Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• The Kids In The House and I played basketball on a school hoop, but I required that we string up a net before doing so. It was hard to explain how playing without a net is no fun at all. They didn't understand. 
• Eleven bears have found a new home in the animal sanctuary in Boyd. That's becoming quite the place over there.
• The Muslims and the Buddhists are warring. I saw several tweets this weekend that said, "If you read one thing today read this" with a link to a long and horrifying article of the slaughter of 36 Muslims, mostly teenagers, in Myanmar last March. After that, I noticed a news flash about explosions last weekend in Buddhist temples by Muslims in India.  
• A fruit/vegetable stand on the side of the road is one of life's great joys, but I have no idea where one is. 
• Rick Perry, in his announcement that he won't run again for governor, said  that he'll miss it "because it is the greatest job in modern politics.”  Yeah, you get paid a ton to live in a mansion to do nothing other than sign or veto bills for a couple of weeks every two years. What's not to like?
• I think Perry would have a better chance of beating John Cornyn for U.S. Senate than winning the Republican presidential nomination (which he has absolutely no chance of.) 
• Rev. Robert Jeffress did in fact appear at the pro-life rally in Austin yesterday and said this: "Anyone who opposes this bill, whether he or she realizes it, is a tool of Satan being used by Satan to accomplish Satan's purpose of death." Wow. 
• Interesting: DWI roadblocks are illegal in Texas (at least until the legislature approves them with guidelines) but Saginaw police set up roadblocks yesterday stopping everyone coming in and out of the area in the search for information about the murder of the little girl from last week. Is that legal? Oddly, yes. 
• The Rangers played Baltimore and official Liberally Lean MLB player Chris Davis last night. Davis struck out four times. I hope the Ghost of Texas Past doesn't cause him to spiral out of control now.
• Worth watching from last night if you have any interest in baseball rules: Nick Swisher hits a slow roller foul down the third base line and turns away. The catcher follows the slow moving ball and lets it roll back in to fair play, scoops it up, and rushes over and tags Swisher out. Good stuff. 

Was This Headline Offensive?

The paper apologized for it. (Remember, it was Asiana Airlines.)

And Another - Texas

Starting off the second half of the year strong.

Breaking: Our Long Statewide Nightmare Is Over

Rick Perry announces he will not seek re-election as governor. pic.twitter.com/kvq7mUi4T1
— FOX 4 NEWS (@FOX4) July 8, 2013

Greg Louganis Would Be Jealous

Grade A quality slow-motion and sound.  Perfect 10 for execution.

But the most tense part was thinking Timmy was going to land on the little kid in the yellow floatie. No kid could have survived an impact like that.

Incoming!!!!

You can actually see the potential crushing blow develop in the background. And I love how all the guys in the background just stand around like it ain't no big thing.

From The Weekend: Captain America

An escaped sex offender had his mugshot posted in an Ohio convenience store. Patron of the store sees mugshot and tackles escapee.

The fact he's wearing red, white and blue makes it even more dramatic.  (And I bet he drove away listening to Toby Keith in his truck.)

Brad Cooper and Gerald Gerard Butler At Wimbledon

Their image stopped Mrs. LL down this weekend.

