Police Brutality Disrupts Dallas Cowboy Football Game

 I thought this outrageous incident of police brutality was amusing, in addition to being outrageous...

Why Seattle Seahawks Will Not Beat Dallas Cowboys In Super Bowl

This blogging falls into the category of seeing something in an online west coast newspaper, usually the Seattle Times, which I would not be expecting to see in a Texas newspaper, usually the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, about a similar thing happening in the Dallas/Fort Worth metro zone.

In this case the thing one does not see in D/FW is the local NFL team winning a game and taking over first place in NFC West, East, North or South.

As long as I have been in Texas I have been reading and hearing the North Texas locals lamenting about the Dallas Cowboys never seeming to have themselves a mighty fine winning team.

When I lived in Washington I recollect the Seattle Seahawks being like the Dallas Cowboys, as in never making it to a playoff game, let alone the Super Bowl.

Since I have been in Texas the Seahawks have made it to more than one Super Bowl. I think they won the Super Bowl once, maybe twice. My memory of this type thing ain't all that great, and I don't think the need for the actual number is great enough to warrant consulting Google.

Earlier in this century when the town of Arlington, in cahoots with Jerry Jones, he being the hapless owner of the Dallas Cowboys, went for a record breaking level of abusing eminent domain to dislodge hundreds of citizens and businesses so as to have enough land onto which to build a giant homage to a space ship serving as a football stadium.

Years ago I webpaged this blight of Dallas Cowboy Stadium eminent domain abuse, with that eminent domain abuse being the primary reason Tarrant County is known as the Eminent Domain Abuse Capital of America, with that title made even more solid when Fort Worth went in for some outrageous eminent domain abuse in order to take property for its ill-advised, ineptly implemented economic development scheme disguised as un-needed flood control.

Way back when I was shocked to see all the homes, apartment complexes and business taken away for a sports stadium I opined that the bad karma of this will likely keep the Dallas Cowboys from ever being in another Super Bowl, and would put an end to the Cowboys being known as America's Team.

As of 2019, both bad karma results seem to be happening. There are fans of the Dallas Cowboys over a quarter century old who have never seen the team play in a Super Bowl.

Eminent domain was not used or abused to get the land on which to build the Seattle Seahawks stadium. All they had to do was blow up the Kingdome and build a new structure in its place.

I saw the above on Facebook this morning. Seeing this caused me to wonder anew if this will finally be the year I secure an invite to the legendary Knappson Super Bowl Party. Those tickets are even harder to get in a year when the Seahawks are in the big game...

UPDATE: Ex footballer, or long distance jobber, Bruce F., points out that it is impossible for the Seattle Seahawks to play the Dallas Cowboys in a Super Bowl, unless one or the other moves from the NFC to the AFC. I probably should have already realized this...

Washington Naming Ferries For Seahawks While Dyeing No Rivers Green Or Blue

I saw what you see here, this morning, whilst perusing the Interwebs for news.

The Seattle Seahawks are playing in yet one more Super Bowl, tomorrow, Sunday, February 1, in Glendale, Arizona.

Meanwhile, up in Washington, the state's governor, I assume by executive decree, ordered the ferries in the Washington State Ferry Fleet renamed after Seattle Seahawk players.

There are dozens of Washington ferry boats. I have no idea  how many Seahawk players there are in need of a boat being re-named after them.

I also do not know how long this re-naming is scheduled to last, but right now you can sail across Puget Sound on boats with names like M/V Russell Wilson and M/V Marshawn Lynch.

Renaming the ferry fleet in this way seems a bit goofy to me.

I have not experienced what  happens, goofiness-wise, at my current location, when a local football team plays in some sort of national championship game, because that has not happened during my long exile in Texas.

I think the Dallas Cowboys played in a Super Bowl or two back in the last century, and somehow out of that became convinced that they were America's Team, even though America tends to like winners.

I have experienced extreme goofiness when one of the local Texas teams has a good year. As in some of the locals, politicians and media can get a bit ridiculous. I can only imagine what happens here if a local team wins a national championship or a local team plays in a national championship game.

Back in December, via the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, I Learned I Live In The Football Capital Of The World: Tarrant County. At that point in time supposedly the civilized world was in shock because the Dallas Cowboys were playing in an NFL playoff game at the same time a small Fort Worth school named TCU was maybe going to play for the national college championship. Why this was shocking has never been clear to me.

As for the extreme goofiness I have experienced in the Football Capital of the World, well, that also involved those TCU Horned Frogs.

Way back in November of 2009 TCU was playing in a game which had their fans swooning. This led to the extreme goofiness to which I refer. That goofiness involved the then Mayor of Fort Worth, Mike Moncrief, trying to dye the Trinity River purple.

I blogged about Purple Rivergate in three bloggings, with the first blogging being Fort Worth's Mayor Moncrief Changes The Name Of The Trinity River & Orders It Dyed The Color Purple. That blogging was from the day before the river tried to change its color.

I attended the Purple River Ceremony and blogged about the sad result in Fort Worth Mayor Moncrief Fails To Turn Trinity River Purple.

