Boycotting the Beijing Olympics

No, I'm not talking about America or any other nation boycotting the upcoming China Olympics due to China's bad treatment of Tibet.

I'm talking about my personal boycott.

As in not watching because the coverage drives me nuts. No, it's not that there is more time spent on commercials than on covering events.

It's the non-stop yammering of the commentators.

I only made it through a couple hours of the Athens Olympics opening ceremonies. I like watching all the pomp and ceremony and trying to hear the music. But Bob Costas would not shut up. It was so distracting. If someone had been in my house watching TV with me and they yapped on and on like Bob Costas I would issue an ultimatum, either shut up or get out of my house.

Unfortunately the only way to shut up Bob Costas is to change the channel or turn off the TV. I don't understand why American TV powers-that-be think we need to hear so much yammering. I used to live near the Canadian border and could watch Canadian TV. The Canadians are very well mannered and shut themselves up during something like an Opening Ceremony.

I don't watch the Winter Olympics anymore for the same reason. Pretty much the only part I find interesting is the ice skating. And a lot of that interest is borne of the same type base thinking that has rednecks going to car races hoping to see a spectacular wreck. But I did not watch a single second of the last Winter Olympics. I knew that that constant yammering while the ice skating was going on would make it unbearable. I don't know if Dick Buttons is still the chief commentator or not. He is really unbearable. So earnest. Over ice skating.

I did watch some of the Closing Ceremony of the Athens Olympics. I saw the part where the Chinese put on a show as a sort of preview of their Olympics. Dozens of long-legged Chinese beauties in skimpy very non-communistic outfits put on a dancing routine that reminded me of the Shanghai nightclub scene at the start of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

The Chinese Olympic preview was very well choreographed and fun to watch. As I'm sure their Olympic Opening Ceremony will also be. And I would watch it. If I knew there was a way to keep Bob Costas and his ilk out of my TV viewing room.

The Pope Rocks New York City

TV watching during lunch on Sunday occurred at the time the Pope was appearing in Yankee Stadium. This event was being covered live on all the cable news stations.

I'm not a Catholic. I belong to no organized religion. The only time I've been in a Catholic Church was to be a pall bearer. So, I've had very little personal experience with Catholic Pomp and Ceremony.

What I was seeing on my TV screen seemed sorta surreal, like I was watching some elaborate ceremony in some Sci-Fi movie set on a planet far from Earth. Prior to the Pope arriving hundreds of Cardinals, Bishops and, I dunno, I guess Priests, filed in. All garbed up in these elaborate outfits with really goofy looking hats.

As the Catholics filed in the fans in the stands cheered as if at a baseball game. The baseball field had been covered with a huge elaborate colorful stage.

And then, if it wasn't surreal enough, in came the Pope in his Pope Mobile, slowly making its way around Yankee Stadium to the raucous cheers of the crowd. The roars grew their loudest when the Big Screen TVs showed the Pope.

All during all this Pomp and Ceremony the Fox News people kept up non-stop chatter, as if they were describing a sporting event. Sheppard Smith promised that when the Pope finally spoke that they'd all shut up.

Eventually the Pope finished his tour of the Ballpark and got out of his Pope Mobile to walk to the Yankee locker room to change out of his Pope Mobile Pope costume into the Pope Vestments worn when giving a Mass.

After about 10 minutes the Pope reappeared in his new costume, carrying a specter and waving a big ball on a chain. The Pope wandered about the stage waving the big ball. The crowd was cheering as if they were watching the world's most popular celebrity, or like Elvis was suddenly back from the dead.

All the while Sheppard Smith kept narrating. And then the Pope finally spoke, briefly. And unlike he promised Sheppard Smith did not shut up! Sheppard Smith talked over the Pope! I don't know anything about religious rules but isn't this some type of cardinal sin that could get you banished to hell without hope of reprieve? I immediately switched over to MSNBC where no one but the Pope was talking.

I lasted through the Pope getting introduced by some high up Catholic Cardinal or Bishop or whatever, who during the course of his introduction named various cities, like Philadelphia, Baltimore, I forget where else, but each time a town was named their cheering section went nuts. I had no idea the Catholics were such a wild raucous bunch. I thought it'd be all solemn and church like. It was Sunday after all.

Finally, the Pope started in on his Mass. I switched back to Fox News to see if Sheppard Smith had shut up. He had. I did not last too long into the Mass. The Pope's German accented English was hard to understand. That and the whole thing started to seem way too much like being in church.

Yet One More Storm in Texas

A bit over a week ago we had a bad storm here that resulted in one injury. A man lost his arm due to his trailer being tossed around by a tornado. As night began to arrive last night we had another storm here in North Texas. Last week's storm, for the most part, was in the wee hours of the morning. I do not know if all the local channels broke into regular programming to warn those sleeping to get up and worry.

But last night a bit before 7pm I turned on the TV to watch Survivor to see the CBS 11 Weather guy in full arm waving mode over a possible tornado cell over the town of Weatherford, about 30 miles west of Fort Worth. I channel chased to the other local stations and they were all in full Weather Drama Queen Mode.

Regular programming pretty much did not return last night. By morning the headline was "Storms hit North Texas with hail and high water". A follow up article in another section's headline was "Hailstorm rumbles through N. Texas". This article mentioned the baseball size hail that fell in some areas. The article in the morning paper certainly did not match up with the overwrought ridiculously over done repetitive over the top absurd alarmist coverage on TV the night before.

What follows are screencaps of the storm coverage. Coverage that went on way way way longer than the 20-30 minute storm that people experienced. I wonder how many people have sore backs this morning from following the Drama Queen's earnest advice to get to a safe spot, like a bathtub?


The Weather guy above is the Channel 8 ABC Weather Guy. I find him the most annoying. He acts like he's covering the detonation of a nuclear bomb and advising people where to escape the fallout. On and on he and the others went last night over a rotating wall cloud that had the potential to turn into a tornado. When eventually one of their 'trained' tornado spotters called in to say he'd seen a possible tornado possibly touch down for a short time, well, the earnestness went into overboard.

The local tv stations put helicopters in the air in order to get live footage of the storm, such as you see above. It seems dangerous to me to risk lives to get footage like this. I guess they are hoping to catch a full blown tornado. I don't see what the above type info adds.

Above is the CBS channel 11 Weather Guy. His schtick is different than the ABC Guy's and almost as annoying. Very repetitive, I suppose in case you missed the last time he said how dangerous this storm is, the subsequent repeats might be useful. This Guy was amusing in many ways. One was due to using hand gestures to illustrate a rotating wall cloud.

One of the stupidest things about the CBS 11 coverage is the Guy advises you that you can also watch the same coverage on their sister station, which on Charter Cable happens to be Channel 12. Now, why not just put the weather coverage on 12 and run Survivor on 11 with the crawl across the bottom saying if you want weather info turn to Channel 12??

Above we see the Channel 5 NBC Weather Guy. I usually find Channel 5 the least annoying with the way they do dire weather programming interruptions.

Meanwhile, while all this weather drama is unfolding on all the local stations, with non-stop coverage due to their extremely important responsibility to provide this important life-saving information, over on Fox News they were discussing the previous night's debate between Hillary and Barack. I find it inexcusably irresponsible that the local Fox affiliate did not find a way to inform local viewers of Fox News of the extreme danger they were facing due to the incoming storm.

And on NBC's Bravo Channel 'Top Chef" was airing a new episode and did not have the decency to tell its viewers to stop watching and tune to one of the local stations where life saving information was being dispensed. None of the cable stations seem to care in the slightest about the welfare of their viewers, not CNN, not Turner Classic Movies, not MSNBC. Even The Learning Channel does not care to educate its viewers as to the impending danger. Surely, even though these are not local stations, a way could be found to save those who are not tuned into local broadcasters.

And then the storm finally got to my abode, sometime after 8pm. You can see lightning light up the night sky through my patio window above. The tornado sirens went off. Search lights scanned the sky. I suppose if I were totally unobservant, mentally deficient, deaf and maybe blind I would not know that a storm was coming. I would know this without the wall to wall non-stop local TV coverage. But if I were totally unobservant, mentally deficient, deaf and maybe blind, and in full need of the info the local TV was providing, how would I get it, being unobservant, mentally deficient, deaf and maybe blind?

Anyway, in case you can't tell, I find this local weather coverage to be completely stupid, a waste of money and possibly dangerous, scaring people to do things that are more likely to put themselves in danger than the actual storm, which incidentally turned out to be fairly minor. No confirmed tornadoes, no injuries. The main casualty was a night of regular programming killed by a bunch of unobservant, possibly mentally deficient, tone deaf, common sense blind Weather Drama Queens.

Why don't the local stations take turns being the one to cover the latest Bad Weather Episode, advising their listeners to tune into that Weather Episode's weather station? Think of the money saved. Think of the potential lives saved. Or better yet, why not a station dedicated to weather? Oh. There is one of those. Why not direct people there during stormy weather?