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• There's a fire going on at an old house near the courthouse this morning and, although the picture on the Messenger's website doesn't look that bad, Decatur Fire Department has called for all sorts of help from neighboring fire departments. And, based upon scanner traffic, they are extremely concerned with firefighter safety (which might be due to the recent news of firefighter deaths.)
• Drownings over the holidays: (1) A 21 year old at Lake Grapevine, (2) a 27 year old at Possum Kingdom lake (which caused the fireworks display to be cancelled), and (3) a 7 year old at Joe Pool Lake.  And a 20 year old woman was left in the water for hours in the dark before found. 
• Told ya: Dwight Howard decides not to sign with the Dallas Mavericks.  And one rumored reason that free agents don't want to come to Dallas is that ol' South racism still exists here. So who did the Mavericks send to visit with Howard in LA to try to bring him Dallas? Six white guys: "Cuban, Mark Cuban, Dirk Nowitzki, president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson, head coach Rick Carlisle, athletic trainer Casey Smith and director of analytics Roland Beech."
• There's a political rally in Austin today by a pro-life group. Among the speakers is Rev. Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas. Is that guy running for office somewhere? 
• Watching the Wimbledon finals -- men's or women's -- on the 4th of July weekend in the morning is always fantastic. 
• How more people didn't die in the 777 crash in San Francisco is amazing. That plane got so close to cart-wheeling on the runway and, had it, all of them would probably be dead. 
• I ended up laying "four square" with the Kids In The House over the weekend. Unfortunately, the four squares were set up right by a curb going into a parking lot. As I should have expected, I ended up falling into the parking lot.
• As I'm on my back, with two faces staring down at me, my first thought at my age was "did I break anything?" Fortunately, I just ended up with a scraped hand since I broke my fall better than Emmitt Smith ever did. 
• So those in charge of Wise County's Vampire No Refusal Weekend, what are the stats? 
• Rick Perry makes a "big announcement" today at 1:00 a.m. I bet he's nutty enough to make another presidential run. 
• For some reason I watched a portion of the Arkansas/Texas 1969 classic game on the Longhorn Network this weekend. The crowning moment for the Longhorns was a shocking pass on fourth and short with about four minutes remaining. I looked up the stats on the game and learned Texas threw only 10 passes and had two of those intercepted. Oh, how the game has changed. 
• No arrests in the murder of that little Saginaw girl? 
• From the Update:  "The Decatur City Council will discuss a $261,500 incentive package for 'Project Walter' . . . . " What the heck is that? 

Little Pink Houses For You And Me

Above The Fold

Houston Rockets Dancers Taking You Into The Weekend

Like They Need Help: Texas Judge Assists Prosecution

Link.

No Justice. No Peace.

I'm coming to help you, Marilyn!

Entertaining Maid Of Honor Toast

Not bad, but the chances of this chick being annoying in real life are off the chart.

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• Police called the murder of the six year old girl in Saginaw an "isolated incident." Uh, once you make an arrest and know exactly what happened you can get back to me on that. Until then, everyone has a reason to freak out. 
• Double motorcycle death in Venus in Johnson County. (No link yet). 
• There's a 21 year old missing in Lake Grapevine. He was discovered missing when a party boat carrying 60 people got back to shore with only 59. It's like a fresh water version of Open Water. 
• I had a discussion with the County Attorney the other day about the public's seemingly acceptance of Vampire Weekends. He believes the public supports it and has grown comfortable with the concept. He's probably right, but it may be more public apathy than public acceptance.  
• We were at a fireworks show in the Mid Cities last night but the crowd got captivated by some strange flying object with green and red lights. The kids thought it was an alien UFO, and I tried to calm them down by telling them it wasn't --- but it was the most bizarre thing I've seen in quite some time. It would hover and then streak for five seconds and hover again. 
• For some reason, I'm fascinated by this photo before/after the speech of I'm "the luckiest man on the face of the Earth."
• Bret Michaels got handsy with Fox 4's Fiona yesterday. (Speaking of, here's Fiona re-enacting the Flashdance water scene. Hey, now.)
• If I listened to music I'd probably listen to John Mayer. 
• I saw a "sponsored tweet" by David Dewhurst the other day on his abortion stance. I suppose if you are going to do political advertising, that's as useful as anything else. But if he only had mentioned something about the Chinese.
• But the irony is that Dewhurst is using social media when he acts like (and is) a politician stuck in the 1970's Old Boy's Network.
• A rising star on my most despised list is Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. I never knew he was paralyzed by (an almost unbelievable) event of being hit by a falling tree while jogging. And, get this, the tort reformer sued the property owner and is believed to have received $10 million. 
• The "average asking price" for the TCU/LSU game at Cowboys Stadium is $584 -- the second highest price for all games this season behind Aggie/Alabama ($626). But those numbers have to be skewed because of the prime and ridiculously priced seats.
• When I see footage of the Hot Dog Eating Contest from Coney Island I can understand why the "hate us for our freedom." 
• You should really think twice before watching this, but there's a video of police in California arresting a man for videotaping their conduct (which is absolutely legal) and then shooting his dog who comes to defend him. It literally made me sick to my stomach and furious with rage. 
• If George Zimmerman is convicted it'll be a massive tragedy of justice. I'm not saying he's innocent, I'm saying that no jury can believe he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. (And whoever is sitting second chair in his defense is really good. He's dry but good.)
• Grand finale inadvertently on the ground injures 28. (Video.)

