Rick Perry Is In Japan For Some Reason

My new desktop wallpaper: @GovernorPerry and Japan's Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshige Seko. So confusing. pic.twitter.com/4kI1W9RabZ
— Robert Wilonsky (@RobertWilonsky) September 8, 2014

Index

Only posting this because of the huge picture of the girl in the bathing suit and, more importantly, the caption.  And that was an employee of the paper.

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts. Edit: It's Monday. Maybe I Just Refused To Acknowledge It.

• Wow: The elevator footage of Ray Rice punching his fiancee has been released. Once again, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell suspended him for two games. I despise the NFL. 
• After four years, I had to replace my gas powered weedeater. I'll take four years worth of use (being used at least 30 weekends). But the last two I have had to replace had the same problem: A small cylinder becomes disconnected from a fuel tube inside the tiny gas tank. (And after decades of weedeater purchases, Ryobi is my favorite. And I use a metal blade instead of those always breaking strings.)
• There's a fake photo going around allegedly depicting the Ferguson officer's "fractured eye socket". And even I was almost duped by the orbital injury story.
• There's a radio ad I hear on The Ticket that is for railroad track (it's in the first person talking about how "I" show up for work every day and am responsible for the U.S. economy). Who is that ad targeted at?
• The Red Bull Air Show was at the Texas Motor Speedway last weekend. WBAP's Steve Lamb this morning: "They can't fly more than 230 miles per hour and must travel at 80 feet above the ground." Hal Jay: "Hey, that's the same rules that the Malaysian Airline pilots have." Too soon? 
• I don't understand those who post comments that are nothing more than over the top President Obama bashing. I'm not talking about those who try to intelligently make a point, but those who just go on a crazy rant that sounds like the author is about to bust a gasket. That just seems like a crazy waste of energy. 
• Sports and funny stuff: (1) To the guy who angrily asked me last week, "Have you ever seen [UT quarterback] Swoopes play?" after I announced he was awful: Uh, yeah. Last year. And he was awful. More importantly, the fact that Mack Brown wouldn't play him more when Brown was fighting for his job was more than telling. (2) But Brown's recruiting at the QB position is beyond stunning. Since Colt McCoy, there has been no one. (3) The resignation of Ron Washington is a massive mystery. The greatest manager in Rangers history quits with three weeks to go, won't say why, and the Rangers hold the weirdest press conference 30 minutes after the announcement? The media hardly had time to get other there, and most didn't. (3A) And Dale Hansen said last night that Washington showed up with lawyers by his side when he announced his retirement to the team? This even weirder. (4) That still shot of the number of 49ers fans at the Cowboy game yesterday is stunning. (5) OSU's quarterback may miss the rest of the season and his replacement is Maxx German. Ring a bell? That was the Southlake kid who Channel 8's Brett Shipp went after for illegally transferring into the district just to play football.  I remember Shipp ambushing the kid's daddy as he was gassing up his bass boat. (6) The end of College Gameday on ESPN was funny and insane. (7) But not as funny as the Carolina Panther kicker warming up in the middle of a band performance.  (8) The Decatur Eagles played in the "Dale Hansen Classic" in Waxahachie. Dale Hansen has a Classic?
• Wise County is about to host the Texas Sporting Clays Championship in about ten days where they estimate 300,000 clay pigeons will be tossed in six days.
• I almost ended up with a stray (big) bulldog and his Yorkie buddy who were frantically running in the rain this weekend. As I coaxed them to my front door, their owner pulled up who was out looking for them. Thank goodness.
• I jogged this weekend and my Achilles was still hurting. I went back to the method of landing on my heel and rolling the foot. Worked like a charm. You'd think that changing your running style would be impossible but it was pretty easy. 

Today Is The 50th Anniversary of the LBJ "Daisy Girl" Ad

It aired one time.

Funny

These players were meant to sit next to each other #wallyworld pic.twitter.com/z5BmMTpQnH (via @PaulPabst)
— darren rovell (@darrenrovell) September 6, 2014

Friday Night Lights

• Bridgeport 56, Boyd 48 (4 overtimes! And get this:  Per Richard Greene at the Messenger, Boyd's Qualynn Wells rushed for more 420 yards in the loss. That's insane.)
• Grapevine Faith 56, Alvord 21 (You gotta have faith.)
• Era 60, Chico 30
• Henrietta 20, Paradise 13

And there were three games at Cowboys Stadium which were crazy. Southlake won in overtime on a gamble. #1 Allen won in the final seconds and scored 58, as did Skyline who scored 53 (and had a 484 yard rusher!). The last game didn't wrap up until after midnight.  Edit: Man, there were four games there. Argyle played as well.

Above The Fold

Wow.

Ron Washington resigns as Rangers manager to deal with personal issue. MOre at http://t.co/WQNlGMjLUo
— Gerry Fraley (@gfraley) September 5, 2014

Wash's full statement.  "I deeply regret that I've let down Rangers organization and our great fans."  That's an odd statement if he's not talking about this season's performance -- and I'm not sure he is.

Edit: GM Jon Daniels said at a hastily called 3:30 p.m. press conference that the decision to resign was "not drug related." (Washington tested positive for cocaine a few years ago.)

How Inept Is The Frisco PD?

Chief Stevens cant tell how this happened double Suicide or murder suicide. "We may never know." pic.twitter.com/RGRWZouRNH
— Shaun Rabb (@shaunrabbfox4) September 5, 2014

They held a news conference this afternoon on the death of the Frisco couple. The female in the pool had no trauma to her body. The father, found inside the home, had "trauma" to the head and a hand fracture. There was also a note -- which they won't release. And the Chief is already throwing up his hands and saying, "We may never know" what happened? Yet they pursued the child's death as a murder case even when the ME ruled  he died of undetermined causes but stated, “Natural disease is most likely” the cause of death.