Top Chef was pretty good last night though. I loved the added light show and sound effects of the storm. I didn't lose power.

Hell Freezes Over & the Democrats Debate

No. Hell Freezing Over is not a reference to last night's debate between Barack and Hillary. I'm referring to an amusing email Alma the Texas Songbird sent me yesterday. Apparently it's been all over the Internet, but I'd not seen it.

But, before I get to that I must say I thought Hillary came out on top in this debate. Barack seemed to stumble a bit regarding explaining his unfortunate choice of words describing many Pennsylvania voters as being bitter and finding refuge in religion, guns and other dubious interests. Barack also stumbled a bit explaining his choice of church and minister.

Hillary almost seemed honest when she addressed the coming under sniper fire in Bosnia issue again. She sort of admitted to being embarrassed at being caught in such a bald faced lie. She also made the point that she's better suited to go against John McCain because people have been rummaging through her baggage for decades while Barack is fresh meat for the Republicans to attack.

Enough of talking about last night's debate. Below is the amusing email from Alma the Texas Songbird about Hell Freezing Over.

HELL EXPLAINED BY CHEMISTRY STUDENT

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid term.

The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well:

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting 'Oh my God.'

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.

The Night of the Hunter

If you'd asked me last Saturday afternoon when I last saw a movie I liked I wouldn't have been able to remember one. I don't think I've been in a movie theater this century. Most movies, particularly current movies, just don't much engage me. I gave up on NetFlix when I ran out of movies I wanted to see and when watching movies that I didn't enjoy started to seem like a huge waste of time.

If you'd asked me last Saturday afternoon what my all time favorite movie is I likely would have said All About Eve. If you asked me the same question Sunday morning I likely would have said The Night of the Hunter.

Turner Classic Movies on Saturday nights has a thing they call "The Essentials". Meaning movies that it is essential you watch if you want to have an appreciation of the best movies ever made. The Night of the Hunter was last Saturday's Essential.

This movie held my interest beginning to end. It's a film noir. Now considered one of the best film noir ever made. After the movie was over I had to look it up in Wikipedia. Apparently I am not the only one to have been impressed by this movie. David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick and the Coen Brothers were influenced by it. The Night of the Hunter is very David Lynchian.

When the movie was released in 1955 it was not a hit, neither critically or with the public. The director, Charles Laughton, yes, that Charles Laughton, he of Mutiny on the Bounty, was so disheartened he never directed again. Years later when the movie began playing on TV, it finally became a hit. Read the Wikipedia article to see all the various references made to The Night of the Hunter in things like the Simpsons, Seinfeld, Bruce Springsteen's song, "Caution Man", Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Coen Brother's movies contain many references.

Anyway, I just loved this movie. It's black and white and beautifully photographed, set in the Great Depression, it tells a very sophisticated, very adult story. And there was a scene near the end that evoked in me something very very rare. A tear. It still haunts me. The movie I mean, not the tear.

UPDATE: Here's a Blog devoted to Charles Laughton with a lot of The Night of the Hunter info.

Oh My! Someone in the News has a Texas Connection!

Last week, when the latest got booted from American Idol, I was surprised that that newspaper I love to roll my eyes at, that being the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, did not once more mention that the bootee had a Fort Worth connection, in that he was married to a Fort Worth girl and he had visited Fort Worth at some point in time.

Well, today's Star-Telegram did trot out the trite verbiage again, as in "Michael Johns has a Fort Worth connection---his wife, Stacey Vudris, is from here."

No, I do not make this up. My two readers may remember me mentioning this newspaper's oddities before and that one of their employees tried to explain to me that, unlike the Dallas paper (the Star-Telegram also has an odd Dallas fixation) the Star-Telegram tries to be a local paper by giving its readers local connections to its stories. No matter how flimsy. Or pointless.

I don't know if they repeat these local connections over and over and over again because they think their readers have bad memories, or if it is for the benefit of new readers. Last week in a legit news article we had to be reminded, again, that CBS News Guy, Bob Schieffer, is from Fort Worth.

In today's paper, in addition to being told again of Michael Johns important connection to Fort Worth, we were also reminded that LeAnn Rimes is from here, as in "Garland-raised LeAnn Rimes." I don't know if I've seen this "raised" type verbiage before. It's a refreshing change. In the same article, under the heading "The Texas Connections", we learned, in addition to CMT Buckle winning Garland-raised Rimes, that Fort Worth-raised T Bone Burnett also won a Buckle. A Buckle is like an Oscar only you get it for singing country music, not acting.

Now, I came to Texas from a small town in Washington called Mount Vernon. Fort Worth acts more like a small town than Mount Vernon. In 1998 Mount Vernon was rated the #1 Best Small City in America by a legit rating entity. A couple years ago Fort Worth was put on a list by some Washington D.C. lobbying group for being one of the Top Ten Most Livable Communities in the Nation. Fort Worth had a city wide celebration for this esteemed honor. Meanwhile, up in Washington, in a state where towns and cities are often near or at the top of such lists, Tacoma was on the same Top Ten list as Fort Worth.

I asked the Deputy Mayor of Tacoma if his city had a city wide celebration for the wonderful award. He said, no, we politely thanked them, then ignored it. He giggled when I told him Fort Worth had a city wide celebration. He'd been to Fort Worth for a Sister Cities Convention, which was held at a downtown hotel, not the Convention Center. I don't think Fort Worth understands that conventions are supposed to take place at the Convention Center. All my years here I've never noticed downtown being busy with visiting conventioneers, a phenomenon that happens frequently in Seattle and Tacoma.

Back to the Star-Telegram's bizarre need to make connections between people in the news and Texas, no matter how tenuous. My aforementioned hometown of Mount Vernon has a few connections to somewhat well known people. I do not recollect the local paper repeating those connections over and over and over again.

Like, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, lives in Mount Vernon, well, actually Big Lake, a couple miles outside Mount Vernon's city limits. Conservative talk show host, Glen Beck, is from Mount Vernon. Mike Pegram, Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner and owner of a McDonald's empire and my brother-in-law's boss, has a house in Mount Vernon. And some McDonald's. Cheryl Bentyne, jazz singer with The Manhattan Transfer, she's a Mount Vernon girl who I went to college with. Movie star Jim Caviezel, born and raised in Mount Vernon, his uncle lived 4 houses from mine. Actress Demi Moore lived in Mount Vernon and went to LaVenture Middle School. That's right in my old neighborhood. I did not know Demi Moore when she was in town. Galloping Gourmet, Graham Kerr, is from Mount Vernon. Ross the Intern, from the Tonight Show, grew up in Mount Vernon.

I know of the above not from reading it repeated over and over and over and over again in my local paper, I know the above because I read the Mount Vernon article in Wikipedia. There were others on the Wikipedia list, but I'd not heard of them before, except for a NBA and MLB player or two.

On a positive note, regarding the Star-Telegram, it has been at least a year since I've seen that paper use its obviously embarrassing 'Green With Envy' verbiage. So, it is possible to wise them up if you nag enough and if you clearly reflect back to them how their ludicrous verbiage looks to others. Now, if only someone would do that same favor for me.

Who Makes More Money Than Me?

In Sunday's Parade magazine's annual "What People Earn" issue I learned that someone named Miley Cyrus is a 15 year old who makes $18.2 million a year playing someone named Hannah Montana. 15 years old. I'm almost 3 times that age and with my Google ads and the occasional change I find on the ground I make a minuscule fraction of Miss Cyrus's $18.2 million. Not that I begrudge her her fortune. I'm sure she's worth every penny of it. That's Miley on the right in the photo. I don't think the guy on the left is her dad, Billy Ray.

A comedian named Jeff Foxworthy is over 3 times older than Miley and makes $10 million a year. I've watched Foxworthy's act. I don't find him very funny.

Leona Helmsley had a dog named Trouble. Trouble makes $12 million a year. That's almost as much as Miley the Teenager. I'm sure Trouble works very hard for his money.

A Hedge-fund manager named John Paulson is in NYC making $3.5 billion a year at age 52. That's way more than Miley is making. I had to look it up to find out what a Hedge-fund manager does. It is some sort of private investment fund that charges a performance fee. Mr. Paulson must perform really really well.

American Idol winner Carrie Underwood makes $7 million a year. That's less than her ex-boyfriend, Tony Romo, the Dallas Cowboy quarterback. He got something like a $69 million 5 year contract this year with a $13 billion signing bonus. More than his boss, Jerry Jones paid for all the homes and businesses he destroyed to build his new stadium. That's scandalous.

Mary-Kate Olsen, 21, she's one of the notorious Olsen twins, one of whom, I don't remember which, had some involvement with Heath Ledger before he died, makes $17 million a year. As an actress/entrepreneur. What has she acted in lately? Entrepreneur?

The CEO of Boeing, James McNerney, 58, makes $19 million a year. I assume the amount would be more if he'd managed to get the Dreamliner in the air on time.

A model in NYC named Gisele Bundchen, 27, makes $33 million a year. Modeling.

That annoying Dr. Phil, who is on TV way too much, makes $90 million a year. He is only 57 but looks much older.

Steven Spielberg makes $110 million a year. I would have guessed it to be more. He makes really good movies.

Edward Perry, a 26 year old Peace Corps volunteer from LA makes a whopping $2,900 a year.

While Ryan Seacrest, the 33 year old, somewhat annoying, American Idol host makes $12 million a year.

Eli Manning, 27, makes $11.5 million a year throwing a football in NYC.

While the world's most powerful woman, she of the Big Give, among many other things, and who I've always found annoying and don't really know why, makes $260 million a year. No wonder she can afford to Give Big.

Well. Enough of that. It's time for me to start my daily search for spare change laying on the ground to augment my meager Google ad income.

New Dallas Cowboy Stadium Survived Tornado

I am still in recovery mode from the vicious storm we had here less than 24 hours ago. I have managed to sleep a little bit. Today I've been up since 4am and have been a very busy boy.

I decided I'd not been to Chinatown in Arlington for quite awhile and with the sky being tornado cleaned of smog it seemed a good time to check in and see if Mother Nature wreaked havoc on Jerry Jones and his monument to insensitivity to ones fellow human beings.

When I got to the stadium zone I detected no signs of damage. Mother Nature must be on the payroll. Or she is biding her time to exact the eye for an eye thing. I guess it would be more poetic if a tornado leveled Jerry Jones's personal home with little warning, just like his bulldozers did to all his victims.

One thing I did notice today was 4 flags have been planted at the top of the stadium. Go here for a look at what the new stadium looks like on April 11, 2008. And to read what the flags were. I'm guessing you could guess what one or two of them might be. I had to guess on the 4th one. I'm pretty sure I guessed right.

Thursday's Texas Tornado Aftermath

The Big Storm that roared through North Texas late Wednesday and in the wee hours of Thursday morning brought at least 5 tornadoes, including several that struck Breckinridge late Wednesday. Survey teams checked out the damage and issued the EF ratings for the tornadoes. 4 or more were EF1's. The assessment process continues. An EF1 tornado whips up winds between 86 and 110 mph.

So far the only known injury was to a Johnson County man who lost his arm when the trailer he was in was turned over and over in the high wind. In the photo you see here the trailer was spared, which totally goes against the norm, while the tied to a foundation building was badly damaged.

Several houses were seriously damaged in Johnson County.

About 5 miles north of my abode, in the town of Hurst, straight line winds up to 80mph damaged more than 200 homes.

At Oakland Lake Park, yesterday, I saw several trees blown down, including a long-lived Mulberry Tree. It was sort of additionally tragic because only a couple days ago did the park maintennance people finally get around to removing tree limbs they'd piled up all over the park last month after doing extensive tree trimming. And now they've got a way way worse mess to clean up.

I don't know if it's irony or what, but in Haltom City, that's about 5 miles northwest of where I am, students at an Institute of Massage were in the middle of their finals when Mother Nature massaged holes in the roof and blasted out windows, distracting the test takers. I don't quite understand why they were taking a massage test in the early morning of Thursday. Maybe the earlier storm hit just north of me and I didn't notice.

In Southlake, that's up by Lake Grapevine, the school board called an emergency meeting to figure out what do to about the damaged school building, with broken gas lines, ruined air conditioners and a destroyed stadium scoreboard. They decided to open school as usual, with no lunch, due to no gas.

Apartment buildings were damaged in Bedford, that's a little town next to Hurst, moving four families out til the damage can be repaired.

Today the sky is blue, the temps are warm. And I managed to sleep a couple hours.

The Tulips are Blooming & I'm Homesick

I'm homesick. I've not seen the Skagit Valley of Washington in Spring Tulip mode since I moved to Texas in 1999. The color carpetting is sort of like Texas wildflowers on steroids. That is Cultus Mountain in the background, one of the Cascade Mountains foothills, looking east towards my old hometown of Mount Vernon. If it weren't so cloudy you would see the Mount Baker volcano towering over the valley. You will see no Bluebonnets if you visit Washington state during the spring. I think they may have been eradicated for being a pesky invasive weed.