Boomtown

This particular firework explosion at the field of the Fort Worth Cats apparently scared a lot of people -- especially those at the new Drive In theater.

Here's one more traditional:

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• Is the Update updating? No. Is Random Thoughts random thoughting? Yes. Once again proving I'm the hardest working man in show business.
• When I was growing up on the mean streets of Bridgeport, the neighborhood kids would divide into teams and go out onto the road and line up about 60 feet from each other. From there, we'd set up a ton of bottle rockets pointed at each other and light them with a "punk". It was nuclear war. It was fantastic.
• Every now and then a kid would get hit in the chest by one of the bottle rockets. Were we worried about him? Heck no. That was a moment of high comedy.
• You remember "cherry bombs"? My neighbor Chris displayed its power one time when his parents were getting some carpet replaced in their house. How thick is the hardened cardboard that serves as the tube that new carpet is wrapped around? A half inch around the circumference? More? Whatever it was, he put a cherry bomb in the end of a discarded one of them and it blew the end of it into a shreddy mess. 
• The Cherry Bomb was outlawed shortly thereafter.
• In high school, one of my buddies made a make shift bottle rocket launcher by taking an old golf club and sawing the the club end off of it. He would light a bottle rocket, insert it in the golf shaft, hold out his newly made launcher -- arm extended -- parallel to his chest, and let it rip. It was awesome.
• We might have tried out the golf club launcher on a house of a man who would later become the mayor of Bridgeport. He was none too pleased and called the cops. As my buddy and I hastily retreated to a nearby field and laid in a culvert, my buddy - as spotlights came and went overhead - gave me the greatest piece of criminal law advice I've ever heard: "Shut up and don't move."
• Changing gears . . . 
• I hate ESPN's Sportscenter, but they've been playing a montage of soldiers coming home to the surprise their parents, wife, and kids and . . . it's fantastic. It's overlaid with Daughtry's "I'm Coming Home."
• The Ticket's Jake Kemp had a segment this week of his upcoming 12 day trip to The Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland. I'm so jealous. I once heard someone say that disposable income should be spent on travel and not things. I'm so conflicted by that. You want to spend a week in Cancun or, these days, buy three monster flat screen TVs for the house? I guess the answer depends on your age, how much you've traveled,  and whether you've ever had a monster flat screen TV.
• Funny bit this week: Mrs. LL tried to buy a membership online to the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art and ended up buying one for the MoMA in New York. (I would laugh at her, but a Google search, and the MoMA's nondescript website, would have caused me to do the same thing.)
• She managed to get a refund, which will occur within the next 30 days, but, for awhile, I was a member of The MoMA.
• Still remember the person who told me that my posts are "over comma'd".
• Regardless of your position on the issue, here's a great Dallas Morning News piece on the stats about abortion in Texas.
• I'm not sure I've ever heard as many negative reviews as I have about The Lone Ranger. 
• Sports: (1) The Texas Rangers signed Manny Ramirez yesterday to a minor league contract. He's 41 years old. (2) Chris Davis hit another home run, and (3) Dwight Howard talk gives me Tired Head, and he ain't that great. 
• Someone asked yesterday about whatever happened to the PI Dallas lawyer who advertised that he would "bring you flowers." Oh, my. He died earlier this year after falling 1,500 feet while hiking in New Hampshire.
• Also from that obit: "He ran half marathons on the Great Wall of China, up Pikes Peak, and in Luxor, Egypt. He climbed mountains in places such as Nepal, Ecuador, and Tanzania." Once again, I jealous. 
• I tried switching to boxers from boxer briefs about six months ago but just couldn't do it. (I'm only mentioning this because the BagOfNothing guy wrote that he tried the same thing. Weird.)
• What's going on with Steve Eager at Fox 4? They are making him read social media comments on their newscast and he's also posting off-the-cuff opinionated Tweets? He seems like a good guy being bossed around in an unstable media market.
• If you aren't a documentary fan, watch The Wild and Wonderful Whites Of West Virginia and get back to me.
• And the new documentary of How To Make Money Selling Drugs -- a film attacking the War on Drugs -- looks promising.
• Sports Talk Radio: I've already listened to some of The Ticket's all day Rotten Radio extravaganza this morning and it's fantastic. 
• Egypt's Al-Tahrir newspaper takes a shot at the President in English: