"Stab Victim Didn't Feel Blade"

Ok, I normally stick to Wise County news with a reference to the metroplex if things around here get to be too boring (which is often.) And I never post stories from other countries because, being a good American, I don't recognize so-called "foreign nations." But I've got to make an exception, because this story is about to be seen everywhere. The story goes that that this gal from Moscow, who has potential for a "Hey, Now" if she didn't have a knife sticking out of her otherwise sultry back, was mugged but didn't realize the extent of her injury. I'm as skeptical as the next guy, but I'm not going to sit back and have everyone else post this story like they were the first one to find it. Nope. You read it here first. Unless you've seen it already.

Messenger Limiting Online Articles?

So I was reading some riveting story online at the Messenger's site about a bunch of Newark folks rioting or something about access to a boat ramp. Just when the story was getting good and I'm about to find out whether the boy really does get the girl, my eyes smash into that red banner that tells me I've got to subscribe to find out what happened. Is this a new policy? Or has it always been there.

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• Is the recession finally breaking?: Yesterday GM, Ford, and locally based D.R. Horton reported last quarter profits for the first time in a long time.
• On at least three occasions over the years I've heard radio talk show hosts refer to Jay Novacek as being less than pleasant off the field. But I've heard none of that over the last couple of days. Maybe he's a good guy after all.
• House fires are disturbing to watch. It makes you feel like you are at a funeral.
• Watched some of Lost last night. I've got friends that love it, but I think that show is downright silly.
• I've got an episode of Modern Family recorded. Gonna give it a try.
• Who would have thought Rick Perry would be trouncing Kay Bailey like he is doing?
• A group of musicians re-recorded We Are The World to benefit Haiti? Why make the rest of us suffer through that song again?
• 10 Sexiest Super Bowl Commercials of all time.
• While you were sleeping: 20 killed in Iraq. Let freedom reign. (I know I harp on this all the time, but I was in the minority in the very beginning thinking the Iraqi war was a huge mistake.)
• I've got a very close friend whose wife was diagnosed with breast cancer last month. And the initial diagnosis and treatment sounds excruciating -- mentally and physically. It's difficult to come up with the right words of comfort.

Decatur house fire in progress - South Lane Street

Edit: If I don't get an Emmy for this news footage, there is no justice in this world.

Hunger In America

For a reason bordering on insanity, I normally have Rush Limbaugh on in the background in my office. Did you know that he just said, "The Democrats are trying to destroy America!" Really. I was shock. Absolutely shocked. Anyway, that's not the point of this post. When the news came on at the top of the hour, I heard a story about a new study on Hunger in America where a lady, in a sound bite, said "One in 8 Americans now suffers from hunger." Whoa. I'm not sure I believe that. I can believe that 5 out of 8 Americans suffer from obesity, but I don't know about 1 out of 5 starving. That just sounds crazy. Even for a liberal weenie like me. (I tried to Google the source of the study and the best I can come up with is this story that says 37 million Americans needed emergency food last year. That would be about 1 in 10 Americans which still sounds high.)

Pink At The Grammy's

In case you missed it, she floated about the crowd in a body suit like they do in those fancy Cirque Du Soleil shows in Vegas. And that girl was up there.

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• For some reason I dreamed/dreamt last night that I was running away from a date through a forest on a college campus. And I mean I was hauling arse like that guy in Apocalypto. And, in reality, I only went out with her once during my junior year in college.
• But I showed up for our date in a robe. Not a Hugh Hefner robe. Just an old bath robe. I have no idea.
• I blew through the TIVO'd Grammy's last night. Pink is hot in a trashy way (and has no fear), I don't know what I think about Lady Gaga, the Black Eyed Peas are freaks you can't take your eyes off of, Stevie Nicks still has it, and I'm embarrassingly unfamiliar with Zac Brown.
• The actual Ground Hog celebration beats me down. The Ground Hog movie does not.
• I should have mentioned that Baylor's men's basketball be the Empire on Saturday in overtime. I slept through it. Basketball just doesn't do it for me.
• I think it would be tough on a kid to raise a steer for the Stock Show only to know it's going to the slaughter house. That would have freaked me out. Heck, it would freak me out now.
• Somebody in Katy, TX won $144 million from the Texas lottery. I deserved that.
• Why in the world would you kill yourself in your mother's house? (Jay Novacek wife story)
• Had someone tell me yesterday that I'm old enough to go crazy now. "If you had done it in your thirties, everyone would think you were weird. Now you'd just be eccentric." Good point.
• If Liberally Lean readers invaded the old "People to People" swap-your-stuff local radio show it would be like this. (Language warning.)

Oscar Nominations Just Announced

White Woman Rescues Black Man Because He Can't Rescue Himself

Best Picture Nominations announced this morning. There are 10 of them this year.

• "Avatar" - Need to see it
• "The Hurt Locker" - Want to see it
• "Up in the Air" - Not sure what the big deal is
• "The Blind Side" - Have no desire to see it. A new Texas Monthly article, not online, explained why.
• "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" - Probably not bad
• "District 9" - No desire to see it but I've heard good things
• "Up" - I bet this is pretty good
• "A Serious Man" - I can't even remember hearing about this one
• "Inglourious Basterds" - Not bad. Not bad at all.
• "An Education" - What?

Wow

I always heard this guy was a jerk off the field, but no one deserves that. Link. (Although it has basically no information.) Edit @ 5:05 pm: Some reports are saying "suicide" by gun fire. Oh, my.