The next day the Star-Telegram had an article about the Purple River which was a bit bizarre, even by Star-Telegram standards. I blogged about that in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram Sort Of Sees Purple.

The Seattle Seahawks colors are a nice shade of blue and a bright green. Dyeing Puget Sound or any of the Washington rivers or lakes blue or green would be a bit redundant since those are sort of the predominant colors which dominate the landscape.

That and I doubt any Washington politician would be dumb enough to try something so stupid as changing the color of a large body of water.

If the Dallas Cowboys ever get to play in a Super Bowl will whoever Fort Worth's Mayor is at the time go along with trying to change the Trinity River's color from its usual lovely shade of brown to the Cowboys' colors of white or blue or silver? I think those are the Dallas Cowboy colors.

What I do know for sure is that neither the Fort Worth Mayor, or the Governor of Texas, will be renaming any ferry boats with the names of Dallas Cowboy players.

Maybe the Longhorns in the Fort Worth Herd could be temporarily re-named.

Or even better, maybe by the time a football team in the Football Capital of the World actually plays in a championship game the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Pond Granger will finally be floating something, barges, perhaps?

Giant inner tubes?

With the floating devices available to be named after Dallas Cowboy or TCU players, with those floating devices floating people to all the various wonders of the Boondoggle, including cruising up Granger Channel under those notorious three bridges, formerly crossing over nothing, now crossing over actual water, which may or may not be dyed purple....

Seattle Seahawks 12th Man & Texas Earthquakes With No Super Bowl For The Dallas Cowboys

No, that is not an artist's rendering of what Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's "lake" might look like, if it ever gets to the fill the thing with water stage.

The body of water you are looking at is an inlet of Puget Sound known as Elliott Bay, which would make that not the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth you are looking at, but instead, you are looking at just a small part of the actually stunning skyline of the actually beautiful downtown Seattle.

That glowing thing to the lower left of the "12" is known as the Seattle Great Wheel. It is a Ferris wheel type device which spins out over the Seattle waterfront.

This week that number "12" has been showing up all over the Pacific Northwest, including the top of the Space Needle.

This morning I saw a dozen Golden Labrador puppies all wearing sweaters with the number "12" on them.

This number "12" thing has something to do with the Seattle Seahawk fans being the 12th member of the team.

I have not heard if those noisy fans broke another ground shaking sound record during last night's game. I read seismology sensors had been installed around Seahawk Stadium so as to accurately measure any fan induced earthquakes.

Speaking of earthquakes, all the earthquakes that have been shaking the D/FW zone have been getting national attention. I know this due to being asked by people outside of the shake zone if I've been shaking.

The most amusing earthquake related message came from Spencer Jack's dad via email, saying, "I knew Texas had many faults,  but I did not know Texas had faults of the earthquake  causing sort".

Having shaken through many an earthquake whilst living in Washington, these Texas quakes perplex me.

For a couple year period during the 1990s my abode was shaken by multiple earthquakes, known as the Big Lake Quakes, shallow quakes, epicentered about 3 miles to the east, ranging from approximately 2.0 to 3.5.

Those quakes, though low in Richter scale number were very rambunctious. I remember when one of them struck I was sitting in my living room. It hits loud, like a freight train, the windows flex, the fir trees sway violently. I  remember with that one I heard a loud crack in my kitchen. After the shaking stopped I went to the kitchen to find that the quake had cracked the tile floor.

I was laying on my waterbed when another of those quakes struck. It was like suddenly being in a boat in extremely rough water.

Earthquakes are extremely noisy, like a vibrating roar.

With so much population so close to these Texas quakes it has puzzled me why I've not heard people describing the quakes as loud, as violent, as scary. I've read of no one saying their windows flexed during a quake, looking like they might pop out.

Being near the epicenter of a 3.0 quake should be an unnerving experience, to a level I've not heard anyone, who has been shaken here, express.

Today Dallas plays in a football game, way up north, by a Green Bay, not an Elliott Bay.

Now, this is  amusing, just as I typed the above I realized I was not certain who it was Dallas was playing today. So I checked to find that the game was already over, with Dallas losing, due to the Green Bay Packers scoring 21 points, while Dallas ended up with only 16.

Does this mean Green Bay heads to Elliott Bay to play the Seahawks to see who goes to the Super Bowl? I have no idea.  I imagine I could find out if I wanted to expend a little effort....

A Giant Seattle Seahawk Bears Down On The Space Needle Hoping To Beat The Dallas Cowboys In The Super Bowl

I don't pay much attention to football, neither the American version or that odd version the rest of the world plays.

But, if you are in Seattle at the current time it is hard to avoid the fact that the Seattle Seahawks are on track to be in yet one more Super Bowl.

If I remember correctly the Seahawks won the Super Bowl last year.

Seattle Seahawk fans are quite demonstrative, but I really do think the giant holographic Seahawk logo you see here, dwarfing the Space Needle, is a bit much.

And why is this at the north end of downtown Seattle, rather than the south end where the Seahawk Stadium is located?

Has anyone been near Arlington's Dallas Cowboy Stadium, after dark, since the Cowboys also got on track to maybe be in their first Super Bowl of this century? Is there a giant holographic Cowboy logo dwarfing Cowboys Stadium? I suspect there must be, what with Tarrant County being the Football Capital of the Free World.

I just realized, I do not know what the Dallas Cowboys logo is. Is it a Cowboy hat? One would think that I would know this, living as I do about four miles west of where the Cowboys play football.

Is the Cowboy logo that silver star one sees on the 100s of special Dallas Cowboys themed outhouses sitting on the Dallas Cowboys' parking lots?

Are there any other NFL teams whose stadiums are surrounded by team themed outhouses?

Today I Learned I Live In The Football Capital Of The World: Tarrant County

This morning via my local purveyor of ridiculous propaganda, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, I learned that Tarrant County is the Football capital of the world.

For you reading this who know little about Texas, Tarrant County is where the Texas towns of Fort Worth and Arlington are located.

The Dallas Cowboys play football in a monster stadium in Arlington, while Fort Worth has a college called Texas Christian University where football is played.

Apparently both Tarrant County football teams are doing well this year, hence the Star-Telegram propaganda that has Tarrant County being the Football capital of the world.

This seems to me to be an interesting variant of the Star-Telegram's patented Green With Envy verbiage. You know, where some perfectly ordinary thing in Fort Worth or Tarrant County is making the rest of the world green with envy.

Regarding Tarrant County being the Football capital of the world, I doubt most of the world has any awareness of Tarrant County. I doubt most of America has any awareness of Tarrant County. Maybe most of Texas has some awareness of Tarrant County.

As for having two football teams having a good season making Tarrant County the Football capital of the world, or America, or Texas, well, that is obviously a ridiculous thing to be suggesting.

The Star-Telegram article says nothing in the NFL or college football compares to the shock value of the Dallas Cowboys or TCU Horned Frogs.

Really? I live within short driving distance of both and have experienced absolutely no sense of being shocked.

I can think of another county, King County, that county being the location of the current Super Bowl champion. And the University of Washington Huskies. Apparently part of the Tarrant Football capital claim has to do with TCU playing in a bowl game this year. I think TCU has previously played in one other bowl game, that being the Rose one. And lost. Meanwhile, the Huskies in King County have played in multiple bowl games, including that Rose one. And won it. More than once.

UPDATE: The Fort Worth CD has informed me that TCU has won a Rose Bowl. Somehow this momentous event escaped being recorded by my memory. Was there no city wide celebration?

But, I highly doubt anyone in King  County, let alone any of the King County legitimate newspapers of record, of which there are several, would ever make the silly claim that King County was the Football capital of the world. Or ever claim anything in King County was causing other locations to be Green With Envy, because such bragging is just, well, embarrassing.

Particularly when the bragging is grounded in delusional hyperbole.

Anyway, the article in Sunday's Fort Worth Star-Telegram, about Tarrant County being the Football capital of the world, part of which I have copied below for your giggling bemusement, was written by Randy Galloway, titled, you might guess...

Tarrant County: Football capital of the world

Our local football blessings have runneth over this season, and without being provincial about it, I come to you today with a no-doubt, no-argument, official proclamation involving the truth and nothing but:

Tarrant County is the shock-value-of-a-positive-kind gridiron capital of the free world, plus those Commie nations, and the sand lizard empires, too.

Tarrant County is home to the Dallas Cowboys.

Tarrant County is home to TCU.

Don’t waste your time thinking about it, Florida. Nor you, California. Ohio, you make me laugh.

From coast to coast, all states are holding a big bag of nothing compared with our two Tarrant County trump cards.

Think about it.

Nothing compares to the shock value of the Cowboys in the NFL.

Nothing compares to the shock value of TCU in college football.

Argument closed. We Win. We Win.

And now we also see.

See what happens next for the Cowboys and for TCU. Actually, the next part is the best part.

Coming right up for the Cowboys is identifying the first-round playoff opponent, which happens Sunday. The odds figure it on being Detroit visiting Arlington in a week, but hold all wagers until it’s official.

After careful study back in early September, which included consultation with witch doctors and barstool experts, I had the Cowboys winning six games this season. I thought I was being overly optimistic.

With the regular season closing Sunday in Washington, the Cowboys could double my win total prediction. Over the last 50-something years, I’ve definitely been wrong many times about this franchise, but mainly wrong the other way.

I’ve never been this wrong this way. The shock-value-of-a-positive-kind of way.

Coinciding with the Cowboys’ sky-rise came TCU in the college world. A 5-4 conference record would have been a great season for the Frogs. But 8-1, Big 12 co-champs and a sudden national power?

Nobody, including Gary Patterson, was reading that kind of radar screen in early September.

And the “next” thing for the Frogs?

OK, maybe you heard, the College Football Playoff committee did a last-second dump job on TCU and suddenly the Frogs were out of the final four.

So what’s the next best thing that could have happened for TCU?

A bowl game against a certain kind of opponent, that’s what. That opponent had to be from, yes, the SEC West, a division, not a conference, that is the best in all of college football.

