A Snowy Walk In The Village Creek Natural Historical Area Thinking About Crabs & Oysters

It was still freezing when I walked to the Village Creek Blue Bayou Overlook in the Village Creek Natural Historical Area today, to look at the Blue Bayou and the snow that remained on the ground.

The temperature is now 10 degrees above freezing, at my location, with most of the snow that had been remaining on the ground, now melted..

The Viral Annoyance that has been annoying me the past several days this morning had greatly lessened, pretty much going, overnight, from High Annoyance to Low Annoyance.

I heard from the mama of my youngest nephews and niece this morning, informing that they have all been having ailment woes. Reading about those woes made my woes seem to pale by comparison. For instance, I have feared it happening, but I have never projectile vomited on an airplane, that I can recollect.

I figure in a few days I should be back to full strength. Just in time for New Year's Eve.

I watched last night's episode of Top Chef Seattle whilst having Chinese food for lunch. Top Chef filming in the part of the world with which I am most familiar is being interesting. This episode started off with the Quickfire Challenge directing the chefs to drive to an address on Chuckanut Drive in Bow, Washington.

Those watching, not familiar with Washington, would think this must be a short drive from Seattle. The editing made it look like a short drive, but, the reality is, it is about 70 miles or more north of Seattle, heading north on I-5, til you get to my old hometown of Burlington, in the Skagit Valley, then exiting on to Chuckanut Drive, continuing north to Bow, where the chefs gathered oysters in Samish Bay. Then all the way back to Seattle to make a food item out of the oysters. Seems like this would have been an exhausting day.

And why did the chefs not stop at Sakuma Bros. Farms & Market Stand which they would have passed shortly after exiting I-5?

The chefs did seem to be appropriately enchanted by the scenery they were seeing. I have not been in that particular location since early August of 2008, when David, Theo and Ruby's mom drove me to Bow, and Edison, on the way to meet Spencer Jack at Bayview State Park.

Top Chef Seattle is making me homesick. For crabs, oysters, salmon and fresh berries of a wide variety. Along with mountains, fresh air and a lot of saltwater.

Doonesbury Has My Aunt Asking If I Will Return To God's Country If Texas Secedes From The Union Again

In my mailbox, this morning, I found another Christmas card from my favorite Auntie A, who lives in Eastern Washington, near Othello, overlooking the Columbia River.

A blogging a couple days ago, titled My Aunt Told Me She Will Believe Corporations Are People When Texas Executes One I blogged about that day's Christmas card from my favorite Auntie A and how my Auntie mails me stuff she reads relating to Texas, often focusing on the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, a governor who  regularly causes jaws to drop in other parts of the country.

Today's Christmas card from Auntie A included a strip from a Doonesbury comic. It has been years since I've regularly enjoyed Doonesbury. Is Gary Trudeau banned in Texas? I have no idea.

I think the characters in this particular Doonesbury comic strip are known as Duke and the son of Duke.

In the comic strip Dukes asks his son, "SO HOW DO WE MAKE THE CASE FOR TEXAS SECEDING?" To which Duke's son replies, "POP, CHECK OUT THE PETITION TEXT. IT'S FILLED WITH ERRORS IN SYNTAX, USAGE AND PUNCTUATION. YET OVER 120,000 TEXANS SIGNED IT.

To which Duke says, "WOW, THAT'S AMAZING." And then starts a sentence with, "SO LOSING TEXAS..." to have his son finish Duke's sentence with, "DRAMATICALLY IMPROVES THE GENE POOL! THAT'S OUR ANGLE!"

Well, the above, from Doonesbury just seems really rude to me. Losing Texas improves the American gene pool? Am I understanding correctly?

Regarding this Doonesbury comic strip my Aunt had this to say....

Thought you might enjoy this comic strip. If Texas does secede, will Perry be president?! 'Tis one of his ambitions. Will you need a passport to visit us? Will Texas oil need to be taxed by states?! Will you move back to God's country if Texas secedes?!

Well,  I have to say, watching Top Chef Seattle has had me wanting to move back to God's country, regardless of the secession status of Texas.

This week's Top Chef Elimination Challenge, featuring Pacific Northwest berries, had me homesick. Every episode of Top Chef Seattle seems to feel the need to have Dungeness Crab, which also contributes to the homesick feeling. And then there is that God's country scenery. Has Top Chef ever filmed in such a scenic location before?

Why Is Top Chef Fort Worth Not Premiering November 7 On Bravo TV?

Top Chef Fort Worth. Season 10 of Bravo TV's Top Chef premieres November 7. Season 9 of Top Chef was Top Chef Texas.

If you parse the above paragraph you will see I am not actually indicating that Season 10 of Top Chef is going to be Top Chef Fort Worth.

Because it isn't.

Season 10 of Top Chef is going to be Top Chef Seattle.

That got me to thinking. Why is it that it is highly unlikely there would be a Top Chef Fort Worth?

Why are there no TV shows which use Fort Worth as their setting?

I can think of several TV shows that use or have used Seattle as their setting. Frasier, Grey's Anatomy, Real World. Others that I'm forgetting.

Okay, I just now Googled "TV Shows Seattle" to find there is a Wikipedia article titled List of television shows set in Seattle. It is a long list. It starts with Here Come the Brides. On the list are A Year in the Life, The Night Strangler, John Doe and many more.

I Googled "TV Shows Fort Worth" to find no Wikipedia article listing television shows set in Fort Worth.

Methinks this is a very interesting question to seek an answer to.

What is the question?

Why is Fort Worth not used as the setting for any television show?

Me also thinks it would behoove the Fort Worth powers that be to ponder that question.

Methinks Fort Worth might be a good setting if a TV producer were looking for a city with a rather humdrum downtown, poorly maintained parks, with a closed eyesore of a park at the heart of its downtown (Heritage Park), people walking beside roads without sidewalks, an unseemly amount of litter.

Unlandscaped, littered, weedy freeway exits to the town's only actual tourist attraction, that being the Fort Worth Stockyards.

A ditch-like dirty river on which litter is often seen floating.

Lots of litter everywhere.

A drive back in time, that my visitors from the Northwest always find fascinating, that being a drive east on Lancaster, Rosedale or Berry.

I actually think Fort Worth would be a great setting for a TV show and that Hollywood is actually missing out on a potential gem.

It would need to be a Twin Peaks/ Northern Exposure type show. Maybe a primetime soap opera.

Just look at the elements that clever writer's could have fun with.

Fort Worth has had a corrupt mayor named Moncrief who was so dumb he tried to dye the Trinity River purple as some sort of tribute to TCU being in the Rose Bowl.

Fort Worth's corrupt congresswoman, Kay Granger, had her unqualified son, J.D., installed to run a bizarre public works project, for which the public has not voted, called the Trinity River Vision Boondoogle, a project which abuses eminent domain to take down Trinity River levees that have kept Fort Worth dry for decades, to build a little pond, and a flood diversion channel that will likely look so ridiculous it will become a tourist attraction.

Additional TV show fodder can be found in the town's sad excuse for a newspaper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which acts like a Soviet-style propaganda rag, touting enterprises, like a sporting goods store called Cabela's, claiming it would become the #1 tourist attraction in Texas, bringing in millions upon millions of visitors. And then not a peep from the Star-Telegram when Cabela's does not quite perform as propagandized, not only that, it is now not only not the only Cabela's in Texas, it is not even the only Cabela's in the D/FW Metroplex.

During the summer hundreds of Fort Worth natives get into the polluted river in Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats.

There really is a lot of material here for a TV show.

Fort Worth is really proud of having the world's only twice daily cattle drive. Cowboys drive a small herd of longhorns up and down the main drag of the Stockyards, once in the morning, once in the afternoon. You don't see something like this anywhere else in America.

A TV show based in Fort Worth could do flashbacks, back to the days of Hell's Half Acre, with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. You could flashback to the Spring Palace and it tragic end with the heroics of Al Haynes. You could flashback to Quanah Parker coming to town. Or earlier to when Quanah's mom and sister arrived in Fort Worth after being re-kidnapped.

Fort Worth has so much culture an entire area is devoted to Fort Worth's culture, called The Cultural District. Does any other town in the world have a Cultural District?

So much material.

Fort Worth is the biggest town in America that has no major league sports team. But, the town does have a minor league baseball team, the Cats, who play against little town's teams. This seems sort of unfair and unsportsmanlike to me.

Fort Worth is the world's guinea pig for urban shale drilling and its fracking, which leads to contaminated water and earthquakes, along with natural gas. Fort Worth has 1000s of natural gas holes in the ground, with the town being blessed with an ever growing network of underground piping carrying non-odorized natural gas.

Like I said, so much material. Hollywood really is missing out on a Mother Lode of material in this town.

I'm done now, for now....