is about 80-20 in the wrong direction.


Tom Bodet -- not dead, yet spinning in his grave

Motel 6 is changing its look to something its CEO describes as Eurochic.

I heard the roar of a billion rolling eyes.


Christmas shopping. Easier.

Don't know if it's good or bad, but since everyone in our family just buys each other gift cards, the buying of presents this year was easier than ever, and is already over. At least that's what's my wife tells me. I had nothing to do with it.


Fall semester ends

And boy is my brain tired.


Happy mark-your-approach-to-death day, to me

I'm posting this shot not so much to let people know that my b-day is soon, so much as to show off Meredith's cupcakes. She made them from scratch and referred to the recipe -- a devil's food cake -- as "intimadating." They came out mighty tasty. Meredith was proud. Proud enough to demand I post a picture. So, here ya go.

Picture of fire

These were taken at the annual family eatathon in Hico. At which Sam got his first look at two of the funnest things in the whole wide world ...

Fire!

This experience was accompanied by a great deal of "Hey! Back! No touch! No touch! Danger! Hot!"

And offroad vehicles

The boy definitely loves the machinery with wheels. We have a children's book that has nothing in it but pictures of things that "Go." Sam's brought it to us so many times that we've started running in the other direction anytime he bends down to pick it up.

We also did a grandchildren/college affiliation shot. (A few Baylor kids would have been perfect for the season, but ain't none of us that rich.) Everyone took a shot and my Mom's planning on using the best for this year's Christmas cards.

This is my best. Eh. A few of the children got caught at an awkward moment.

After looking at this picture, I remembered that we had an impromptu kickball game that afternoon. All family members not in this shot suffered age-related injuries.

Blogger type

A site called Typealyzer will tell you what blogging personality you have by analyzing your language, or something.

My personality, the "performer," is a bit disturbing ...

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. ...

Ah well. I checked Dave's at Bottlecaps, and he was rated the same, and let me just say here that we are both confident in our manly manliness. I'm also not into bright colors so much. I'll admit that I like cotton bedsheets, but what does that have to do with anything?

Anyway, if you want to do your own analyzing, the site is here.

Woe! Woe!

Signs that things aren't going well for Tech:

• The announcers begin the fourth quarter with an argument over which Beyonce song is the best.
• Watching Graham Harrell gives you flashbacks of Kermit the Frog singing "Happy Feet."
• You leave Norman thinking, "Wow, Sooner fans are the friendliest people on earth."
• Raider fans are already whining about the officiating by the end of the first quarter.
• That offensive line dude who always wears the face paint goes from looking cool to looking like ... a big fat guy who wears face paint.
• Mike Leach looks exactly the same as he always does.

Had a strange weekend. Ate breakfast Saturday with some friends and then headed to Norman. Buddy Jeremy had randomly called me last week about possibly coming up to watch the game and drink beers, and, as it's been a long time since I've done that, I jumped at the chance.

I wasn't actually at the game. I was just at Jeremy's house, watching Tech's national championship hopes fading ... fading ... exploding like a cream pie thrown in our faces ...

But, all things considered --

• First off, the blowout loss didn't show Tech to be a fraud, unlike some of the announcers were saying. At least in my mind. The score sucked, but Mike Leach decided to keep trying to get back in the game, keep going for it at fourth and three on the 50-yard line, even though his team hadn't shown any indication they would succeed. Sometimes it works, sometimes you end up giving the other guys two easy scores in two minutes. That's the way he plays, and we wouldn't be where we are if Leach didn't play that way.
• Secondly, perspective. This year still ranks as Tech's best season, ever. Barring some screw-up, we still finish in the top 10, still have an outside shot at a BCS game. It's impossible for anyone with a brain to complain about where we are, considering where we've been.

Happy Tuesday.

Just playin'

About half an hour before bed time. Playing with a camera.

We get ...

Sam, Boy Toddler of Action

He's fast enough now that walking no longer does the trick in keeping up with him.

Along with his growing speed, he's also learned how to close doors ...

Mixed feelings. I'm proud of how he's learning things at this incredible, flaming speedball rate. But, once he learns to open doors -- well, I shudder to think.

Good news for me

Bad news for the children of America. Funny how that works.

Schools face growing shortage of male teachers.

But that's a big reason why I'm going into education, job security. And I actually think I'm going to enjoy it. Or at least parts of it.

Canadian police chase

I love winter.

* seen on Ace.

I Eat My Cake

This was from a recipe in the Star-Telegram called, I think, "So-Much-Chocolate-You-Should-Anesthetize-Your-Mouth Cake." I'm calling it my first cake success, as it looks pretty good and there were no major mistakes in the manufacturing process.

UPDATE: Per request, here's a link to the recipe.

Sam's b-day cake was well-recieved, but I thought it was a little dry. I still don't have the texture right on this one, but my wife likes it and I'm fine with that.

After writing this, I feel like I should kill something and grill it just to get my testosterone levels back up.


Kill the beast
So, how long does everyone think the phrase "He's a BEAST" will remain cool? I'm thinking until last Tuesday.

(UPDATE: My wife was confused as to the meaning of the phrase. "He's a BEAST" translates roughly into "He's quite good at what he's doing.")

For a replacement, "Knees the groin of reality" would be a good one. As in:

Michael Crabtree: Knee.
Reality: Groin.

Booyah.

(I miss "booyah" -- we got rid of it way too soon.)

Notes, cause I need to post

Sam began imitating us talking on the phone this week. He does this by picking up a block and holding it to his ear and jabbering. He's gone so far as to gesture. All the child development stuff we've read told us to expect this, but it's fun when you actually see him doing it.

Of course, he refuses to do it on camera, but here are a few pictures of the latest.

Not to complain, but I will ...

I reached a new level of brain death on Monday.

Five hours of sleep after trying to write a short story. Waking up early for some reason. Two math classes. One math test. Attempting to work more on short story. Going to creative writing class, and listening to 13 other people read their unfinished short stories.

At least I slept well last night. Still, as far as a time in my life where I feel like I'm just treading water, it really felt like I was up to my ears.

Yaaay

"I was expecting another celebratory "Yahooo!" post from you," Meredith told me after she got back from work Saturday night.

I said that, while I was supremely satisfied with Tech beating Okie State, it wasn't the same thrill of beating a No. 1 team, and a No. 1 team that happens to be UT, at that. Besides, I'd written too much about football lately, and I know that gets to be a downer for people who could care less.

But I've changed my mind since. Exactly how many times in my life is my favorite team going to be this good and do these things? My knowledge of sports is basic, but the affection I have for Texas Tech goes to my background and my memories. It's the same reason anyone loves a team -- the team is part of your identity.

I'm still not euphoric. I'd thought we'd need two miracles this season, and so far we've had one against the Longhorns. I have no idea how we're supposed to beat OU -- similarly talented offense, but a much higher talent level overall.

I spotted an article in the Star-Telegram on how Tech fans are reacting. I pretty much agree with the guy who said that, no matter what happens now, it'll be impossible to be disappointed with this season.

(The article also quotes "fan" Gary Ashby, which is kind of funny to me because Ashby comes up virtually any time someone does a story on Tech fans. He's a former baseball coach and played for my Dad.)

Most Tech fans are now hoping for a win and secretly praying that we just play decent.

Memories of all those years -- when we just wanted to go to the Cotton Bowl and couldn't get over the hump -- are still fresh in our heads.

Still, I'm just happy with the ride so far.

WaPo: Daylight savings time kills bad people

Something to think about while grousing about having to adjust:

"Back in 1999, terrorists on the daylight-saving West Bank built several time bombs, delivered to co-conspirators in Israel and scheduled to explode at a set time. Problem was, Israel had just switched back to standard time, so the only people injured were the terrorists themselves when the bomb detonated an hour earlier than they expected and killed them all."

Update

YAHHOOOOOOOO!!!!

Update to the update:
Yeehaw! North Texas pulls off upset. (Or something. It's always an upset when North Texas wins.)

Attention, people of Latin America

I don't talk much here about the results I see on this blog's visitor tracking system. Basically, I don't want people to become conscious that someone is looking over their back, even if we both know that someone is.

But I generally check the results every day, and it always either feels good to see old buddies looking me up or gives me a kind of wierd "what's that about?" feeling. (Like the other week, when, for some reason, 20 people from Spain wanted to read an old post about that bikini model/anchorwoman thing that happened in Tyler about two years ago.)

But something's been driving me nuts for more than a year, so I'm going to go ahead and ask: What's the deal with the Outfield and all countries south of the Rio Grande?

At least once a day, sometimes three, four times a day, someone in Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, etc. decides to Google a variation of the phrase: "I can't believe, the things that happen to me" and wind up at this site.

Variations include: "I can believe the things that happen," "I can't believe the things," "I believe what happens."

I've spent a few hours researching this and can find nothing. If I google the phrase myself, this site doesn't show up on the first 10 pages.

What the hell? Is there some kind of contest that uses the phrase. Is it some comedian's laugh line?

If you're googling that, you must know English. Help me out here.

And enjoy some classic Outfield.

Drama in the classroom

So on Monday, we're reviewing for a trig test this week. Our original professor has been out because of back surgery, so a T.A. has been running the class for about a month.

I don't think I noticed this the first time I was in college, but in every class I've taken so far there's been a student (or two) that has to ask a question every five damn minutes. And usually that question is, "Why don't I understand what you just said?"

Monday's version: The teacher was working through a problem, and the dude who is always pronouncing his stupidity goes freaking ballistic when the teacher wrote: 2*2 = 4.

Seriously. "That looks like 2.2 = 4 to me."

Teacher becomes peeved. "Folks, this is fourth-grade stuff here." That brings other students into the fray, saying they've just been insulted.

Teacher leaves class for 30 seconds. Then she comes back in, angrily slamming papers together and canceling the class, about 10 minutes after it started.

Me and Meredith talked about it. The teacher should have calmed things down, instead of making it worse.

But we also talked about kids today: Asking 80 questions in a class and not caring that you're slowing the whole thing down; Practically begging for someone to insult you so that you can react with righteous indignation. And, most importantly, thinking that being dumber than a box of rocks is something to show with pride along with your school colors.

I'm trying to think of this as good training for what I'm about to face -- although I'm pretty sure the average junior high student is going to be smarter than what I'm seeing now.

Otherwise, all I know is that I've made a low B on a test for the first time since returning to college, when everything else has been an A.

School drama -- not good.

Today, we'll find out ... something

Last post taken down, as the tastelessness was overwhelming the funny for me.

The following has mainly to do with Lubbock and football, and is probably not of much interest to anyone.

This has been an great week for a Tech fan. Three points to make before the game tonight.

Lubbock's weathered the national spotlight pretty well, tho my wife has been reporting plenty of meth-addled and STD-infected comments from work.

The worst thing I read was a column with a backhanded compliment in the Star-Telegram by Gil Lebreton, who basically said that, for a bunch moonshine-swilling, sister-sexing, knuckle-dragging morons, Tech fans were behaving pretty well this time around.

I'm doubtful he was even aware of the ironic nature of his compliment, just as I think most sports media don't see how the hostility they get from Tech fans is their own dismissive attitude thrown back in their face.

The best thing I read this week was also in the Star-Telegram, by Jennifer Engel. She wrote about the possibility that Mike Leach, Tech's coach, might actually be happy in Lubbock. This is apparently a thought that doesn't occur to people outside of West Texas often.

I also tired of all the opinion pieces saying that this game was Tech's one chance to prove itself, one chance to earn the respect of the national media.

No it isn't. The national media ranks the Longhorns the No.1 team in the country, which therefore means that Texas is supposed to beat everyone else.

Besides, if Tech loses this game, then goes on to beat Oklahoma State and Oklahoma, are we still undeserving of respect? Do we still not have a program worthy of standing alongside the national powers?

Sheesh.

And go Tech.

Notes, almost football free

Meet Tag*.


*As in "Tag! You're now taking care of me."

Tag showed up about a month ago, a small calico with a wounded nose and a good nature. I've been feeding her since. She's a clean cat who helps keep the rat population around our house down. We know this because each rat she catches ends up on our doorstep.

We decided to be responsible and get Tag fixed the other day, only to find out that she'd already been defertilized. This would have been a bigger shock if it hadn't been the second time in my life I'd tried to fix a cat only to discover someone already did.

I don't get the mentality. "There, you're spayed. Now go away and starve to death."


Sam gets haircut, trip to emergency room
Sam's first hair trim wasn't a dramatic, milestone event I think it is for most kids.


This is because Sam doesn't have a lot of hair to begin with. A trip to the barber would've been a waste of money.

The strands he does have, however, were growing long and girly looking, so Mom provided the cutting. She did a good job. He's back to looking manly and ready to shoot something.

Two hours after I put Sam to bed on Saturday, he woke up crying and coughing. And coughing. Then his coughs turned into these ugly sounding things, like his internal organs were fighting with each other.