With personal great glee, all of the above will fall into place at Atlanta, at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, better known as New Year’s Eve morning.

The Frogs vs. Ole Miss.

Dodinsky Led Me Away From Arguing About The Seattle Mariners Winning The World Series

I do not know anything about Dodinsky. I suspect I could enlighten myself via Googling the name. I suspect he is a philosopher. Likely Polish.

Dodinsky's advice seems quite wise to me.

I have long subscribed to the Dodinsky credo without realizing it.

Just this morning I found myself in the oddest conversation in which the party with whom I was conversating was insisting that the Seattle Mariners have not only been in a World Series, but that the Seattle Mariners won a World Series.

And that this World Series win by the Seattle Mariners took place this century.

Now I am almost as much a baseball fan as I am a fan of soccer, but even I know, even though I pay no attention to the World Series, that not only have the Seattle Mariners never won the World Series, they have never played in a World Series. I believe the Seattle Mariners are one of only a couple MLB teams which have never played in a World Series.

How did I know the Seattle Mariners have never played in a World Series? Well. I remember the fuss made throughout the Pacific Northwest back in the 1990s, I think it may have been 1995, when the Seattle Mariners made it to the playoffs for the first time, doing well.

If the Seattle Mariners made it to the World Series, let alone win the thing, the fuss made would have been noticeable to me, even at my current location, thousands of miles from the Pacific Northwest.

An indicator of how little attention I pay to professional, or any, sports, is I learned only yesterday that this past weekend the Dallas Cowboys beat the current Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks. I do not know if this Seahawk whooping took place in Seattle, or in my neighborhood gigantic football stadium.

I must go Google Dodinsky now....

New York City's Empire State Building's Seattle Seahawk Colors

This morning on Facebook, via Martin B's first wife, I saw the picture you see here.

I was not at all surprised to see the Seattle Space Needle lit up with the Seattle Seahawk colors.

But, I was a bit surprised to see that New York City's Empire State Building is lit up with the Seattle Seahawk colors.

How does one go about getting your colors on the Empire State Building, I can not help but wonder?

Did Paul Allen buy the building?

I also could not help but wonder if the Dallas Cowboys ever got themselves into the Super Bowl. And if that Super Bowl were played in the New York City zone, would Reunion Tower, in Dallas, be lit up in the Dallas Cowboy colors? Would the Empire State Building be lit up in the Dallas Cowboy colors?

I believe the Dallas Cowboy colors are silver/gray & blue. Not quite as vibrant a color scheme as the Seahawk's shade of blue and extremely bright green.

I think maybe the Dallas Cowboys might want to consider trying to be a bit more colorful....

The Yakima Fans From The Palm Springs Of Washington Are Among The Seattle Seahawk's 12th Men

In this morning's email inbox there was an email from Spencer Jack's papa, he being my favorite nephew, Jason, with the email message being "I found this photo amusing. I thought you might as well."

The photo to which Spencer Jack's papa refers is that which you see to the left.

I find two things to be amusing in the photo. One being the claim made on the billboard, with the other being all the people engaging in a support the Seattle Seahawks demonstration.

That "Welcome to Yakima The Palm Springs of Washington" billboard went up well before I moved to Texas.

As far as I know the only thing Yakima has in common with Palm Springs is both are in a desert climate where temperatures can get quite hot.

Unless it has been added since I moved to Texas there is no Yakima Tram taking people to the top of any of the hills you see in the photo.

I remember way back when I first made note of how goofy I thought the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle was, after first learning of the TRV Boondoggle in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in a front page article with a HUGE headline that said something like "Trinity Uptown To Turn Fort Worth Into The Vancouver of the South."

This was around the same time the Star-Telegram was propaganda-izing that an extremely lame food court-like development called the Santa Fe Rail Market was modeled after Seattle's Pike Place Market, public markets in Europe and would be the first public market in Texas.

Was the Santa Fe Rail Market propaganda the instance when I learned one can not trust what one reads in the Star-Telegram? I don't remember.

The Star-Telegram's turning Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South propaganda was quickly dropped,  I assume because someone who had actually been to Vancouver pointed out how ridiculous such a claim was, as in even more ridiculous than suggesting that Yakima is the Palm Springs of Washington.

Changing the subject to the other thing amusing in the photo.

That being the phenomenon of the Pacific Northwest going totally gaga over the Seattle Seahawks current run to the 2014 Super Bowl, which they are one win away from, with going to the Super Bowl requiring beating the San Francisco 49ers today in Seattle.

I completely understand fans getting all caught up with their team having a successful year. I remember when the Pacific Northwest went nuts during the 1990s, I think it was 1995, when the Mariners were doing real well in the playoffs. I recollect going to one of those games in the Kingdome. I recollect that when a game was being broadcast you would hear it everywhere. Drive to Safeway, with the game on the car radio, get to Safeway, walk inside to find the game blaring loud.

The Seattle Seahawks have this 12th Man fixation, which near as I can tell means the fans are the 12th Man on the team. This 12th Man thing has been going on for years. The 12th Man thing existed when I still lived in the Pacific Northwest. If I remember right the NFL had to make some new penalty rule to deal with the problem of the fans making too much noise in the Kingdome rendering the opposing team unable to hear the play being called.

The fans in CenturyLink Field during a Seattle Seahawk game rarely sit down, and rarely quit yelling and stomping.  This has lead to a couple Guinness World Records for stadium noise. And has triggered a couple earthquakes.

I would think the earthquakes might be an indicator that maybe the Seattle Seahawk's fans need to dial the enthusiasm back a notch  or two.

Perhaps opting for some medium zone between the current hysterical 12th Man Seahawk fan frenzy and the funereal mausoleum-like effect that seems to be the mood much of the time during a Dallas Cowboy game in their new stadium, where the fans do not appear to be much engaged in the game, directly, and instead seem to spend the game looking upward at one of the world's biggest TV screens.

And on another Dallas Cowboy/Seattle Seahawk football coverage note. I watched the last Dallas Cowboy loss of the season. I lost track of how many times we were shown Jerry Jones in his luxury booth. Not once during either of the two Seattle Seahawk games I've watched this year have we been shown owner Paul Allen in his luxury booth.

If you watch today's Seattle vs. San Francisco game note how frequently the crowd is shown, often in closeup. Why does this rarely occur during a Cowboy game in their new stadium? Bad stadium design? Lifeless fans? Or did I just catch the Cowboy fans on a bad day?

I will be watching the aforementioned Seahawk game closely today, looking for my favorite nephew Christopher, aka CJ, who flew up from Phoenix yesterday to be one of the 12th Men today.....

The Return Of Blue Sky To Texas Has Me In A Good Mood Looking Forward To Some Seahawk Football

As you can see, via the 2nd Saturday of 2014 view of my still cool pool, blue sky has returned to North Texas, with the full retreat of both the ultra cool Polar Vortex and its followup, the not so cool Pacific Northwest storm system which brought the densest fog I've seen since I have been in Texas, followed by some mighty fine ocean type drizzle. And a little rain.

This morning I returned to my hot tub for a much needed hydrotherapy session along with two cooling dips in the cool pool.

Judging by the good mood I am currently in I am thinking I had been suffering from a bad SAD bout, with the Seasonally Affected Disorder disordering me due to way too much gray and way too little blue.

This morning's hydrotherapy under a bright blue sky seems to have totally un-SADenned me.

Today is my regularly scheduled day for Town Talk treasure hunting. I don't know which of my many hiking locations I might avail myself of prior to hiking. I suspect it will be a walk around Fosdick Lake.

A few minutes ago Betty Jo Bouvier reminded me that there is a Seattle Seahawk road to the Super Bowl game today. Currently I do not know when  the game is scheduled to commence. I suspect I can easily find out.

I do know that today's game is being played in Seattle. I have watched two football games this year. One Seahawk game and the last Dallas Cowboy game of the season.

I noticed several differences between the two games and their venues. One is the Seattle fans are so noisy, at that game I was watching, they once again broke the Guinness World Record for stadium noise, along with triggering an earthquake. Meanwhile at times the fans watching the Cowboy game sort of had the affect of attending a funeral.

I think bad stadium design may have something to do with the Cowboy stadium seeming muted, while the open air Seahawk stadium does not seem muted. It would seem the closed sardine can design of the Cowboy stadium, and the much larger crowd, would cause the stadium noise to be a lot louder than the Seattle noise.

Another thing I noticed whilst watching the two games is the Seattle setting is right downtown, with the north end of the stadium open to the Seattle skyline, while coverage of a Cowboys game has to cut 20 miles east to Dallas to get any sort of skyline view, what with the view surrounding the Cowboy stadium being a lot of parking lots, another ballpark, a Super Walmart, pawn shops, fast food joints and a run down motel, or two.

Dallas and the Dallas Cowboys would have been so much better off had they built the new stadium in Dallas, at Fair Park, it seems to me.

That and rather than let Jerry Jones and his family travel the world looking for stadium ideas, instead design a state of the art stadium more suited for North Texas, rather than a futuristic outpost on Mars.....

The Dallas Cowboys Did Not Break A Noise Record While Losing Again While The Seattle Seahawks Broke A Noise Record While Winning Again

No, above you are not looking at an artist's rendering of what the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle may look like if it ever becomes anything anyone might be able to see.

In the picture you are looking east on a much bigger pond than that little Pond Granger that the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle envisions and hyperbolically calls a lake and a waterfront attraction. Above you are looking at an actual waterfront in an actual city with actual vision.

That thing being struck by lightning is where the Seattle Seahawks play football. The lightning strike occurred yesterday, part of what delayed the start of last night's game between Seattle and San Francisco for an hour.

I don't know if thunder contributed to the noise, but yesterday the Seattle football fanatics broke the Guinness Record for Loudest Crowd Roar at a Sports Stadium when the noise reached 131.9 decibels when San Francisco's quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, was sacked in the first quarter.

All those decibels broke the old record of 131.76 decibels, set in 2011 in Turkey at the Ali Sami Yen Sport Complex Turk Telekom Arena during a soccer match between Galatasaray SC and Fenerbahce.

