Liberally Lean From The Land Of Dairy Queen

8.01.2007

Skool Daze

The "new Texas Accountability Ratings" for public schools were released today. You can find your school's performance here.

Oh, So This Is What You Use Flickr For

Don't worry. She didn't jump. Link.

Edit: For a larger picture, be sure to click on the "All Sizes" button at the top of each photo.

Edit: Those pics were actually taken yesterday.

I was looking around for some preseason high school football rankings (which are meaningless but fun), but only had limited success. I'm sure Dave Campbell's rankings are out, but didn't see them on its website. It's too early for the AP rankings. Some outfit called TexPrepsFootball.com lists Decatur at #25. Edit: Found out Dave Campbell predicts this order of finish in a local district race:

10-2A 1. Cisco 2. Boyd 3. Paradise

Tara Reid says,

"I loves grabbing me a watermelon from IGA and then getting a bottle of champagne from One Stop before I hit the beaches of Black Creek Lake."

Edit: Everyone thinks this pic looks fake. Found it here (with others.)

Still Laughing At This

Photo from the Morning News - a fan of FC Dallas shows his disgust for David Beckham not playing in Frisco last night.

"Unusual Suspects"

The Smoking Gun has posted a few mug shots under the description of "The Unusual Suspects." Love it. And I think I saw wife #7 in there.

A Little Tense

O.J. Simpson was on a Dallas Internet radio show last night and even took phone calls. I'm looking for the audio but I know this happened:

One caller asked the former football player if he thought it was "a bigger feat to break 2,000 yards in one season or slice two necks in one night."

Oh, my.

Edit: TMZ has the video of a portion of the wild questions here. (The second caller asked him if he killed Bill Walsh - the former 49ers coach who died of cancer two days ago.)

Edit: Someone commented that video was gone, but I think it's still there. Another way to get to it is through here.

7.31.2007

Show Him The More Money

I just have a passing interest in baseball, but I've always thought recently traded Mark Teixeira was as dumb as a box of rocks.

Anyway, today Ranger owner Tom Hicks claims he offered Teixeira an 8 year contract worth $140 million to keep him here. Tex said, "What's a word that means 'no'?" (or something like that). I'll assume Hicks is being truthful. Like all contracts in baseball, it was guaranteed money. For those not following the situation, Teixeira becomes a free agent at the end of next season meaning he goes to the highest bidder. Obviously, he thinks he'll get more than $17.5 million a season.

Maybe he's right. Then again, no one will pay sympathy money if some freak career ending injury were to occur over the next 18 months.

Not For Everyone, But I'm Interested

I've only read a couple of paragraphs (and will probably have to print it out to digest all of it) but this long article looks great. The creepily titled "Tonight On Dateline This Man Will Die" is Esquire's look into Dateline's To Catch a Predator and the suicide of assistant DA Bill Conradt. And there's a very tenuous Wise County connection in that the article mentions Walter "Gator" Weiss. My friends at the sheriff's office tell me he used to work there.

Good Grief

Norm Hitzges from The Ticket always refers to "Crime free Flower Mound." Uh, not so much.

Edit: Amazingly, this triple murder/suicide didn't make the lead on Fox 4 News tonight. Instead it appeared at 9:14 (behind stories of a minor flooding, a crazy guy with dead cats in his house, a convenience store murder of one person, the attempted buyout of the DowJones company, gas stations "short changing" us on gas, the tattoo woman robber, the surgery of traffic reporter Julie DeHarty, and a murder for hire arrest.) Good grief, who is producing the news over there?

Belated Hey, Now

This pic is two weeks old, but I've got to do something to acknowledge Lindsay getting busted for DWI and dope last week. Not only are her wheels flying off, but she's rude. How could she possibly have done that while I was out of town? Although I'm suddenly turned on by ankle alcohol detectors and heels. Nice look.

If You See Her, Get Out Of The Store. Fast.

I really don't pay much attention to metroplex robbery stories, but this gal is getting interesting. Police are pretty sure that today she held up an Exxon in Grapevine and a motel in North Richland Hills. And that brings her robbery total to five since Thursday. The woman works harder than people with jobs.

And I love this description: "Witnesses described her as white, in her late 30s or early 40s, about 5 feet 4, 160 pounds with blondish-brown hair. She has missing teeth and a tattoo of a cross on a chain on her left wrist." Hey, now.

Thank You, I'll Be Here All Week

For some reason, I was invited during lunch to speak to a group of teachers at lunch at the Decatur Intermediate School. The subject: This silly blog.

Man, I was nervous. Especially when I discovered that the Superintendent and the Principal of the high school were in the audience. Had I ever offended them? Sheesh. Beads of sweat were forming on my red forehead.

The group is learning about technology over these three days (things like blogging, RSS feeds, twitter, video editing, and more). Heck, they were talking about things I didn't even understand. But I was called in for lunch time entertainment which is a dicey proposition. I'm mildly amusing in print. I'm not particularly funny in person. But it went well - I think.

But an amusing moment came from the audience as I was explaining what criteria I use for posting. "Race, Abortion, Religion, and Homosexuality are always crowd pleasers," I said. "And occasionally I'll post a pic of a hot woman." At that point, a mocking voice came from the audience: "Occasionally?!! It's every other one!" It was a funny moment.

They were all gracious and great fun. But it was weird standing up, with a huge screenshot of The Blog in the background, fielding questions.

Odd

I have no idea why www.pelicanbaypolice.com looks like it does. But it's not the agencies official web site.

Off

Man, I had to have missed this on vacation. I have no idea who "Merry Miller" is but a feel quite comfortable in saying that she is the worst interviewer in the history of ever. Check out this one with Holly Hunter. It starts out with awkward pauses ala "Space Ghost", and ends with her screwing up the preview date of Hunter's new show and saying "NBC" instead of "ABC." Edit: Here's her bio. She's a former "Miss Dallas."