I got him out of bed. He kept coughing, and wheezing in between.

So figuring it was time for people to start freaking out, I called Meredith. Soon we were driving to the hospital.

Everything was OK. Sam was doing much better before we got to Cooks Children, and a quick examination revealed -- the croup.

Croup makes them bark like a seal and their throat passages swell, making it difficult to breath. The best treatment is to bring the infant out into the cold night air, which we had done by bringing him to the hospital.

He's been a bit stuffy since, but basically fine. The main thing I got out of the experience was the feeling I had sitting in the emergency room -- I felt just like I did when Sam was born, a mental deer-in-the-headlights-of-reality feeling that I had no idea what I was doing. I'm guessing that's never going to go completely away.

Tragedy on the gridiron
The Dallas Cowboys will always be the pro team I care about the most, even if I flirt with other teams from time to time.

Still, I don't have an ET-Elliot kind of connection with them. I don't think I ever could so long as Jerry Jones is the owner.

So it was with this detachment that I was able to laugh at the media mood on Monday morning.

To turn on the radio was to listen to people talk as if they were attending the tragic funeral of a best friend.

"Man ... I just don't know ... how could it ... how could they ... man."

(Personally, I think it's because everyone on that team feels drained by Jerry Jones' 24-hour Funtime Circus.)

Let's hope Romo's pinkie heals soon. It's all that stands between us and mass suicide.

How 'bout the Big 12 as the Middle East?

I was able to find this on some message boards going back about a month (and it could use some updating). Done originally -- I think -- by some guy calling himself Rabid Roger. See if you can guess the school Roger is rabid about. And if you can't, see if you can replace all your silverware with soft plastic sporks as soon as possible ...


TEXAS: Iran.
Somewhat of a controlling power in the region but it will all come crashing down because they have a highly functioning retard as a leader.

KANSAS: Kuwait.
Tons of riches and unrealized potential, but still vulnerable to Iran.

NEBRASKA: Iraq.
A wealth of history but the country as a whole is going in the tank and they will kill themselves off before it's all over.

OKLAHOMA: Saudi Arabia.
A proud kingdom, once torn up by fighting but known for historic past and prosperous future, surrounded by Iran and Iraq, with fanatics in Al-Qaeda (see below) who'll stop at nothing to bring them down.

MISSOURI: Syria.
Evil schemers who will stoop to whatever level they need to win. No real history to speak of but thinks they are the cradle of civilization.

OKLAHOMA STATE: Al Qaeda.
No real country, just a movement of disgruntled fanatics who live to destroy the hope of those more fortunate. No other goal in life than to bring down the House of Saudi Arabia. Terrorizing that country in the late 90's and early 2000 years is the crowning achievement in their history. Signing day was a major setback to the movement. They are fanatically loyal to their new leader.

KANSAS STATE: Palestinian territories.
No one really cares or worries about them unless they can be of some use (i.e. winning a battle once in a while against Iran that causes a bit of shake up in rankings)

IOWA STATE: Qatar.
Where is Qatar? Is it in our area?

Texas A&M: Afghanistan.
Not much going for it other than the crazy commoners.

BAYLOR: Israel.
None of the others understand why they're in the area.Just leave them alone. What did they ever do to you?

COLORADO: Morocco.
Not really part of the Middle East. Has other things to do than fight (or play football). Rumor is you can always go there for a good time.

TEXAS TECH: Libya.
Has a charismatic leader in a land of nothingness who will rattle his sword but knows he doesn't have a whole heck of a lot to back it up. Pulls the occasional sneak-attack and cries "Victory!"

The mid-season Big 12/Star Trek character comparison

The Microsoft network decided to rate the nation’s best and nation’s worst mascots. After looking at the results – Eh. The writer apparently decided that beauty was awesome and a random dude who dresses like a tree and gets arrested for public drunkenness is somehow a bad thing. Bill Gates is a moron.

Anyway, that bit, my recent description of OU fans, and another blogger who did this – only in comparison with "The Office" – got me to thinking: Which Star Trek character does each Big 12 school most closely resemble right now?

Let me just add that a quick Google check indicates I’m the only one thinking this. At least within the last 12 hours.

This is mainly from a Texas Tech perspective. It’s not like I can stop that. No one gets to be Picard. No one will ever get to be Kirk.

Oklahoma Sooners/The Borg

"We are the Sooner Nation. Prepare to be beaten. We will use BCS rule 78B part 5 addendum 17a to maintain our spot in the BCS championship game. You cannot stop us. You will be ... zzzzzzzzzz."

Texas A&M Aggies/Wharf
"Perhaps it is a good day to die!"

From his military culture, you’d expect the guy to be the Star Trek version of Chuck Norris. But he keeps on getting clobbered. It’s like the creators of the show like to see him beat up.

Colorado Buffaloes/Riker
"Giggity."

Everyone considers him competent, but you realize he’s too hotheaded and mistake-prone, and just seems to be around to contrast with the big dogs. He’s always going on and on about his ability with the ladies, but the only one you remember him dating was that androgynous, granola alien who wasn’t even sure if she was a chick.

Texas Tech Red Raiders/Geordi La Forge
"The chionic particles are dissembling in the alpha matrix. Ungh."

Not that anyone really talks about it, but the pirate fetish/visor thingy kind of freaks people out. Genius with the technical stuff. Only he tends to get so caught up in his machines/offense that he doesn’t notice the two dumb guys with clubs sneaking up from behind.

Nebraska Cornhuskers/Tribbles
"..."

They really like their grains. Appear all cute and cuddly, then practically overwhelm everything.

Missouri Tigers/Spock

A bad mofo. Texas Tech quarterbacks play against Missouri like someone pinched them in a vital area. Still, tends to have some kind of freakout three or four times a season – either it’s mating time or he’s gone all "la di da dee dah" all over the place. There’s a reason he’s not the captain.

Baylor/The Fifth Crewman
"Seems likable. They’ve given him a few more lines of dialogue than usual so far. Maybe he’ll be some one-episode hero or something ..."

The music crescendos. A high-pitched buzzing noise. And the whole screen turns a shade of pink.

"Nope. Guess not."

Oklahoma State Cowboys/Lokai (the half-white/half-black guy)

Appears to be incredibly powerful, but brings along his own seeds of destruction. You get the feeling that soon the T.Boone side and the Pickens side will be running through the flaming ruins of a great season.

Kansas Jayhawks/Gorn
"Shoot it! Shoot it!"

You’re not sure if he wants to out think you or eat you.

Kansas State Wildcats/Hawk

Cool guy, decent history. Seems somehow out of place.

Iowa State Cyclones/Terri Garr
"She was on the show?"

Yep – an early episode. Her job was to speak in a hippie slang, act confused and make everyone else look good.

Texas Longhorns/Captain Janeway
"Fire a photon torpedo – of sensitivity."

Does anyone else notice how much tea they drink on the later Star Treks? Was coffee outlawed during the Zefram Cochrane era? Anyway ... You’re in command, fine, fine. Just remember to tell that Irish hologram you spend so much time with that you’re still a long, long way from home.

Yes, sometimes I really like to outnerd myself.

Some thoughts on sports and fandomness

Warning: Post covers only obscure bits about football. This is not a sports blog, but, between school and Sam, it's what I spend most of my leisure time thinking about.

Saturday night I was in a bar.

***

Let's just take a moment to appreciate that.

Me.

Bar.

Saturday night.

Sigh.

(Shudder.)

(Tear.)

***

OK. Saturday night I was in a bar with a couple of buddies. We notice this guy sitting at a table across the room.

I notice him because he's the only guy I've seen since 2 p.m. wearing Oklahoma University gear. He's got the maroon cap, turned backward, with OU on the back. And he's wearing a maroon shirt emblazoned with "Beat Texas" in big, bold type.

He stops by the bar to get another round, and then yells at the bartender, who had given him a little smarm with his beer.

We stop the OU guy. I tell him I'm a Tech fan, but that he's dead-on about his team getting rooked with some horrible calls. Otherwise we give him props for having the cajones to keep wearing the T-shirt, after the fact, in enemy territory.

He begins, "It's OK. We'll be all right. Texas isn't going to get through the season without a some losses." He then rattles off some details about UT's competition, including a knowledge of Texas Tech that is deeper than my own. Then he leaves us, once again assuring us that OU will be OK.

And I had a vision. I could hear the same conversation, happening over and over again north of the Red River, borg-like in its repetition, certainty and knowledge.

It's not fun being on the recieving end of that intensity when it's directed at you, and you happen to be in the cheap seats at Memorial Stadium and your team is getting shallacked 57-6 and even the middle-aged lady sitting in front of you is handing you the business, along with her 7-year-old kid.

Still, on Saturday, I was left with a feeling of admiration for the kind of dedication and love (or something) that it takes to build to that level of knowledge and intensity.


Game faces
Earlier in the day, I made it to the Pour House in downtown Fort Worth (a fine bar for game watching) so that I could catch Tech playing Nebraska. As stated before, all the OU fans had left the area.

Plenty of Texas fans were hanging around to celebrate. Around halftime, the UT folks at the table behind got up to leave.

One guy, deadly serious, says, "OK guys. Let's not get cocky. We've got Missouri next week. We've GOT to get ready."

Ready for what? You just spent four hours in a bar an hour away from the game you watched. Did your beer selection affect Colt McCoy's passing accuracy? Did your pleas break all rules of space/time to land in the ref's ear?

All sports fans live vicariously through their teams. Everyone feels good after a win, cathartic after a loss. It's the reason people care.

But as a fan who's not at the game, your job is to:

1. Sit
2. Enjoy a tasty beverage
3. Watch TV

You don't need to put your game face on. You don't need to spend a week worrying about your level of mental intensity when the game starts. You don't need to boss your friends into not fumbling the order for chicken wings when we're going for it on fourth and two, dang it.

Because it don't mean diddly to the eventual outcome, jackhole.

Please chill. Enjoy yourself. That's kind of the point.

Kicker talk
I feel sorry for Donnie Carona, Tech's freshman kicker who just lost his job. But his situation proves the unwritten rule for kickers -- never, ever, ever award a placekicker a scholarship straight out of high school.

Speaking from my experience as perhaps the worst high school placekicker in Lubbock's not-very-proud gridiron history (0-1 in varsity field goal attempts), even I know that prep dudes don't kick high enough.

In high school, your average defensive line is made up of fat guys who average about 5'10" in height. In college, you've generally got 6'5" mountains of muscle with a 30-inch vertical jump.

Carona seems to have a hard time adjusting. Maybe he'll eventually get used to it.

Rivalry? Eh
I remember this e-mail joke from a few years back:

How many Texas Tech students does it take to screw in a light bulb?

One student to screw in the light bulb, 27,000 students to desperately attempt to start a rivarly with other schools over light bulb screwing.

It came to me while I was reading the latest Tim McMahon post in the Dallas Morning-News, as he attempts to stir the pot between Tech and A&M fans once again.

The gist of the conversation is this: Tech has always wanted to beat A&M. A&M has never given Tech the credit of a rival, taking the position that the Red Raiders aren't good enough and they don't care enough about them to call it a rivalry.

This has gone on for a few years. And it hit me that maybe Tech fans shouldn't really care about being in a rivalry with A&M or even Texas.

Being in Lubbock, we've always been the red-headed stepchild of whatever conference we've played in. Everyone always writes us off. I say to hell with all of 'em.

We should drop the non-existent rivalries for an us-against-the-world type stance. It's closer to the real feelings of most West Texans, anyway.

(No predictions for this weekend. A&M blows this year, but so did Nebraska. No idea what'll happen.)

Like Bart Simpson on Snow Day

Staying homebound hasn't been a whole lot of fun lately.

First, the Star-Telegram had a story the other day on the beginning of the Oktoberfest season. One of my favorite college memories was whooping it up to the chicken dance in Addison. You could get a huge souvenir beer glass that would shatter within three weeks of purchase. Kind of surprising they've never been sued.

Second, the State Fair of Texas is in full swing. The local PBS station has been airing an excellent documentary on the history of the fair. I've loved the show ... it made me want to blow $30 on all the deep-fried whatever they've come up this year. (I believe the deep-fried grilled-cheese sandwich, served with tomato soup, won this year's tastiest award.)

I want to pet some exotic domesticated pigs from Australia. I want to wander among the merchants and decide not to buy a belt made from ostrich feathers. I want to be mildly intimidated by the thick crowds of young ruffians who fill the park at sundown.

And I want to spend 15 minutes just standing there, basking in the glory of Big Tex -- which started out as a giant Santa Claus, according to the documentary.

Also gleaned from the fair documentary:

• The two biggest draws used to be strippers and gambling on horses.
• When I first heard the phrase "Negro Day" in the movie Hairspray, I thought it was an over-the-top satirical slam. Not really. The state fair had it's own "Negro Appreciation Day" each year -- the only day black people could participate in all of the exhibits. I can only imagine such days were part of most events all over the United States, before the civil rights movement.

Son turns one

We celebrated Sam's first birthday over the weekend. And -- despite the stress involved with attempting to feed and entertain 15 people in a small house with no seating -- things went pretty well. It helps that a 1-year-kid can provide a lot of entertainment.

Thanks to our guests. Sam got so many toys that he probably won't have time to play with them all before he graduates to the "I want a gun" level of toydom.

My Aunt Peggy gave him this plastic table that lights up and sings a song any time you push a button, spin a wheel, etc. He really seems keen on this bit that sings out numbers, and I'm sure I'll soon be hearing "One-twothreefour-five-six-seven-Eight-NINE-TE-EN!" in my sleep any day now. But it's kinda fascinating to watch him figure things out, make intellectual progress right in front of you, as opposed to coming home from school one day and telling me what's in an atom.

Otherwise -- the boy has grown a lot in a year. Like amazingly. Here's a comparison:

Sam in the delivery room (all cleaned up, no gross stuff here).

And Sam at one year.

And since I don't want to write any sentimental junk, I'll let Jim Croce do it for me.

I take the reigns for now

I've been busy lately, and didn't have time to notice that I have taken another head coaching slot.

So it was Jeremy who let me know that you can now call me Mr. Rams Interim Head Coach, thank you very much.

Stress seems to be getting me, what with the turkey neck and all. In the very least, no one will accuse this team of fading down the stretch.

Go St. Louis. And your quarterback, who is probably the sixth or seventh guy since Kurt Warner left, not that anyone really cares.

Sam discovers his inner viking, & notes

Spurred on by the evil cat ...

He's not going after anything at the end. He's just running and screaming for the joy of it. I haven't acted that way since my senior year at North Texas.

Workee work! etc.
Some of you may have noticed that even the paltry standards of updating this blog have fallen off somewhat since the beginning of the month. The thing is, I realized last weekend that I had maybe bitten off more than I could chew with three college classes, the internet teacher certification thing, and the job of keeping this house so clean you could eat off of any surface of your choosing.

I've since implemented the no-damn-fun-anytime-whatsoever action alert plan. No more library books, a hold on my Netflix queue, no weekend trips, and web surfing only when I couldn't otherwise be studying.

I've made some progress after earlier falling behind, but this is going to be a semester-long thing.

Sick
It took us about a week and half, but everyone has more or less recovered from Sam's cold, though I still have to cough to clear my throat. Sam's nose seems to be kinda-sorta cleared up. My primary impression of the experience is amazement that a 20-pound baby could produce that much mucous. Unbelievable.

Outdated things
Had another I'm-really-old moment at UTA on Wednesday.

I'm sitting in Union's Palo Duro Lounge, a place I like to go to almost solely because of the name, and was reading the comics in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Chuckling about once for every 10 strips, and otherwise thinking that it seems like comics used to be a lot more edgy and funny. It's like something took the oxygen out of them in the last five years.

Then I heard two guys laughing. They were downloading clips of "Family Guy" to their phones and playing them to each other.

Hico quadruplets
I understand this means four.

FORT WORTH — Tina McLean is planning for a big, big crowd at home in Hico this Thanksgiving, including three new sons and a new daughter that weren’t around last November.

I didn't recognize anyone, but it's not like I really know anyone.

The story goes on to talk about how the whole town is getting ready to welcome the family back, how people are lining up to pitch in.

And it made me think that, if this happened in the suburbs, you could maybe expect your neighbors to start waving at you, every once in a while.

POTUS talks farm
I guess I should start this out with a political disclaimer: I haven't talked politics here. I realize the image of some people will cause others to react like dracula seeing a cross. And, while I'm fascinated by politics, I've never really felt like I had much to add to the national chimps-flinging-feces-at-each-other conversation. I also want everyone to feel welcome here.

So, for the time being, I say I won't mess with your dudes. Don't mess with mine.

With that in mind, I present a nifty little bit of family history:

As part of his duties working for A&M and the Agrilife Extension Service, my brother in law, Andy Vestal, has to go to an emergency operations center in Austin any time there's a hurricane in the Gulf.

So, when my parents switched to Fox news to check in on coverage of Gustav (the one before Ike), they happened to catch Vestal chatting with President Bush in a background shot.

Here's Andy's account of it:

The President and I actually talked about AgriLife Extension and had a visit about our family farms in Hico and in Crawford just minutes away from each other. He wanted to know a bit about the expected rainfall for fall grazing and filling the tanks.

The President of the United States, talking about the Hico farm. That's pretty cool.

Mike Leach dating tips

Since Tech doesn't have a serious game today ...



I just keep waiting for him to crack a smile or give some indication that it's a joke. Nope, he might as well be discussing Colorado's defense or the U.S.'s economic policy.

Fall falls, notes

A hurricane isn't all bad.

This hit me last night, as the temp cooled down to 60 degrees for the first time since April. Yep, those ultra-low pressure systems are good for sucking up all of the hot air for hundreds of miles around.

Around Fort Worth, it was almost like a holiday. Everyone was outside -- taking the kids to eat, running up and down the block like an idiot, etc.

It was such a pleasant evening, I tried to take a picture of the full moon with my camera.

Nope, didn't work out too well.

Ike-AH!

Of course, I note the good things about the hurricane only as random thoughts after seeing and worrying about the state of Southeast Texas. I spent a year down there and had a pretty good time.

The damage is going to cause a lot of heartache, but I'm glad that the death toll hasn't been disastrous.

I did get a little annoyed this morning when hearing about some of the rescued people from Galveston. First off, I hear that about 40 percent of the population did not leave, even when the government was practically begging them to go. Even considering the island's history with hurricanes.*

But hey, if you're willing to take your chances, that's ultimately your business. I get irked, however, when I hear radio reports that the people who decided to stay put are now complaining that rescues are taking too long. And you expected what?

Sick at last, sick at last

Sam's nose started running Sunday. Last night, it was running so bad that he had to labor breathing while he tried to sleep. He didn't get much rest, and neither did mama and daddy.

Today he's running a 102 temperature, and just left to go to the doctor.

You hate to see your kid sick, but, on the other hand, it's kind of relief to get it out of the way. Eleven months old, and Sam hasn't had any kind of sickness to speak of since he's been born. It makes you worry that the first time he catches something, it'll be really, really serious.

So, it's a relief to see this happen, though it was a bigger relief to see him doing better by the time he and mama finally left for the doctor's office.

In the meantime, Meredith's nose is already running. And I feel like I already have a target on my back.

*If you get a chance, read Isaac's Storm. It's an excellent book about the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.

Sam movie

We don't have a normal video camera, just the movie function on our digital photo-picture-taker. Anyway, with Sam walking pretty good now, we decided to try a quick movie.

And then he ate the camera. And everything else ...

Videos

Both of these are from Jeremy.

The first is a Klingon song. It's most likely about looking forward to glorious death with honor in battle.



This is basically what Bob Dylan's show would be like, if it involved the eating of live animals.

The next I can't embed. But it's worth a look for those who love far West Texas. The San Antonio Express-News did a film short on Terlingua -- easily one of the greatest places in the state.

Here it is. Enjoy a three-minute vacation.

You'll notice a dog in the shot. I remember that dog. Nice fella.

Notes

From the male grapevine
The best thing about any fantasy football draft is watching the chatter from people you haven't seen in years. (I stay quiet, which is what everyone would expect.)

Yesterday, while I picked players for my team Love Shack*, I heard the news that a reporter I worked with a long, long time ago was pregnant -- again -- and still unmarried. As I hadn't heard of pregnancy no. 1, that kinda freaked me out.

Usually when you hear news of old acquaitances, it's about a new job or move or kid or something that fits into what everyone expects out of life. You file the news somewhere and maybe remember it, maybe not. When they're having difficulties ... I dunno. For me it's like I'm instantly back in the newsroom or at a bar sharing a beer with that person -- far removed from the harsher things life is going to throw at people.


The nuerotic dog
So I took Ginger and left Jimbo here last weekend when I drove to Lubbock. Meredith said he behaved well, but pretty much just moped around for the three days me and the other dog were gone.

Since I've been back, he's gotten better but has still been kind of tentative with everything he does. Last night, I found some bumps on his chest, apparently his glands are swelling and he's fighting off an infection or something.

This is a high-stress dog. When we first moved to Fort Worth, he got some kind of stomach bug, went three days without eating, and spent two weeks on antibiotics.

Damn dog, doesn't understand relaxation techniques.

Bluff Dale, the latest small Texas town to go all Fredericksburgy

The Star-Telegram ran a feature on Bluff Dale, a town that's about 30 minutes away from Hico, and my wife is excited.

They've got a vineyard and winery! A gourmet-casual restaurant! Other stuff!

"I want to go," Meredith said. Then, thinking again, "Of course, now that it's been in the paper, it'll be infested by yuppies."

And, as my buddy David J. used to say, such is life. Small towns like Bluff Dale and Hico haven't been able to prosper in the old way -- when everybody had a 200-acre farm and grew cotton and cows -- for decades.

So, people who spent their life avoiding other people who used words like "lifestyle choice" now have to offer their own lifestyle choice of small-town quaintness in order to keep making money.

I'd be more melancholoy, but this place in Bluff Dale offers duck quesadillas, and I'm dying to give that a try.

Talking football, because my mind thought up things to say and I might as well write them down
After listening to the Tech game Saturday, I'm left vaguely unsettled. I don't know this team. It sounds like they could be good, but you're not going to get anywhere with a personal foul against you every three plays.

It's like they want to prove that they deserve the rankings and hype they've received, so they go out and either try too hard or not hard enough. I can only hope they clean themselves up quickly.

As it is, Texas and Oklahoma are already looking sharp. And so is Missouri, come to think of it. Tech had better focus, and ignore all the temptations and distractions that life in Lubbock can provide.

As far as A&M -- whoa. Didn't see that coming. The funny thing was reading the message boards and seeing everyone already calling for a new coach. C'mon, it's the first game of a new system. Ark. St. ain't that bad. Still, I think A&M's going to have a lousy season. I also think they are going to scare the bejesus out of Tech at Kyle Field.


*The song was on my mind, plus I had this nifty photo of a shack back in Hico that I want to repair. No, nothing nefarious has happened there. At least, not that I know of. It does look kinda creepy, though.

Water tower mascots

There's an entertaining, if unfocused, story in the Star-Telegram today about towns painting their high school mascots on their water towers.

It starts by talking about O'Brien (which is way out there and I've driven through it), a town that recently installed a new water tower. And then painted on a tribute to the high school's six-man state championship. Even though the championship was in 1972. And the school has long since shut down.

I think it's a great subject. I recall Hico just recently installing one of those golf ball-tee water towers, and the local folk then grumbling until a donor came through with enough money to paint "Home of the Tigers" on the top.

I can only imagine the stories out there.

The weird thing about the S-T piece is that it's half talking about mascots on water towers and half about O'Brien's championship run. It's either two stories shoved together or one that kind of sprawled all over the place.

Still. Entertaining. I recommend it if you're interested in that kind of thing.

Also: Click on the audio slideshow. They don't show nearly enough water towers, but about halfway through the background interview, you hear a rooster going off.

Sam's de-butt* in the Star-Telegram

You'll have to click on the link to find out why I made such a lame pun, though you can probably figure that out before clicking.

Anyway, for a quick update:

About a month ago Sam started trying to walk. Basically, he'd take a step and fall down. On Sunday, Aug. 17, 2008, he managed to string five steps together and I thought, "I'm calling it, he's walking."

Then, for a bit, he seemed to lose interest in walking at all. Yesterday, he took his five steps and, instead of falling down, he stopped, regained his balance, and took five more. Then he sat down violently. I keep worrying about his spine, the way the boy slams his butt down.

Anyway, here's a series of shots of Sam walking. I realize he looks almost maniacally happy in these shots, but I've discovered my boy is a bit of a ham when you point the camera at him, plus, I'd be happy to get above the evil cat myself.

*Pun stolen from an old Dick Tracy cartoon, which explains the cheesey.

Road trip

Lubbock.

As beautiful as your favorite ugly dog.

My sister's family (all four of 'em), has been playing in a local theater group's production of "The Music Man" for the past few weeks. Most of my family attended the performance two weeks ago, but I wasn't able to make because of my wedding anniversary or something.

Meredith was too busy to make it last weekend. I knew I'd miss her and the boy, but I also saw it as an opportunity for a single man roadtrip, something I haven't done for about two years now.

So I loaded up one of the dogs and headed northwest, where the highs are in the mid-80s and the humidity hangs around 60 percent. And some Lubbockites complained about that.
The trip didn't lend itself to any kind of story, so here's a few pictures and fewer comments.

Tom and Bingo's Bar B Q

I came into town with two culinary goals: Breakfast Burritos at Josie's and a meal at Tom and Bingo's.

Josie's is just a classic taco stand. I'd never been to Tom and Bingo's, but decided to go after Texas Monthly listed it as one of the better places in the state for barbecue. The weird thing was that I was familiar with the building -- a faux log cabin that I always thought was a little cheesy for Lubbock.

The place serves only sandwiches -- small ones at about $5 a pop. It's also the only place on a Texas Monthly list I've visited and immediately thought, "Oh yeah, I can see why it's there."

I could cry for the years that have gone by without eating their barbecue.

Little League practice at Southwest park.

Managed to catch my brother (on the mound) and his son (fielding) for a bit on Saturday morning. They're in the same location we played Little League as kids.

Fishing at Maxey Park.
They didn't move the entire time I was there.

Outdoor theater, Mackenzie Park.

My nephew played "Winthrop," the kid with the lisp. Ron Howard played him in the movie, a few months before he went bald.

It's a nice a little area. You catch breezes coming of the creek and it's kept in good shape. The place's acoustics need some work, though.

*Sorry for the lack of posting. School started up this week and I've been brain dead since Monday.

Drudge headline of the day

Living with humans has taught dogs morals

Huh. Always thought it was the other way around.

Anniversary details

Or, How I learned to Sit Through Two Hours of ABBA and Not Let the Rage Inside Erupt Into Barbarism During "Waterloo."

My wife set a worrisome precedent last weekend.

She reassured me -- as we entered to theater to see Mamma Mia! -- "Don't worry, it'll give you something to blog about."

I admit I already had some ideas -- A wrist-slashingly good time! -- but the thought that she can tell me to just make fun of something later when I don't want to do it in the first place ... well, that doesn't bode well. Next thing you know, I'll be expected to go shoe shopping for three hours without buying anything.*

To explain the situation more fully:

Mamma Mia! is a movie musical built around ABBA songs. ABBA was a popular Swedish group in the '70s. Their main demographic: Womyn from ages 5 to 60. (I'm happy to think that some in the audience may need the info.)

A full six weeks ago, me and Meredith had already planned to do something small for the anniversary -- dinner and a movie -- as times are tight and only look to get tighter. That led to an ongoing conversation about which movie to see.

I voted for "Wall-E." I heard it was excellent and I'd never seen a Pixar movie on the big screen. My wife wasn't enthusiastic, and suggested the latest Batman flick, and just passingly consdidered Mamma Mia!, which I vetoed outright.

But.

My wife has had a hard time the last few weeks. She's had some nagging health problems, stress at work, a gruff husband who's not pulling his weight at home.

So, the day of, I'm in a giving mood. She springs "I want to see a romantic comedy" into the movie discussion. Mamma Mia! it is. Only later did I realize she had worked that angle for six weeks before pouncing.

(Extra comment: Before the movie, we had to sit through eight or nine trailers for films that looked so bad, you wonder how people in Los Angeles can look in a mirror, much less a camera.**)

As far as Mamma Mia!, if you've read any of the criticisms, you know what you're going to get. A ridiculous plot and enough kitsch to choke on.

The good things about Mamma Mia!:

• Greece is beautiful. I should go there some day.

The bad things about Mamma Mia!:

• You get a group of girlfriends who greet each other by screaming their heads off for 10 seconds before breaking into some asinine chant. Twice.
• You get Pierce Brosnan singing.
• You get a morbidly obese peasant woman throwing down her load of firewood so that she, too, may participate in the "Dancing Queen" number.
• You get an island inhabited by about 12 stereotypical Greek peasants and about 90 of the coolest frat guys and sorority girls ever.
• You get Pierce Brosnan singing, again.
• You get a girl who was born in 1988, the summer of love.
• You get a cathartic wedding cancelation, followed by an on-the-spot wedding, that everyone is just fine with.
• And finally, you get an overlong scene of people dancing in a geyser, complete with close-ups of sopping wet, 60-year-old men ripping off their shirts.
• (I would have said "spoiler alert," but it's not like you can't see it all coming.)

But.

I realized at one point that I don't actually hate ABBA.

Hear me out. ABBA was huge when I was growing up, so it's not like I could help having the songs pounded into my head day-in, day-out until my tenth birthday. It's hard to hate something that familiar, or to even be able judge if it's good or bad.

And it's not like the songs are really hateable. The music and lyrics bend over backwards to not be offensive, only catchy and easy to sing. Hating ABBA is like hating Sesame Street for not having an edge.

Tho I'll admit that, if Honey Honey doesn't stop running around in my head soon, I'm going in after it with an ice pick.

*The resulting blog post: "Yaaaaawwwwwpppp!"
**"A Playboy bunny gets thrown out of the mansion and unwittingly becomes the housemom for the dorkiest sorority on campus."

Two years ago today ...

Me and Meredith tied the knot.

And I have to say that, despite the MASSIVE cut in video game playing time, it's easily the best decision I've ever made.

Happy anniversary honey.

Whoa

This picture will be on my mind today.

It's kind of like one of those mind-game images where the photo could be a vase or two faces. I'm seeing it, but my brain keeps changing it from four ears to two.

Endearing, cute story here.

Perhaps a sign that the end is near ... for Texas

Or maybe the end is just near for Dallas and its burbs. The place has only been tangentially Texan for quite some time.

From WFAA in Dallas. This is kind of maddening ...

Jim Greenwood of Frisco said he never dreamed his HOA would have a problem with his new Ford F-150 pickup. Then he received the first of three notices threatening him with fines.

"Mr. Greenwood, you're violating a subdivision rule that prohibits pickup trucks in your driveway," the notice reads.

Stonebriar HOA rules allow several luxury trucks on driveways, including the Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Avalanche, Honda Ridgeline and Lincoln Mark LT.

But most Ford, Dodge or Chevy pickups are restricted.

This reminds me of some of the things me and my wife have talked about on tract housing. I'll update this after I sleep.

Oh yeah? When I was a student, North Texas gave us a box with deodorant samples and a coupon to Domino's

The Dallas Morning News Techno blog, via John ...

Approximately six months after Abilene Christian University announced its intent to bring mobile learning devices into the classroom, every member of the freshman class will be presented with an Apple iPhone 3G or iPod touch this weekend. This deployment to more than 950 students marks the first time that a university has introduced these mobile devices as learning tools on such a large scale.

Several reactions here.

• First up, public colleges are now offering some pretty nifty things as well. I understand North Texas now has a workout area where all the bikes and treadmills have their personal TV monitors. I understand they have to upgrade like this to keep up with the private schools. This is all well and good, save for the fact that I'm taking two classes at UTA this fall and the costs are already above $2000. My first semester's tuition at UNT was a quarter of that.