The noisy Seattle fans then broke their own record after a 3rd quarter interception, roaring to 136.6 decibels.

The Seahawk stadium has no roof over the field. How are these people being so LOUD? The old Kingdome was known for being noisy, to the point that the noise disrupted games. I think new rules were put in place due to the noisy Kingdome fans, if I remember right. I can see why the Kingdome was noisy.

But, the new open air Seahawk Stadium?

How come the Dallas Cowboy fans are not record breaking loud in their new stadium? It would seem like that metal sardine can would be a real noise generator. Does the quiet have something to do with not winning very many football games?

Dallas Cowbabies

I was told the above has something to do with Dallas Cowboy football.

But.

Since I am neither a Cowboy or a Cowboy fan, it does not compute for me.

The Final Sunday Of January 2012 Amused By America's Delusional Team The Dallas Cowboys

Looking through the bars of my patio prison cell from my secondary viewing portal on the outer world you can see the sun begin to rise above the aquamarine pool on this final Sunday of the first month of 2012.

Day 29 of January is dawning cold. As in a single degree above freezing. The temperature predictors are predicting that eventually the outer world at my location will heat up to 62 degrees.

I think I will go for a walk with the Indian Ghosts that haunt the Village Creek Natural Historical Area today. If the park closed due to flooding blockage has been lifted.

I still have not seen any mention made in Fort Worth's failing supposed newspaper of record, the propaganda purveyor called the Star-Telegram, of the fact that the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's flood control project has had its first completed project, Cowtown Wakepark, seriously damaged by the first flood to hit the Trinity River since it's completion.

Maybe I missed the article about this inconsequential piece of ironic news in the Star-Telegram.

However, this morning the Star-Telegram did report on the serious issue of whether or not the Dallas Cowboys are still America's Team.

As I understand this serious issue, long ago the Dallas Cowboys had a successful football team for a few years. During this long ago period of success, some sort of NFL documentary was produced in which someone made the remark that the Dallas Cowboys are America's Team.

I have now lived long enough in this attention starved part of the planet to understand how many of the locals grasp onto anything here being given such an accolade and hold onto to it no matter how ridiculous it becomes, or no matter how much evidence accumulates that indicates America does not think the Dallas Cowboys are America's Team.

In the Star-Telegram article this morning is the following....

"They'll insist that the Dallas Cowboys, who have borne the nickname for more than 30 years, are no longer America's Team. But, of course, such arguments, which seem to come around every other football season or so and to be pullulating this year because of a recent poll, are 24-karat flapdoodle, sterling nonsense, pure piffle. The Cowboys are America's Team forever."

I have absolutely no idea what the word "pullulating" means. But, see what I mean about the local's attitude, as projected via the Star-Telegram, regarding this serious America's Team issue?

You reading this in other parts of America, than this ill-served, news-wise, zone, are you giggling? I bet you did not know that the Dallas Cowboys are America's Team forever, due to some such reference in some long ago documentary.

It Is Now Official That The Dallas Cowboys Are Not America's Team Because The Green Bay Packers Are

ESPN's Skip Bayless, Lomas Brown & Rob Parker debate
The Poll That Determined The Packers Are
"America's Team" Not The Dallas Cowboys

A few minutes ago I got an email from one of my regular emailers with the subject line, "Did you cause this?"

A link in the email went to an article in the Fort Worth Business Press titled Poll: Cowboys no longer ‘America’s Team’

I don't see how I could cause the Dallas Cowboys to no longer be America's Team.

However, I long ago did opine that the idea that the Dallas Cowboys were America's Team was a local delusion.

Several years ago, back when the Dallas Cowboys and the City of Arlington were abusing eminent domain to take homes, apartments and businesses to build Jerry Jones a new football stadium, I did add a page to my Eyes on Texas website on the subject of this delusion titled AMERICA'S TEAM: THE DALLAS COWBOYS?

Apparently something called Public Policy Polling took a survey and discovered that the Green Bay Packers are the most popular team in the National Football League, which, apparently, makes the Green Bay Packers America's Team.

The same survey revealed that not only are the Dallas Cowboys not America's most popular team, they are America's least favorite team, with 22 % of those surveyed picking Dallas as the worst.

The Packers were seen positively by 57 % of those surveyed, with only 13% having a negative opinion.

While the Dallas Cowboys were seen negatively by 41 %, with 29 % having a positive opinion.

In the ESPN online coverage of this serious issue you can watch a video where some talking heads discuss why it is that Dallas is not America's Team, along with one of the talking heads verbalizing how upset he is over this shocking fall from grace by the Dallas Cowboys.

What I am wondering is why is it no national polling entity had not put an end to the silly Dallas Cowboys being America's Team conceit a long time ago?

The Dallas Cowboys Really Are America's Favorite Football Team While The Seattle Seahawks Are Among America's Least Favorite

I admit I am not much of a football fan. Actually I am not even remotely a football fan. I have never understood what people find entertaining about sitting and passively watching endless permutations of the same behavior.

So, when I moved to Texas and started to hear the Dallas Cowboys over and over again referred to as "America's Team" I figured it was just more Texas hyperbole.

At one point in time, years ago, I  added a page about this subject to my Eyes on Texas website, titled "Dallas Cowboys: America's Team?"

This morning I was looking for an "America's Team" image and was surprised to see the webpage I made years ago Googled in the 2nd spot, right after Wikipedia's article about "America's Team."

I was looking for an "America's Team" image because I'd just read an article in the Seattle P-I which made me want to blog about this subject.

According to the Harris polling people and an interactive poll they conduct, yearly, the Dallas Cowboys are America's favorite football team. A position the Dallas Cowboys have held for 5 years in a row.

The top five favorite football teams are....

1. Dallas
2. Pittsburgh
3. Green Bay
4. New England
5. Chicago

The professional football team in the town in which the Seattle P-I is published, the Seattle Seahawks, ranks really low in terms of America's favoritude, at a lowly 27th place.

America's least favorite professional football team is the Jacksonville Jaguars.

I've never heard of this lowly Jaguar team. All I know about Jacksonville is I think the town is in Florida.

The Seattle P-I made what seemed to me a slightly lame explanation as to why the Seattle Seahawks are at such a lowly 27th place ranking in such a serious matter. Apparently fewer people on the West Coast follow football than people who live in the East, the Midwest and the South.

In 2006 the Seattle Seahawks reached their most favored position ever in the Harris poll, coming in as the 12th most favorite the year they lost the Super Bowl to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

That particular Super Bowl is probably the only football game I have watched, start to finish, in this century. It was painful viewing.

Monday Morning With No Snow On The Ground In My Zone Of North Texas

Looking out my bedroom window this Monday morning we can see there is no snow on the ground. At 30 degrees it is cold enough for snow to stick if some fell after it was cold enough to avoid melting.

I was not much in the mood to deal with multiple inches of snow, so I'm glad the predicted accumulation did not accumulate.

I keep forgetting to get anti-freeze. I am going to have to make sure I remember this as we slide ever deeper into an Arctic Deep Freeze this week.

I learned this morning that the Seattle Seahawk's next step towards playing in the Super Bowl next month in the Dallas Cowboy Stadium is beating the Chicago Bears. Apparently Seattle already beat the Bears this current football season, doing so on Chicago's home field, where the Seahawks will need to beat them again to get to the Super Bowl.

Meanwhile the Dallas Cowboys have a new coach. Methinks if the Dallas Cowboys ever want a winning season again what they need to do is somehow get rid of that re-animated cadaver who runs the team who has the same last name as me. Until that happens it really seems hopeless that that hapless football team will ever have a winning season.

But.

What do I know? I really don't like football at all.

A Rainy Sunday In Texas Musing About America's Team: The Seattle Seahawks

Saturday night when the sun set on North Texas the sky was blue. By Sunday morning's arrival of the sun the sky had filled with clouds and was dripping with extreme prejudice.

In other words, it is raining. Cold and raining. 36 degrees out there right now, with the temperature dropping and snow scheduled to arrive as Sunday progresses towards Monday.

I had planned to return to the Tandy Hills today to search for missing sunglasses. Not mine. Sunglasses belonging to one of those Manly Men who was hiking the Tandy Hills yesterday. I suspect, due to the rain, the lost sunglasses will remain safe until hiking conditions return to normal.

Yesterday, in yet one more clear indicator that I do not pay much attention to NFL football I said something like I did not know if the Seattle Seahawks are out of Super Bowl contention or not.

By Saturday night I was watching the Seahawks play the New Orleans Saints in what I was to learn was a Wild Card game in which the Seahawks had themselves an upset win over the reigning Super  Bowl champs.

Back when the Kingdome was still alive it was known as the loudest stadium in both the NFL and whatever you call the league baseball is played in. I did not know, til reading the Fort Worth Star-Telegram article about yesterday's Seahawk upset, that the new Qwest Field is also known as the NFL's loudest stadium.

How can Qwest Field be louder than the new Cowboy Stadium? Qwest Field is open on the north end with a view of downtown Seattle. Qwest Field has no roof to reflect back noise, Qwest Field holds only something like 70,000 screamers while the Dallas Cowboy Stadium can hold around 100,000.

Has it yet to rain on a Seahawk game in Qwest Field? I read a couple years ago the lack of rainy games was wreaking havoc with Lesser Seattle's ongoing campaign to always portray Seattle as perpetually dripping.

Apparently Qwest Field is ruled out for a Super Bowl game. Partly because of the weather. The Super Bowl likes a warmer climate. So, why is it being played this year in Arlington? We are currently scheduled for snow followed by a DEEP FREEZE. Come Super Bowl Sunday we could easily be under a 4 inch coating of ice courtesy of an Ice Storm.

Seattle does not get Ice Storms. At least not in my experience. Holding a Super Bowl in Seattle you are right in the downtown of one of the world's trendiest towns, with Qwest Field served by multiple mass transit options. Arlington, where the Dallas Cowboy Stadium sits, has no mass transit.

