Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• Looked like a crazy crash on Southbound 287 south of Decatur last night. I saw two troopers this morning looking at skid marks that appeared to show a car running off the highway and slamming head on into the concrete wall that makes up the side of the bridge of FM 407. 
• Elizabeth Edwards, still wife of disgraced former presidential candidate John Edwards, has stopped her cancer treatment and essentially posted a "good-bye" message on Facebook yesterday. If the great book Game Change was truthful, they had an incredibly dysfunctional relationship. But I'd hate to see the evil glances he's going to get at the funeral from her side of the family.
• Those Lexus Christmas commercials make me feel like I belong in the poor house.
• Someone once told me there was an actual "poor house" in Decatur at one time.
• Promised the missus that I'd take her to see the movie "Burlesque".  Does she not realize that Christina is starring in it? I'd make her take me if she hadn't said anything.
• The Family Cat has now discovered Christmas tree ornaments. And now a water bottle spray right between the eyes hardly phases her.  She's becoming the Terminator Cat.
• It's Pearl Harbor Day. My one visit to Washington DC led me to the National Archives where they were displaying the draft of FDR's speech showing that he had written in "infamy" over the original phrase "a day that will live in world history."
• TCU is actually a 2 1/2 point favorite over Wisconsin. Not so sure I'd bet on that. 
• Inappropriate wedding reception.
• There's a weird "hearing" on the constitutionality of the Texas death penalty in Houston going on.  The DA's office down there even refused to participate in it claiming that since the defendant hasn't even received the death penalty, how can he challenge it?  Prediction: I think the judge is predisposed to find it unconstitutional, will do so, and then will be reversed on appeal if he refuses to allow the jury to deliberate on life or death if the guy is found guilty. 
• My Newsweek at home and Time at the office used to be on an automatic renewal. Now that's suddenly stopped. I wonder if that has anything to do with the sweeping credit card changes that went into effect a while back?
• Went back and watched Sunday's Dale Hansen's Sports Special and it was weird he had Walt Garrison on talking quite a bit about Don Meredith. Presumably neither one of them knew he had died about four hours earlier but, oddly, Garrison (a close friend of Meredith's) at one point referred to him in the past tense with, "He was a funny guy."
• Any of you married guys feel like your going to die when the wife drives? Just checking. 
• Just overheard in the office: "I don't want anyone looking at me when I'm dead." 
• The Wikileaks founder was arrested this morning in England on sex charges out of Sweden, but those charges are strange. The legal consultant on Fox and Friends this morning said that the "crime" was consensual, that the media referring to them as "rape" charges was inaccurate,  and they were not recognized as a crime in England so they might not extradite. 
• And the story of the Chinese scientist dressing up as a panda in order to calm a baby panda was pretty funny: 

100 Greatest Sports Pics of 2010

It's got an international flair, but there's some pretty good stuff there.

You Know That U.S. Treasury Currency Building On The Way To Fort Worth?

Things are not going well.

Do to a screw up, they have quarantined one billion $100 bills. That's a lot of scratch.

May I Endorse Something, Too?

At lunch, I could have sworn I heard a commercial on The Fan for mycomputercareer.com (or something like that) where "former Dallas Cowboy Cedric James" was doing the endorsing.  My radar first went off when I heard "NFL" and "Dallas Cowboys" because the NFL comes down hard on, and charges a fortune for, use of its trademark. (You'll see Cowboys like Jason Whitten endorse some product but the company will have him  introduce himself as "a professional football player" so as to avoid having to pay the NFL.)

But after I got past potential trademark violations, I began to wonder who Cedric James was. I'd never heard of him. Was he a member of the Dallas Cowboys? You bet!!!  Take a look at his career.

And we thought Dan Meredith was a legend!!!

It's like the computer company thought "let's find the  cheapest Dallas Cowboy we can and then have him say 'Dallas Cowboys' in our ad."  But I think they might be about to learn about trademark law.

Oh, No: Turn Out The Lights

The great Don Meredith has died.

Edit:

I Love This Gal

I was watching SEC Championship Game when this Dr. Pepper competition came on. I love this stuff.

But as soon as the chick threw the first pass, I yelled at Mrs. LL, "She's doing a two handed chest pass!!" Mrs. LL had a huge question mark form over her head because she wasn't watching but quickly locked in and fired off a "Go little girl!!!!!!"

The winner's reaction was fantastic. I think she won $125,000 in college scholarships or something. No biggee.

I would like to have been there during her prep when it dawned on her (or someone with her) that she doesn't necessarily have to throw a football like a football. A couple of chest passes just for grins, and they had to have thought, "This plan is so crazy that it just might work."

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• There's a boy on a Mesquite high school drill team? (Photos.)
• The national Fox News, as predicted, jumped on the Southlake Chase Bank Christmas Tree Scandal this weekend. (Which really wasn't a scandal at all.). But did you see the hairstylist who donated it? For the life of  me I couldn't determine what sex he/she was. 
• Introduced the Family Unit to Kincaid Hamburgers over the weekend (Did you know there's one in the new shopping center at I35 and Heritage Trace?)  Verdict: They loved them. 
• The Star-Telegram had a retrospect on Amon Carter Stadium yesterday and highlighted a "low point" when only 11,400 showed up to see the final game  of a winless season against Baylor. I was there as a high school student and remember looking at the empty stadium like it was the Roman Coliseum: In some ancient time, this used to be a big deal. 
• I'll do a separate post on the White Rock Half Marathon, but I'm sad to report that Barron Green beat me by five minutes. This epic saga continues. 
• But I'll mention I stood by former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller for the national anthem. Two observations: (1) She talked the whole way through it, and (2) She's pretty hot. 
• Contagious yawning is still a bizarre concept.
• President Obama released his first pardons, and its a weird list of old crimes. 
• Tap the brakes on the Cowboys. Yesterday just proved that Peyton Manning is cable of giving you the game if he tries hard enough. 
• Oregon opened up at a three favorite against Auburn in the National Championship game? No way. (And I haven't seen a line on the Wisconsin/TCU Rose Bowl game but I bet Wisconsin is favored. Oh, and there was a brawl outside of the Rose Bowl this weekend. ) 
• Beautiful Christmas decorations at places we always forget to visit: Nice hotel lobbies. 
• Mega church pastor Joel Olsteen was on Fox and Friends with his wife this morning discussing the "war on Christmas". Oh, yeah. At the end of the segment he promoted his new book and his book signing today in New York City.
• And if that wasn't enough, I saw an SUV driving like an impatient nut this morning only to find out it had a "Keep Christ In Christmas" bumper sticker. 
• Norah Jones and Willie Nelson teamed up to sing "Its Cold Outside"? Not bad. 

TCU Stadium Goes "Boom" This Morning

That's pretty impressive.  And to think I sat up there in September.

See many other angles of the implosion here, here, here and here.

The Cat Tried To Kill Us

Actual Dumb Cat Next To The Christmas Tree

So it was a little after a 11:00 last night and me and the Misses had just laid/lied down (which means I'm ready to go to sleep and she's about to fire up a movie.)  The night gets quickly interrupted as the Dumb Dog goes on red alert and then higher alert in an attempt to tell us that something in the house isn't right. We quickly realize that she is responding to the whine of our Dumb Cat downstairs. And the Dumb Cat's whine quickly becomes a full fledge cry of pain.

Uh, oh.

Mrs. LL jumps up and goes downstairs and yells back that the cat is stuck in the Christmas tree. Funny. Serves her right. Then things changed instantaneously when Mrs. LL yells, "I need you down here." I stumble down to find Mrs. LL holding a cat whose back paw is caught up in death grip fashion in a twisted Christmas light line. The cat is now in full fledged deranged mode like the ones you see on youtube in a newscast-gone-wrong episode. That cat is mad. That cat is scared. That cat is dangerous.

Now remember the misses has carpal tunnel -- not the best injury at that moment -- but she is also wearing wrist braces at the moment which comes in quite helpful. She is being protected from the cat's clawing because of them. Well, at least mostly. There's some scratching going on. I checked out the back paw and that line looks like she had been playing with a fishing line spool. This isn't good.

Then it happened: That cat bit down on a fleshy part of Mrs. LL like nobody's business. I mean hard. I mean "oh, my" hard. The misses somehow maintains her grip as she yells a bit causing the cat to let go. I try to intervene by grabbing the cats front paws and head, but she (amazingly) tells me to let go because the braces will protect her overall.

Say what?

The cat's about to clamp down on something again when Mrs. LL decides to blow on its face. Huh? It seems like Mrs. LL, despite having a wild animal out of control in her hands, has the presence of mind to blow on the cat's face to distract the cat from biting on flesh. It worked.

She then quickly decides that releasing the Christmas light line is the wrong way to go and instead twists the cat's body in a counter-clockwise motion a couple of times to release the tension. It works. The cat is released, and we sit down exhausted. Hadn't I been in bed a second ago?

Oh, have I ever told you that  Mrs. LL is a former paramedic? It showed. I, on the other hand,  was no help at all.

The cat made a full recovery and, yep, was up in the tree the next morning.

Cincinnati Mascot Arrested For Throwing Snowballs

I was going to go on a rant about the destruction of our civil liberties (i.e. the government is arresting a college kid dressed up at a bearcat for throwing snow -- What is this? Communist Russia?), but I got distracted. Who is this chick saying, "You really shouldn't record this" and "Are you going to put this on the Internet?"  But the kicker is that she protests because it wouldn't look good for "Cincinnati Pride."

Cincinnati Pride? What the heck is that? Darlin', you went 2-5 in the Big East. The Big East!!!! Euless Trinity could win the Big East.*

TCU should back out of the conference right now based upon principle if that's what they'll be dealing with.
__________
*I actually watched the end of the Euless Trinity/Coppell game last night on Channel 21 and it was fantastic.   And by "fantastic", I man I saw a pass on a reverse on fourth down on the final drive that actually worked.

Involuntary Stop, Drop and Roll

Get me these ducks!!!

Seminar Help

Stay with me here.

I'm still in the criminal law seminar but there's currently a speaker that doesn't need to be speaking. So instead of listening, I pulled up the transcript of the Not Guilty verdict in Denton County in 1993 [oops: 2003] that a lawyer talked about yesterday.

The facts are weird: A clerk allegedly walked over and fondled a 16 year old girl in a convenience store in Flower Mound. Specifically, he went over and asked if he could give her a hug, did so, and then allegedly touched her breast and crotch area over the clothes. She leaves and goes to the cop. The clerk, of Indian descent, admitted to hugging her because she reminded him of his niece who he "loves very much" but denied the otherwise inappropriate touching.

So the alleged victim is called as a witness. Smart girl. Stellar student. She had even gone to Washington D.C. as part of a high school field trip  where she got to meet Kenneth Starr and Colin Powell and even got to ask Powell a question as part of a meeting.  In the "get to meet the witness" part of the questioning, the prosecutor asked her about meeting Powell and the above exchange took place.  After the throw-away-question-to-make-her-comfortable-question of "What did you think of his answer?" she takes a shot at Israel. (What the heck, girl? You're now just 17 and testifying as the complaining witness in a criminal trial and you decide to volunteer a hot political opinion?)

And, me being a skeptic, I thought "Sheesh, she sure would piss off any Jew. Woah. I wonder if there were any Jews on the jury?" So I scanned back up within the transcript to where the jurors names were announced and the only one that jumped out was a guy with the last name of "Sauls."

I know "Saul" is a Jewish name but what about the last name of "Sauls"?

I'm Suing Willie Nelson

Willie gets busted (again) for pot in Texas a couple of weeks ago and now he starts a "Willie Nelson Teapot Party"  with a facebook page. The motto: "We lean a little to the left."

Wait. Lean? To the left? Like lean to the liberal side? Like Liberally Lean. 


Get attorney Jackie Chiles on the horn. I've been after this guy for years.

With The Half Marathon Looming . . .

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• Did you see the Fox 4 story of the guy who claims and ear injury due to an "exploding cell phone". The phone now has a cracked screen with blood on it.  Let me be more than skeptical on this one: That man is lying. 
• They are still doing stories on the Atheist Ad Campaign. Stop it. Stop it now. 
• I got in the Christmas spirit yesterday: I paid someone to put lights on my house. 
• The Family Cat demonstrated she actually climb to the very top of the Christmas tree. Greeeaaaaat.
• The new TV is fantastic but something didn't seem quite right. Everything got better once I found out that I didn't have it in "vivid mode."  Vivid mode? Really? That can't just be the default? 
• Watched a Seinfeld episode last night and then hit the "Info" button just for grins. Uh, it originally aired in 1990. Twenty years ago? Call Hawkins Funeral Home. I'm done.
• When I was a kid, I'd watch reruns of The Dick Van Dyke show on Channel 11. (Still a fantastically funny show.) At the time, I assumed they had been created close to the birth-of-man. I guess the kids in my house right now could say the same thing about Jerry/George/Elaine/Kramer.
• The Texas Rangers made Chuck Norris an honorary member yesterday complete with a ceremony that included Gov. Rick Perry. Idiocracy. 
• Two guys from the metroplex that created "Words With Friends" (which I've never played but have friends that beat me down with talk of it), sold the app yesterday to the creator of Farmville (kill me). No price has been disclosed, but I'm guessing they are shopping for miniature giraffes this morning. 
• Uh, oh: Chase Bank orders a branch in Southlake to take down a Christmas tree in the lobby because it might offend people. Where's national Fox News when you need 'em? They live for this stuff. 
• Funny line about Qatar beating the U.S. to host the 2022 World Cup: Let's just declare they possess weapons of mass destruction and take care of them. 
• I would be incredibly excited about the discovery of the new life form by NASA if I had a doctorate in microbiology. 
• Woodhaven Bank in Rhome doesn't have a security cam image it can release about the robbery yesterday? We're left with a description of, according to the Update, two guys with masks and of "average height"? Good luck with all of that. 

Can't Wait To Watch This

When I was a Senior or Junior, a group of us from Bridgeport went down to TCU during summer to check out the statewide cheerleading camp. (We were in search of "Hey, nows" even way back when.) Once we got to campus, we discovered that a Texas high school all-star football game was also being played that week. Walking around the campus, we saw this black guy strutting around with "Dickerson" on the back of his shirt. Yep, Eric Dickerson who was there to play in the game. (And who is featured predominately in the video clip above.)

Sports Illustrated had already written that Dickerson was the most prized recruit in the State if not the country: "He has National Championship written of the front of his jersey and Heisman on the back." (paraphrased, maybe).  So my buddies and I, either the same age as Dickerson or one year younger, scrambled for a piece of paper, tracked Dickerson down, and got him to sign his autograph five times. "Five????!!!!" I remember him saying.

I also remember one of us asking him if he had been offered a car from A&M, and he just laughed it off. I asked him if he ever considered Baylor and he said, "They never even contacted me."

I wonder what SMU gave him.

Edit: Airing Saturday the 11th at 8:00 pm on ESPN.

Edit: Might have been a joke, but one commenter thought Dickerson "didn't last long in the pros." Uh, if 11 years and induction into the Hall of Fame equates to that, then you're right. Wiki.

How Criminal Defense Legal Seminars Have Changed Over The Years

• The law has become so lopsided towards the State, there's a unique sense of "us against them."
• Technology makes everything so simple. Denton lawyer Rick Hagen just made reference to a "Brazelton" case "that's great" on the issue of character evidence, but he didn't have the legal citation as to where it could be found. But with Wifi and Google Legal Search, I had it within seconds on a laptop in front of me. 
• I chose to have the seminar materials on CD instead of receiving them in notebook form.  Rick's presentation included a complete trial transcript of a trial he won a few years back. I'm able to drag the pdf file to Google Docs and into a newly named folder of "Sex Assault Seminar 2010" and it's there forever and assessible from anywhere.
• I'm amazed at the number of people in this room that I don't know. 
• The guy beside me is typing on an iPad.
• Oddly, those with laptops in this room probably number at less than 10%. I find that amazing.
• No, this seminar is not about getting sex offenders acquitted every time, it's about making the State prove its case, following the law, and looking for reasonable doubt. Think all those Dallas County DNA exonerees would have wanted their lawyer to attend one of these seminars back in the day?
• "You can't have one ounce of phoniness when you try one of these cases. You have to be you." - Just heard and couldn't agree more. 

Rhome Bank Robbery Just Happened - Breaking

Armed gunmen.

Woodhaven Bank.

Developing.....

Edit: Denton County  authorities may have subjects detained.

Edit at 9:50 a.m.:  Stopped at I-35 and the Alliance exit.  (Cabela shoppers beware.)

Edit at 9:58 a.m.: Tap the brakes! Those may be the wrong guys. Hide yo wife, hide yo kids . . . .

Edit: