Old News But I Don't Care

Miss New York won Miss America.

Random Monday Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• Apparently some parts of the county are a skating rink while others are all clear.
• For about two minutes I was stuck next to an 18 wheeler as we both slid back and forth towards each other. That was stressful. 
• The suicide at Vista Ridge mall yesterday was unnerving. 
• But the suicide of a Fort Worth pediatrician  might by applauded by some. 
• There are actually people who believe that the Newtown shooting was planned by the White House in order to ban guns.
• I wonder if Oprah ever got around to asking Lance Armstrong any questions after she got through talking about herself. 
• Cute puppy dog up for adoption at the Wise County Animal Shelter. (Facebook.)
• The Gangsta Mobile is in the shop awaiting for diagnosis. We had to get a rent car and ended up with a Camaro. I want it. 
• My routine is now seriously in the ditch (figuratively speaking.)

Oh my

Random Thoughts Delayed Because 287 is a Parking Lot

What The Heck Is This Thing On The Square This Morning?!?!

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• I woke up 15 minutes late this morning. Man, that messes up my routine which I have down to the minute.
• Mrs. LL's Gangsta Mobile might be having transmission problems or, hopefully, computer problems that control the transmission. She lost power on the highway but it's now running smoothly. If it's a transmission problem it's not going to fix itself, right? We'll find out today.
• Was that sleet? Tiny hail? 
• The Golden Globes was/were on last night, and I say this every year: It is 50 times better than the Oscars.
• I can't stop laughing at this: Tommy Lee Jones was not happy last night at the Golden Globes and someone compared him to "grumpy cat". 
• And Jodie Foster's speech last night after receiving some lifetime achievement award was confusing and almost indescribable  I think she said, "I've been doing this all my life, it has been so hard, I'm done." Cry me a river.
• Sports: (1) That may have been the best NFL weekend ever, (2) the touchdown pass by the Ravens with about 30 seconds left truly had me saying, "You've got to be kidding me", (3) the 49ers put in the option read for QB Colin Kaepernick and he turned into a bigger and (maybe) faster RG3, and (4) Mrs. LL was yelling at the TV yesterday because her grandparents are huge Seattle fans -- she now has a hot sports opinion about trying to "ice the kicker", (5) did you notice that Fox's Second team (Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston and Tony Siragusa) were demoted this weekend and didn't announce a playoff game?
• Mrs. LL told me on Friday evening that she was going on a Girls Night Out on Saturday. Hey, I've seen Magic Mike, what the heck was going on?  But I learned it involved thirty (!) women who went out to eat and then to see a play based upon Footloose in the mid-cities. 
• My favorite Wise County pastor went on a rant about gays yesterday on Facebook. It's amazingly entertaining. (He later complained that his church attendance was as low as it had 
• An internet genius, who was only 26, has killed himself. 
• I really don't follow the "controversy" over the current Secretary of Defense nominee but I did love this comment this weekend: "He's nominated for Defense Secretary of the United States -- not Defense Secretary of Israel."
• I've always found it odd how the Right Wing will go the mat over Israel but also believe no Jew will get into Heaven. 
• I'm still on my X-Box kick.  Bought a family oriented sports game which caused me to yell at some little cartoon girl who was killing me in tennis. 
• Mark Cuban inherited Dirk. If you think Jerry Jones doesn't know what he's doing, just wait once Dirk is gone. You are beginning to see the fraud that is Mark Cuban. 

Django Unchained

Mrs. LL and I went to the 7th Street Movie Tavern on Saturday on the first leg of a month long trifecta where we are going to try and see three Best Picture nominees. You obviously know the first one. The others are Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln.

First things first. I don't think I'll ever go to a theater again that doesn't have food service. In fact, I don't think I've been to anything else in the last three years. Secondly, 7th Street has reserved theater seating over the Internet. Man, I'm all over that concept.

I'm also a big fan of Quentin Tarantino movies. Pulp Fiction is at the top of my list with Reservoir Dogs being a distant second. Death Proof might fight for the second spot as well as a quasi Tarantino flick called True Romance. I liked the Kill Bill flicks and InInglorious Bastards but, overall, slightly disappointed.

This movie? Fantastic. The basic premise is that of a bounty hunter (a great German character played by Christoph Waltz) who searches for and "finds" a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx who is beyond great in this role) to assist him in identifying three former evil plantation hands who have become wanted by the U. S. Government. The next plot is a search across the South to find Foxx's character's wife -- a slave who has been sold to an unknown but eventually discovered plantation owner played by Leonardo Dicaprio.

As to be expected, it is bloody -- very bloody -- and shocking. But it also has some incredibly funny and tender moments. If you like Tarantino, you'll loved this. If not, stay away.

And, finally, the "n word" is launched about a hundred times in this movie -- appropriate if you want to capture America back then (and now?). But that dialog can be uncomfortable. Especially for me once I noticed the inter-racial couple at the end of the row.

Above The Fold

Gal With Glasses Taking You Into The Weekend

Ugh

An historic home in Grapevine this morning caught fire. There are varying reports, but the house was built around 1900.  The top pic is from Google Streetview. The second was taken this morning per Facebook.

Snake On An Actual Plane

Story.

Fat Kid Sinks Last Second Three Pointer

I've got to admit, I'm confused by this video. Did this kid have the OK from the coach to launch that shot? Was the game firmly in hand? This looks like some spare weekend game but we've got two professional looking refs. Is that the word "church" around the center circle? And is that a chick in red jersey #42? And that kid in the plaid shirt who comes running in at the end sure is focused on  hugging.

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• "The Texas attorney general's office has ruled that Tarrant County must make public information related to a sexual harassment complaint filed against District Attorney Joe Shannon." About a year ago, the DA's office hired a Public Information Director who I have dogged constantly as being nothing more than a mouthpiece for a re-election campaign.  Now we'll learn if I'm wrong. What will she say, if anything, about this?
• Mrs. LL waited up past midnight to open our house up to a couple (relatives on her side of the family) who are in the metroplex to begin an adoption process this weekend. At least I think she did. When I left this morning the guest bedroom door was shut, and I assumed there were people in there. 
• Nothing makes a house cleaner than having guests come over. You are all invited for the rest of the year. 
• Thoughts on the Cowboys hiring of 72 year old Monte Kiffin as defensive coordinator: (1) I guess his age doesn't bother me, but I can't convince myself, (2) He's the father of the "Tampa 2" defense (which I truly don't understand) but I'll credit The Ticket's Jake Kemp with a great line yesterday: "He invented a defense 20 years ago to stop the West Coast Offense that no one runs anymore", and (3) I wouldn't hire him because of his idiot son. 
• What a horrible fire: Four people, three of them children, dead in Haltom City. But there's something weird about that one. It looks like it was a small fire that was contained inside the house but filled the place up with toxic smoke. It occurred in the afternoon. My internal "something ain't right" alarm is going off. 
• The NRA and Joe Biden met yesterday. Afterwards, the NRA said that the Administration could now check the box that reads "met with the NRA" and now they'll "do what they want." Even I agree with that.
• The Wise County Republicans are holding a raffle with a chance to win a .22 rifle with a scope. Timing, people. Timing. 
• 71 degrees this afternoon. 39 degrees tomorrow afternoon. (But I'll never utter that "Texas Weather" cliche which is like nails on a chalkboard to me.)
• There's a lot of talk about the Second Amendment and what the "well regulated militia" phrase means.  A couple of year's ago the Supreme Court interpreted that Amendment and, although I haven't read it, I suspect the opinion contains a first rate history lesson. 
• I see lots of headlines about a "trillion dollar coin" in connection with the debt ceiling debate, but I've not clicked on a single headline. 
• I know I keep mentioning the X-Box and Kinect, but I continue to be amazed. You manipulate menus by sweeping your hands right to left. It is right out of Minority Report. (But I actually yelled at my virtual trainer in my exercise program last night when he said, "Come on. Don't stop on me" when the device detected that I wasn't completing an an exercise routine.)
• And apparently the Kinect is a big player in Paranormal Activity 4.  Mrs. LL, a huge fan of the series, will freak out. 
• Wow. Hunter S. Thompson and I have the exact same daily routine. 