Qwest Field sits surrounded by all sorts of touristy attractions, including a waterfront. The Dallas Cowboy Stadium is near Six Flags Over Texas and the Ballpark in Arlington, but other than that it sits surrounded by an awful lot of embarrassing urban blight. There is no urban blight surrounding Qwest Field.

I have no idea how many steps remain for the Seattle Seahawks to hurdle to get to the Super Bowl again. I strongly suspect the Seahawks will likely fail to get over one of those hurdles.

I really think, since the Dallas Cowboys don't even play in Dallas, as in the town could not manage to figure out how to erect a new football stadium in the town the team is named after, that this really should be the last nail in the coffin killing Dallas' ridiculous referring to itself as America's Team, which apparently dates from decades ago when Dallas actually had a winning football team.

I think Seattle should be the new America's Team. Seattle has been in a Super Bowl more recently than Dallas. Seattle apparently plays in America's loudest stadium. The team's stadium is actually in its namesake town. Qwest Field is in, by far, a more scenic setting than the Dallas Cowboy Stadium. Plus Seattle always shows up near the top of any of those Best of type lists, while Arlington rarely shows up on such lists.

Okay, that is enough locally politically incorrect verbiage from me this rainy Sunday morning....

Getting My $29 Party Pass So I Can Stand In The Cold Outside The Dallas Cowboy Stadium

I've been seeing the above ad at the top of the Dallas Morning News website every morning for awhile now.

For those of you not in Dallas Cowboy land a Party Pass lets you watch a Dallas Cowboy game. While standing outside the new Dallas Cowboy Stadium, watching the game on Big Screen TVs.

I do not know if the Party Passers have access to the restroom facilities inside the stadium, or if they are relegated to using one of the dozens upon dozens of Dallas Cowboy Trademarked Outhouses dotting the parking lots.

Do very many people actually pay 29 bucks to stand outside during a game? Will the Super Bowl have the Party Pass option?

Do other National Football League teams do this Party Pass deal? Or is it an only in Texas type thing?

The Thrill Of The Chill Of The 1st Day Of November In Texas

Last year on the 1st of November I remember making a video and declaring on it "It is the 1st of November and I'm still swimming."

Last November it seemed unusual to be swimming in cold water.

This November the thrill of the chill does not seem all that unusual.

It did not even seem all that chilly this morning. It helps that the temperature was in the upper 50s.

That, and, as you can see, since last November I have added a nice layer of insulating adipose tissue.

Is a super obese person able to go swimming in ultra cold water, having what amounts to a natural skin diving suit?

Speaking of chilly. It was a super chilly haunted Halloween for North Texas professional sports teams on Sunday. The Dallas Cowboys lost, as usual. I don't know to whom or by how much. Why did the Dallas Cowboys used to be known as America's Team? At least locally. Really makes no sense to me. America is fond of winners.

A few feet east and north of the location of the Dallas Cowboys' latest loss, the Texas Rangers suffered loss #3 in the World Series, scoring nary a point to get beat by the San Francisco Giants 4 to 0. The Rangers now need to win 3 games in a row to win the World Series, beginning tonight at the Ballpark in Arlington.

If the Rangers now win 3 in a row and the World Series I think the locals should start calling the Rangers "America's Team."

Dallas Cowboy Owner Jerry Jones Drunk & Dissing On Video

My favorite Dallas Cowboy and World Class Eminent Domain Abuser, Jerry Jones is, apparently, a big fan of being intoxicated in public.

However, somehow Jerry Jones missed the memo warning about the modern era's ubiquitous cell phones with video capability.

Evidently, Jerry Jones is a big fan of getting tipsy and then socializing, as evidenced by video evidence, acquired via cell phone, of some choice Jerry Jones verbiage dissing Tim Tebow and Bill Parcells.

I have no idea who Tim Tebow or Bill Parcells are. I think I've mentioned before that I am neither a Cowboy or a Cowboy fan.

Jerry Jones uses a well know profane word that begins with an "F" to refer to the new Dallas Cowboy stadium. I thought that was interesting.

I did not find an embed option for the Jerry Jones cell phone video, but you can listen to it here.

And below is a transcript...

Jerry Jones: Romo was a miracle.

Other guy: It was a miracle, wasn't it?

Jerry Jones: He almost never got in, and he almost was gone. Tebow would never…

Different other guy: What if you were the Jaguars or — would you just, just draft him and sell f**king jerseys?

Jerry Jones: That's the only reason I brought in Bill Parcells.

[Laughter]

Jerry Jones: [Inaudible. Sounds a little like, "Sell mammoth f**kin' rake," whatever that means.]

Jerry Jones: Bill's not worth a s**t. I love him.

Different other guy: I know you do.

Jerry Jones: Not worth a s**t, but I wanted — they were on my ass so bad. J's gotta have a yes man. So to get this f**kin' stadium, I need to bring his ass in.

Different other guy: What, you, you wouldn't take Tebow in the third round?

Jerry Jones: Why? He'd never get on the field. I can't get him out there.

[Laughter]

Jerry Jones: I can't get him out there.