• Second, is this making for a better education, or just making everything more MTV-ier for people who can't focus on anything for more than 20 seconds?


• Third, Abilene Christian University? Hah! I bet the iPhones come with motion sensors that'll sound klaxons anytime someone starts moving rhythmically.*

*Because they're Church of Christ, and aren't supposed to dance. ... I know, obscure.

Paging Dr. Scooter

Strange thing happened today.

I went to see the doctor, as my snoring has recently risen to marriage-threatening volumes.

Went through the usual rigamorole -- waiting in lobby, waiting in small observation room, wondering if I'd have to get naked for some reason.

The doctor comes in. And HE'S YOUNGER THAN I AM.

I had no idea how to react. All my doctors up to this point have been old, usually angry, men. The last one I had in Abilene was especially bitter, a man with graying hair in his 50s that'd yell questions at me.

"How much weight have you gained? Are you still drinking? When was the last time you had a donut!"

"Ummm ..."

"Don't answer! Did you eat something before you came in? Do you know how much time I'm wasting on you? How hard is your life that you want to spend 20 years of it hooked up to a respirator? Answer me!*"

No such treatment from this guy. He spent about five minutes talking to me, suggested that I continue losing weight and made a referral for a sleep study.

Then he took me into his office to pick up a business card. He had pictures on the wall from when he played in the Arkansas state football championship.

Weird. I didn't know if I should shake his hand or give him a high-five.

*Apologies to Bill Cosby

A joke for readers of westerns ...

The Star-Telegram has a list of the best restaurants in the Fort Worth Stockyards and includes a place called the "Lonesome Dove Bistro."

I dunno. I understand the food is delicious, but I hear the wait staff is surly and the chef keeps killing everyone's favorite dishes off the menu.

Hah!!!

When they figure out how to deep fry it, I'm in ...

Wife just sent me this story summation with the greeting, "And I immediately thought of you."

CHOCOLATE-BACON
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Here are three little words that might give the staunchest snacker pause: Chocolate-covered bacon. It sounds so wrong. But it tastes just right, says Joseph Marini III, who sells the bacon bonbons at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk seaside amusement park. “It’s not just for breakfast any more,” he says with a grin ...

No, I didn't watch the Olympic opening thing

I don't plan on watching much, period. But, who knows -- maybe if I happen to be flipping channels and can spend 10 seconds watching a race ...

I tire of the media saturation-type coverage of this track meet/one-world love in. I read today that BMX racing is now a medal event. Am I supposed to root for our adult kid-bike riders to beat the Russian adult kid-bike riders?

"Go! Pop a wheelie with more attitude! Flip on your handlebars better! Show those former commies and now-thugocracists!"

I don't care. I have no plans to care. The most enjoyment I've gotten from the Olympics so far is watching the posts on the Drudge Report about how things have occasionally teetered toward disaster for China.

And the only thing I noticed in coverage this morning was this photo, and how our first lady is way hotter than China's.

Otherwise, I got football practices to keep track of.

Big 12 mascots: Best to worst

Since football has been on my mind: I've read every list ESPN has come up with: Best players, best clutch players, most hated schools, most intense rivalries, etc.

So, with an attempt to judge without prejudice, here's a list from the blogging staff on the best and worst Big 12 mascots we'll be seeing this year, listed in order from best to not-so-hot. The criteria: Appropriateness, originality, fame and coolness.

1. UT's BEVO

Keep in mind, I'm talking solely about the mascot, not a school or obnoxious fans or their unfair access to more money than everyone else. I'm talking about a bovine.

And what a great bovine it is: A breed that's a major part of Texas history, a distinctive color, majestic horns, and -- appropriate for Austin -- he's drugged out of his mind at every game. (At least according to rumor. Makes sense, a frantic longhorn at a football game could do some seriously bad things.)

He's also tied into the school's image so much that he brings out a sense of hatred from the opponents. You talk to UT haters (a big group of people). They hate UT players, the coach, Chris Simms (forever), and they really, really hate the hoofed, grass-eating mammal that represents the orange and white. That's pretty cool, all things considered.

2. A&M's Reveille

I'm not one to get excited about all 867 of Texas A&M's traditions -- "Oh, so you reverse the fork and knife after a tie. Wow. You've got spirit, yes you do."

But the way that the school has made its mascot such an integral part of campus life is something to envy. The traditions behind the dog are both amusing and cool: A corps member has to give up his bed if that's where Reveille wants to sleep; the dog goes to class -- and the lecture is canceled if she barks twice. And the mascots that pass away are given full military funerals and buried at Kyle Field.

She's not at the top of the list because, when you think Aggie football traditions, you're just as likely to think about male yell leaders, that swaying thing or the corps in general.

I'm also partial to dogs. Which you should be if you have a soul.

3. Tech's Masked Rider

Attack my impartiality, but seeing a black horse at full gallop storming onto the field is an awesome sight.

Besides, he's my mascot and I love him.

TCU's SuperFrog

Sorry, just reliving some Southwest Conference memories.

4. Nebraska's Herbie Husker

Hey, you grow corn. And you are white as the pure-driven snow. Might as well celebrate it.

5. OU's Sooner Schooner

A little team of miniature horses pulls a miniature wagon onto the field. Adorable.

6. Colorado's Ralphie

He was higher on the list until the thought struck me: "Wait a minute ... just how many buffaloes roam the Rockies, anyway?"

7. KU's Big Jay

A version of a "JayHawk", which requires a wikipedia search to define -- a cross between a sparrow hawk, a blue jay and an abolitionist. Admirable. Pretty well-known. But nothing that gets me going.

8. Baylor's Judge

The first of the generic mascots that could represent any school in any state in the country. That's a big gripe of mine -- surely you can come up with something original? Otherwise, the bear pit is nice, and Baylor really takes good care of them.

9. OSU's Pistol Pete

I suppose he's appropriate to Oklahoma, but he's also appropriate to just about every great plains school in the country. A mascot is something that should pop into your head the moment you think about a team. With Oklahoma State, I can only think "I'm a man! I'm 40!" Maybe they could get Pistol Pete to yell that at kickoff ...

10. KSU's Willie the Wildcat

Pretty much a toss-up at the bottom of the list. Two cat mascots that I wouldn't recognize if I walked by them on the street -- and that's with them wearing the big fluffy cat suits. I'm sure that wildcats at least exist in Kansas.

11. Mizzou's Truman the Tiger

Generic, not native to Missouri, or this hemisphere, and makes me think about cereal.

Hmmm ... forgot Iowa State.

Eh, who cares?