Monday Afternoon Pick Me Up

UIL Gerrymandering Time

Class 3A Football and Basketball District 7-3A Bridgeport Decatur Fort Worth Castleberry Lake Worth Mineral Wells

[Isn't that odd to have just five district teams? Or maybe that's always true.]

Class 2A Football Division I 2A District 5-2A Boyd Callisburg Howe Paradise Ponder Pottsboro

More.

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• The killings in Juarez went to a shocking level over the weekend. And I do mean shocking.
• And in other uplifting news, 41 died in Iraq while you were sleeping. Sheesh. It wasn't this bad when Saddam was in power.
• I had a surprise not-really-your-birthday party this weekend. Good times. I don't spend enough time with friends. (But did we really debate the age of Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates?)
• Former football color commentator Pat Brookshier died over the weekend. Before John Madden, he was Pat Summerall's right hand man. And us old timers can remember both of them hosting the hour long program "This Week in the NFL" at a time when it was next to impossible to see NFL highlights.
• ESPN's Winter X-Games, which will probably be more popular than the Olympics in 50 years, can be mildly entertaining. At least the crashes can be. That snowboarder that looks like Carrot Top really smashed his face this weekend.
• I TIVO'd the Grammys but haven't watched them yet. But it sounds like I can look at a picture of Beyonce and Taylor Swift and pretty much get the idea.
• The governor debate on Friday evening was pretty entertaining. But it was tense when the panel began asking Jeopardy-like questions to the three candidates. (i.e. Who was the first governor of Texas? What is the average salary of a Texas teacher?)
• And Kay Bailey Hutchison pretending to be pro-life while supporting Roe v. Wade is just silly.
• As is Rick Perry pretending to be tough on border security but supporting same tuition rates for illegal immigrants to attend Texas colleges.
• Is there anything more confusing than waking up from a weekend nap and momentarily thinking you've overslept on Monday?
• Jarhead is going underground again. (Although we really haven't heard much from him lately.)
• Avatar won the box office again for the weekend. Sheesh. I'm going to have to see it.
• I've always considered Joe Montana the greatest quarterback ever, but I think Peyton Manning has overtaken him.
• For some reason, I don't consider the Lord of the Rings series or Harry Potter series to be "movies" at all. And I really don't have an explanation for that at all.
• Over the weekend Miss America was crowned. She wasn't from Texas. And she wasn't white.
• On ESPN last night, one of the hosts issued the line "Barney Rubble! What an actor!" I wonder how many people got the movie reference?

How's That War On Terror Going?

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Uh, not so good.

Breaking: Bridgeport Moves To Denton County

Thanks, Christine!

Sand Drawing

I may be late to the party on this, but I'd never seen it. As described in an email: This video shows the winner of 2009’s " Ukraine ’s Got Talent", Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II. Her talent, which admittedly is a strange one, is mesmeric to watch. The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to tears and she won the top prize of about $75,000. She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated. It is replaced by a woman’s face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman’s face appears. She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier. This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house. In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye... The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine , resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.

It's Back On! Somebody Get Pete Delkus Out Of Bed!

DWI Trial Update

Actual photo from yesterday taken with permission of Judge Cude. Exciting, no?

• They've been trying lots of cases in the County Court at Law.
• This one involves some full time firefighter who looks great on the videotape but blew over .08. (I'm not sure what the level was, but I'm thinking .11 or .12)
• Those cases can be won, but it takes a little bit of luck. It's just a "do you want to believe your eyes or do you want to believe a machine?" argument.
• The defense lawyer is out of Fort Worth and his style is completely different from mine. But to each his own.
• Oddest sight: There is a little 5" plastic Godzilla toy sitting on the counsel table. At first I thought it belonged to the defendant, but it actually belongs to the lawyer. I have no idea.
• I think the defense has hired a former cop as an expert to attack whether the field sobriety tests were administered properly. I like the effort, but I don't understand it. The defendant looked great on the field sobriety tests, the breath test is the problem.
• Every juror (four men, two women) either had on a black shirt or black jacket yesterday.
• One of the gals looks like Maggie Gyllenhaal.
• It should wrap up today.

Edit: Verdict of Guilty.

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• For maybe the first time ever, I watched the Jay Leno monologue last night. I can't tell you how bad it was -- He actually made a cop and doughnut joke.
• He also had a bit on the number of times Biden and Pelosi blinked during the State of the Union. Wasn't that done a few years back with Dick Cheney?
• The temperature change yesterday was weird. It actually got warmer after the sun went down (see below.)
• In an article in the Star Telegram which seems to be written by cavemen due to its brevity, it is said that Devon Energy is ripe for a takeover.
• Sarah Palin said two days ago that she does not like the "mandation of health care". What?
• A caller on Mark Davis show said yesterday that Obama said during his inaugural address that the Constitution was a "flawed document" but, he continued, "if you look up the speech on the Internet you'll find that the transcripts have been doctored to eliminate that phrase." What a nut case. And Davis politely told him so.
• A red football field.
• I've heard a rumor that local authorities are going to try to seize and forfeit the real estate from yesterday's drug bust. They've got to be kidding.
• I questioned a couple of days ago whether a lady was really robbed of a $90,000 ring in a Whole Foods parking lot in north Dallas. Last night I saw the parking lot video of the crime. And her post injured face. Man, I was wrong. Very wrong.
• The Charging For Parking Without A Permit Case was tried yesterday in Arlington. The jury found him guilty on 31 cases and the judge assessed $500 fine on each for, according to the story, a total fine of $15,500. The defendant didn't have a lawyer --- he needs one. In my opinion, he only owes $500 based upon a case from a couple of years ago. Somebody needs to tell him.