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.