Alternative To Microsoft Office

I don't know why I just thought about this, but if you want to download an Office Suite that is very similar to Microsoft Office but....one difference....it's free, you should check out OpenOffice.org . The download is huge, but it's a nice piece of software. I've even used it in court before. The Spreadsheet and Power Point clone are great. It can be found at...uh...openoffice.org. A PC Magazine review of it can be found here.

It's Been A Bad Month . . .

. . . for soon to be former DA of Denton County Bruce Isaacks. First he loses his race for re-election in the Republican primary. Now his teenage son manages to get arrested for the second time. Shooting a shotgun may be common-place in Wise County. But it's another thing to do it in the backyard of a Carrollton neighborhood.

Global Warming

I've never been much of a environmentalist (I spend too much time inside), but I believe in global warming. I'm amazed to learn that the big brained George Will does not. For those who care (maybe two or three of you), here is a clip of Will's position on the issue as expressed Sunday on This Week.

Friendly Sean Penn

I never really watched much of Friends but I just landed on it while I channel surfed by TBS. The episode (check that - one of the four episodes on tonight) had Sean Penn as a guest star. I never knew he did that. Crazy and moody Sean Penn guest starred on Friends. I think that's odd. Edit: But he gets points for having a "torture doll" of Ann Coulter.

Kinda Cool

Myk
Originally uploaded by boehlersworld.

NFL Scheduling

It's Spring so it's time to think about football. Dallas opens up at Jacksonville. ESPN, which has Monday Night Football this fall, has scheduled two back to back games on September 11th (With the first one starting at 6:00 p.m. CST). The Tampa Bay Bucs come to Texas Stadium on Thanksgiving. And the NFL has added a Thanksgiving night game. The story here. I don't think the complete schedules will be revealed for a few weeks. Edit: I overlooked the first Sunday night primetime NBC game will be Indy Colts at New York Giants on Sept. 10. Yep, Manning vs. Manning.

Immigration

You know, all of the marches against revisions to our immigration laws is a little unsettling. Today, thousands of high school students protested in Los Angeles and 1,500 or so protested in Dallas. There has not been so much passion on American streets since Vietnam. The issue is all over the talk radio stations and the tone is, well, in a word, racist. There are so many calls referring to "those people" and "them". We have a problem we need to deal with. Anyone who thinks we can (and should) simply scoop up millions of illegal aliens and send them back to Mexico lives in his own fantasy world. And as President Bush said today, "“If you are doing a job that Americans won't do, you're welcome here for a period of time to do that job.”

Who Writes This Stuff?

There is a short editorial in the Dallas Morning News today entitled "Don't Silence Victims' Voices" about a couple of cases pending before the Supreme Court. I'm amazed at how accurate the editorial is in discussing a very confusing area of the law that concerns "excited utterances", "testimonial" evidence, and the Confrontation Clause. Simply put, a member of the Morning News editorial board did not write it. Someone who specializes in criminal law (and is pretty darn smart) did. And another boring thought: Just who exactly is the editorial trying to persuade?

Final Four

Yahoo ran a contest of picking the winner of the NCAA Tourney If the link works, this guy is in the lead - somehow he correctly predicted the Final Four (which, of course, includes George Mason).

World's Top 15 Skylines

Link here (with cool pictures). Suddenly I realize I've not seen very much of this world.

Happy 31st B-Day to Fergie

Dale Hanson's Scholar Athlete of the Week

. . . was Stacy Smalley of Bridgeport High School. Watch it here.

Before Its Time

The 1996 movie "Executive Decision" is playing a lot on cable these days. I think the flick is really, really good. I actually saw it in the theater when it first came out (with a date that turned out to be a little crazy, but that's a different, perhaps better, story). But the movie was soooooo ahead of its time. Its plot involves terrorists hijacking a commercial airliner with the intent to use it as a weapon against the United States. It even had a land based suicide bombing in its opening scenes. Creepy, good stuff.

Spring Cleaning

I cleaned out my garage yesterday and came face to face with a rat. Not a mouse. But a big rat. I screamed like a school girl.

I'm Scared To Look In A Mirror

I decided to get most of my hair chopped off today and gave great leeway to the hair stylist (who probably works for minimum wage at Sports Clips where I got my hair cut). Anyway, she was tricking my hair up quite a bit, but I liked what she was doing. Then, near the end of the haircut, she tells me how much she wants to see the new Larry the Cable Guy movie. Then it dawned on me. I owe my new look to a fan of Larry the Cable Guy.

Dixie Chicks

Those bad girls of country music have a new album coming out in May --- Three years or so after Natalie made some of us angry and some of us pleased when she said she was embarrassed that President Bush was from Texas. The first single off the album will be "Not Ready to Make Nice" (the group's web site quickly loads with the lyrics of the song while it plays in the background). The lyrics include: I made my bed and I sleep like a baby With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’ It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger And how in the world can the words that I said Send somebody so over the edge That they’d write me a that I better shut up and sing Or my life will be over

Bad Indy Car Crash This Morning

Quick loading video at youtube.com. Edit: One of the drivers, Paul Dana, has tragically died because of the accident. In this photo, he is in the vehicle to the right (very blurry) a split second before it strikes the vehicle in the center of the picture.

Mrs. Tom Cruise Is Getting Close