In Dallas Yesterday

Source.

Index

Two great notes:

• Hospital wars with the one in Bridgeport thriving and the one in Decatur in some trouble.
• We had a real life Footloose situation going on. 

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• Someone asked me yesterday why had I turned on Wendy Davis since I used to "love her." I don't think I've ever said I supported Wendy Davis. After the filibuster, I dedicated a whole Random Thoughts to what a goofball David Dewhurst was for letting the Texas Senate get out of control, but that's about it. People believe the weirdest things. 
• Regarding the Frisco couple death, there were all sorts of reports yesterday that Frisco police had never even referred their investigation to the DA's office. But there were also reports that a grand jury had been convened and the Morning News today says that the husband "recently spent more than three hours testifying before a Collin County grand jury." How did it get to the grand jury without going through the DA's office? It's legally possible but practically impossible. 
• I watched that Joan Rivers documentary a couple of years ago, and it was really good. I wasn't a big fan nor did I dislike her. 
• Small school football crazy notes: (1) "The aTm-Commerce football team opened the 2014 season in record breaking fashion beating East Texas Baptist in a 98-20 rout setting a new NCAA Division II record for total offense with 986 yards Thursday night at Memorial Stadium." (2) Division-II Tusculum allowed minus-100 total yards and minus-124 yards rushing (both NCAA single-game records) in 71-0 win over College of Faith.
• Conspiracy theorists are going nuts over confirmed fake cell phone towers that have gone up all over the country (including DFW). But there is no mistaking those towers are a little weird. 
• The Rangers need 13 more losses to become a 100 loss team. They have 22 more to play. 
• WBAP's Hal Jay didn't know what "being catfished" means. 
• Another thing about Bridgeport Index issues from the 1960s: This county loved the beauty pageant. 
• My dad and the Bridgeport ISD superintendent once accidentally and innocently caused a lot of chaos when they were in charge of tallying the votes of the judges in one of those pageants. There was confusion when it was not clear what the 1 to 5 scale actually meant when it got down to five finalists. That is, if a judge's vote gave someone a "1" in talent, did that mean just one point or first place? My dad and the superintendent interpreted the ballots the opposite of what the judges' had intended. The error wasn't noticed until the master of ceremonies announced the five finalists in order of finish and crowned the winner. Of course, that was the reverse order. The judges stopped the pageant and corrected the error right there and then. I was a little kid, but I remember that loud buzz in the Bridgeport High School auditorium.  
• I hadn't listened to Dennis Prager in a while but yesterday he said he never feared a USSR missile strike but that he is extremely concerned about a current attack by terrorists on "the American electrical grid." That guy is an expert on everything. 
• There's a lawyer who shows up from time to time at driver's license hearings who will question a witness like it's the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Loud. Flamboyant. Dude, it's an administrative hearing with no jury. Who are you trying to impress because no one in that room is. 
• Football helmets have safety ratings and Justin Northwest uses a ton of the lowest rated ones. 

Joan Rivers Has Died . . . .

. . .  and a very, very 1980s picture of her is floating around.

Good News For Republicans

And the guy behind the numbers knows exactly what he is doing: Nate Silver who is deadly accurate in almost anything he predicts.

Get Me This Pug In A Ball Pit!!

That's some crazy production value on this video. Crazy music. Different camera angles. And then we have silence and stillness from the pup. I was certain that the music with the dog going crazy was going to fire up again.

And I'd pay money to see this dog unleashed about thirty feet from a huge ball pit. The little thing would take a huge flying leap into the middle of it. It'd probably take thirty minutes to find him at the bottom of it.

A Very Bridgeport Kind Of Post

These are cheerleaders for the Pee Wee teams in 1972.  And this is right in my wheelhouse. I know a lot of them, but some of them I can no longer place. If any of you Bridgeport old-timers want to try naming them, have had it.  Many of them are still in the area. 

 Corner Drug Indians

 Runaway Bay Cowboys

 George Mitchell Jets

TXI Mustangs

Index

• Like how all the guys checking out the pool are wearing ties.
• That deep end was (is) deep. Maybe 12' or more. And that high diving board was a spring board.
• Check out those pool rules. No one under six allowed without an adult!!!!!
• What's that "P.C." reference for the ordinance?

And this is what the pool looks like on opening day:

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• Wendy Davis' interview on The Ticket is getting widely panned. And she did sound like she was just going through the motions. Maybe she is. 
• Matt Lauer now gets free helicopter rides to and from his gig at The Today Show from his house in The Hamptons. Now that literally is high tone. 
• UT coach Charlie Strong suspended two starting linemen yesterday for "violating team rules." . His reign is either going to be an absolute success or an absolute disaster. 
• If Google Maps was correct yesterday, traffic was at a standstill from 114 in Boyd all the way to 287 in Decatur after traffic was diverted. 
• That was a big wreck on 287, but earlier in the day another truck wreck on 287 near Bowie left one man dead. 
• There has to be some Klan members who post in the comment section. Heck, maybe even a Grand Dragon. 
• Joe Biden got a lot of press yesterday after saying we will track ISIS down "to the gates of Hell."  I thought that sounded familiar and, sure enough, he used it in the VP debate in 2012.
• Ticket Fans: The morning Ticket Ticker guy got fired.  
• As of yesterday, Lake Bridgeport officially crossed the 23 feet low level. 
• If the now dead Frisco woman was innocent (and all evidence indicates she was) and the stress of the criminal investigation that unfairly would not end caused one of them to snap and kill the other, Frisco police have blood on their hands.