"I’m a gunman and my target is on the inside."

Love this guy. This former firefighter went to the Celina Elementary School yesterday and made the above statement along with some others in order to test "the district’s security at his child’s school and wanted to expose weaknesses."

The school, and local police, were not amused.

He kind of reminds me of someone else who would do something similar.

"Fact: Celina Elementary is not secure."

This Gun Battle Is Very Nuanced

Random Thought: Time Travel

"If time travel were to one day be possible, why don't we run into people now who have traveled back in time to us?"

I'm not a science fiction guy, but I like this question. My first inclination was to answer that if time is a train, then we are simply at the front of the train and there's no one in the future who could "come back" to us.

But if time travel were to be invented tomorrow and I were to go back to, say, 1953, wouldn't the people of 1953 have believed up until that point were in the front of the train as well? So can we safely assume that we are in front of the train?

(Side note: Want to feel old? In Back To The Future II, Marty was transported into the future with a specific date of October 21, 2015.)

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• We had our carpets cleaned yesterday and they look fantastic. Check back with me in a couple of months, however. 
• Elections have consequences. 
• That being said, they are not coming for your guns. This crazy hysteria out there has those not suffering from the hysteria shaking our heads in amazement.
• Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who may be nuttier than Rick Perry or David Dewhurst, even quoted Hitler last night to pander to the Far Right.
• Who out there thinks the government should not provide flu shots to children who are not insured?
• Mark Davis had a legitimate thought this morning: Any chance those who sell the flu vaccine/medicine are behind this flu panic in the news? I sure would like to own the company that sells Tamiflu.
• Oscar nominations this morning for Best Picture:  Beasts of the Southern Wild, Silver Linings, Zero Dark 30, Lincoln, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Amour, Django, Argo. How many of those have I seen? None of them. 
• But, man, look at this list of Who's Who for Best Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin, Robert De Niro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tommy Lee Jones, and Christopher Waltz.
• I watched Best Funeral Ever last night (filmed in Dallas, by the way.) That's not real, is it?
• Mrs. LL was shocked that anyone would ever write out a prayer in advance. 
• Any commercial that uses the phrase "what they don't want you to know" is an absolute tune out for me. 
• Very delayed: There will be graveside services Sunday for Samantha Jo McNorton who was found murdered in Wise County in November. (The suspect, David Malone, later killed himself in the Wise County Jail.)
• Ninety percent of drug related arrests in Texas are for possession. 
• I think the college head coaching job at a major college (Texas, Alabama, Florida, etc.) is a heck of a lot better job than an NFL head coaching position. 
• I don't understand this lengthy hearing for the Aurora shooter to determine if there "is enough evidence" in order for him to stand trial. I wish we had that right in Texas which, for all practical purposes, we don't. 
• Arguments were held in the Supreme Court yesterday on whether the cops can draw a DWI suspect's blood without a warrant because of the urgency created by the evidence of alcohol dissipating in the bloodstream. The State's attorney received a haymaker right out of the gate when one of the Justices asked him, "How come it took so long for this State to figure out that it needed to do this without a warrant?" Meaning, getting a search warrant has been good enough and fast enough in the past so what has changed?

The Drudge Report: Always Measured And Reserved

Ok, folks. Turn in your rifles on Thursday, shotguns on Friday, and handguns on Monday.  The White House has to take the weekend off to form a New World Order and write a new constitution based upon Sharia Law.

Sheesh.