America's Team Toasted

Well, if you read my post, yesterday, about America's Team and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's articles about how the Dallas Cowboy's success amped up pretty much the entire world, I guess you're likely as worried as I am that this shocking loss in the Dallas Cowboy's first playoff game will now likely push the world economy into that recession so many have been worried about. I'll share tomorrow whatever bizarre verbiage I see in Monday's Star-Telegram about the failure of the formerly presumed Super Bowl winners. On the bright side, Tony Romo can now canoodle to his heart's content with Jessica Simpson without upsetting the locals.

Startlegram

That's what the locals call the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Startlegram. So, yesterday I verbalized my slight umbrage at the Star-Telegram's purple prose regarding America's Team: The Dallas Cowboys. I said something about how that paper regularly annoys me.

And then I got feedback via email from my Eyes on Texas website and the page I added yesterday about "America's Team" about my amusement at the articles in the Startlegram. A couple of the feedback emails asked what other examples of goofiness I've seen in that notorious paper.

Well.

Probably the worst was when downtown Fort Worth opened a food court called the Sante Fe Rail Market. The Star-Telegram turned Chamber of Commerce propaganda booster and repeated in article after article that this lame little market was the first public market in Texas, that it was modeled after Seattle's Pike Place Market and markets in Europe. Of course, being from the Seattle zone that set up some high expectations for me. When it opened I visited the Santa Fe Rail Market and webpaged what I saw. I could not believe a newspaper would so misrepresent something to this extent. Had no one on that paper been to Seattle? Did they not realize that some of their readers may have been to or were from Seattle and would know how ridiculous it was to say this little food court type thing was modeled after Pike Place? Even after this was pointed out to the Star-Telegram the erroneous propaganda continued to be repeated.

And then I found out that not only was this soon to fail lame thing not the first public market in Texas it wasn't even the first one in Fort Worth! It was as if no one on the Star-Telegram had even been to the Dallas Farmers Market, a location that actually does resemble Pike Place.

Let's move on to another example of what a bad newspaper this is.

A sporting goods store named Cabela's wanted to open a store in Fort Worth. Cabela's wanted tax breaks and other incentives. Cabela's PR told the powers that be in Fort Worth, including the Star-Telegram, that Cabela's would be the #1 Tourist Attraction in Texas. This was repeated ad nauseum in the Star-Telegram, which never once questioned the absurdity of the premise. One of their more idiotic columnists, I won't name him, suffice to say he shares a last name with a president who was killed in the big city to the east of here. The number of supposed 'tourists' at Cabela's ranged from 5 million to this bad columnist's high of 8 million. When I pointed out to him how absurd this was, via email, he told me I must hate business. So, Cabela's got its tax break, Fort Worth got snookered and Cabela's is now open and has performed so poorly there have been a lot of layoffs and they had to return incentive money to Fort Worth because Cabela's did not perform as advertised. And Cabela's has opened another store in Austin! Cabela's must have left that planned store out of the info they gave Fort Worth when conning them with the "Top Tourist Attraction in Texas" nonsense.

Another example of this irresponsible newspaper's knack for being a bit lacking with facts---River Legacy Park opened a new section of the park a couple years ago on the north side of the Trinity River. A new pedestrian/bike bridge connected the old trail with the new. The new trail added about 4 miles. The new trail and bridge was open and being used for months before the park declared it done. The Star-Telegram reported this by describing, wrongly, that a final mile of trail had been completed and opened connecting the River Legacy trails to 360. (360 is a highway that bi-sects the D/FW Metroplex). Now, I had already been pedaling to the end of this new trail for months. I knew it did not end at 360.

So, the very day after the Star-Telegram printed this false information, incorrectly describing the River Legacy Trail, I pedaled the new trail. At the end of the trail, at the 7 mile marker, there was a guy. He had jogged to the end. I stopped. He asked me how you get to 360 from there? He said he thought the trail went to 360. I asked him if he read that in the Startlegram. He said yes. I told him you can not trust what you read in that paper, that I highly doubted if they had any reporters who were sufficiently non lard assed enough to actually see a trail for themselves. This guy had told friends that he would be on an overpass on 360 when they returned from the airport. I let him use my cell phone to leave a message for his incoming friends.

Okay, I've got more of these type things in my memory bank, but it is time for Amazing Race.

America's Team

I'm one of the dwindling number of Americans who read a daily hard copy newspaper. My morning ritual is to lay on the floor with a cup of coffee and read the paper. When I lived in Washington my morning paper was the Seattle P-I. In Fort Worth it is the Star-Telegram. To be blunt and to the point, Washington has a much higher high school graduation rate, much higher number of college graduates, Seattle leads the nation in number of book readers and I'll just say that the quality of the P-I reflects the quality of its readers. And so does the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The Star-Telegram has recently had a big makeover they touted as an improvement. It wasn't. Basically they are losing subscribers and revenue and had to cut back. So, a lot of columnists were fired and features reduced. Like on Sunday the Weekly Review is now 4 pages long. I think it used to be 8. It used to take me a half hour or so to read the Sunday paper. Now I'm lucky if it takes longer than 15 minutes. Here is one good example of how dumb this newspaper is. Up til the BIG CHANGE Tuesday's were what they called Family Day. When I guess families were supposedly supposed to sit around and read the paper. So, on Family Day, on many an occasion, a Dear Abby column would be altered to say something like "Today's Dear Abby was not considered suitable for Family Day and will run tomorrow." Every time I saw that I'd think to myself have they no consideration for those families who read the paper every day? Shouldn't they be totally protected from the evil Dear Abby letter?

If you want another good example of how bad a newspaper can be, go here and be appalled and amused.

And that brings us to today's Star-Telegram. On the front page of this sad excuse for a major city newspaper, under the headline at the top of the page "Everyone's a Winner" with a sub-heading in large letters saying "The Cowboys are at the top of their game. And that's good for everybody. Their success is felt far and wide and measured in dollars and happiness." And then the rest of the article in normal sized print saying, "Are you feeling good about the Dallas Cowboys this season? You're not alone. The team's success has a real effect on how we go about our lives. The Cowboys can stir emotions and spirits in such a way that individuals, and in many cases businesses, are more productive. And it's not just a local thing, either. When you're 13-3 and in the NFL playoffs and are America's Team, the impact can be far-reaching. Call it success by association."

That was on the front page. The sports page was worse. With a long article under the headline "Cowboys' success makes the world a better place". You may read more of that article and other good stuff about America's Team by going here. Or read the entire Star-Telegram article in all its goofy glory in its online version.

Lulu's Tone

No, this is not about how well-toned Lulu is. I was going to complain about my latest Wal-Mart nightmare, but Lulu trumps Wal-Mart. But, to dwell on Wal-Mart for a second, I don't know why I keep going back. I guess it is convenient when I don't have an incident. Wal-Mart's up in Washington aren't as nightmarish as the Texas ones, maybe because up there they are unionized with the workers paid way more and thus more skilled people are willing to don the blue vests.

Anyway, did I mention I've known Lulu since we were little kids? So, we've known each other a long long time. Lulu has aged more gracefully than I and has developed much more highly evolved social skills than I have managed to develop. Lulu is the epitome of grace and good manners. Lulu collects people. Some are quite interesting. In the past couple years she added this guy named Dick Balch to her collection. Yes, you in the northwest, that Dick Balch, the sledgehammer car smashing infamous car dealer Dick Balch. I had a memorable dinner at an Indian restaurant in Tacoma with Dick Balch. He did not disappoint. Waiter's were harassed, the manager was harassed, big tips were spread around, much hilarity ensued. After that fun, tasty, filling dinner Lulu made us go to Frisco Freeze for a hot fudge sundae. Frisco Freeze is a Tacoma icon. When a politician from Tacoma, Booth Gardner, became governor, he'd send people to get him a Frisco Freeze burger when the craving for grease got too strong.

I keep digressing from Lulu's tone. So, years ago Lulu and I did what is now widely considered by the cognoscenti to be the world's first blog, that being "As The WWWeb Turns with Lulu and Durango". It basically was Lulu and I bickering at each other via email, with photos illustrating what was being bickered about. The bickering got out of control and soon that blog died. The memory has somewhat faded but I think Lulu had tone issues even way back then, all those years ago.

Despite Lulu's serious issues regarding my tone the two of us have managed to travel well together over the years as evidenced by these photos. The one at the top with Lulu showing off her leg is at Crater Lake in Oregon. The photo where Lulu is guzzling Coors beer is at Lake Tahoe. The last photo is Lulu standing next to me at Boot Hill in Virginia City.

Today Lulu's tone issues popped up again. I don't quite know what she's talking about but apparently there is a certain tone I use when I write something about her. Perhaps there is some distortion on my part that I'm not totally aware of. Or maybe I don't quite mention all the facts. I don't know. But it's totally given me a real bad case of writer's block. I'm now overwhelmed with concerns about my tone. I'll probably get over it. But right now this tone concern is even affecting me when I talk on the phone, like today my mom called me and I couldn't stop worrying that my tone might be bad. Just a sec I'll snap a pic of myself so you can see how disgruntled I'm looking over this tonal failure of mine. And then I'm going to bed and hope a good night's rest restores my tone.

Random Babbling

I'm in the mood for some therapeutic venting via clacking away at my keyboard. I've no idea why I'm in need of this therapy, maybe it's because it is just sort of relaxing to type without putting a lot of thinking into it. My basic mindset for writing this blog stuff is that I'm sending an email to an imaginary friend who never talks back. I guess some talk back could occur via the 'comment' option, but so far I've been blessedly free of any comments via that venue, though I have had an email or two due to the cross pollination between this blog and my Eyes on Texas website with people using that website's feedback@ email address. I've changed the settings on the blog's comment thing to allow anyone to comment without needing to set up a Google account.

Speaking of imaginary friends, Lulu was in high form today. She called me this morning and our phones did that bloop bloop thing I complained about in an earlier blog. The calls got dropped 5 or 6 times. Then an hour ago or so I got an urgent email from Lulu saying only "d-i can't figure out how to do this." What she could not figure out I had no idea. She had attached 18 images, each only slightly different from the previous. So, I called Lulu to ask what she was trying to figure out. She couldn't remember how she added a logo image to her blog. She wanted to change it. So, I changed it for her. It's that picture you see here of Little Lulu balancing on a stick. I don't know what it means or why she is speaking French. Lulu does not speak French. She does claim to be of French ancestry as a way, I think, of explaining her excessive butter consumption. Now, Lulu has had her blog since last month and she has managed to do 2 posts. She seems to spend the majority of her blog time fussing over that one image and her blue color scheme which she claims is very trendy right now in Tacoma. Likely trendy because they have had so many days of gray that they forget what blue sky looks like. (Update: As of today, January 11, 2008, it appears Lulu has now removed the Little Lulu Logo. We do not know if this means yet one more version of the Little Lulu Logo is forthcoming or what. We can report that Lulu still has not added a new post. And it remains overcast in Tacoma.)

I got up real early today. It feels real productive to get up real early. But then I end up being real tired real early, so I don't know if it doesn't end up being counter productive in the end. While I was feeling full of energy and still firing on all cylinders I added this cool Live Traffic Feed widget thing to my Eyes on Texas website and the blogs. This thing tells you who is on the website or blog and where they came from, like right now I'm looking at the Live Traffic Feed for this very blog and I see there is someone from Los Angeles, Cleveland, Seattle, Tonasket (WA) and Bedford (TX) on the blog. The Traffic Feed for the Eyes on Texas website has a lot of action. I knew it gets a lot of visitors from looking at the webstats, but I've never had info as to where people were coming from and which page they were looking at, like right now I refreshed the Eyes on Texas home page and there are people from Nashville, Memphis, Utica, NY, Murrysville, PA, Durham, CA, Richmond, VA and several locations in Texas looking at Downtown Fort Worth, the Rattlesnake Roundup, the Dallas Cowboy Stadium Scandal and others. What use this info is to me is currently a mystery, as is how this info is gleaned.

I cooked a chicken this morning. Before I shoved it in the oven I had the brilliant idea of Googling to see if I could find the secret 11 spices that make KFC's original recipe taste so finger licking good. I don't know how accurate the info was but I had several of the secret spices. Now the real method involved mixing the spices with flour, dipping the chicken pieces in egg then flour then deep fry it. Well, I don't know how to deep fry anything, all I do is pull off the skin and stick the bird in the oven til it is good and done. So, I sprinkled what I had of the 11 secret spices---paprika, garlic salt, oregano, sage, rosemary, salt, pepper and ginger. I did not have thyme, parsley or onion salt. What I can tell you is my chicken, when finished, bore absolutely no resemblance to anything that ever came from Kentucky Fried Chicken. It may not have been finger licking good, but it was good for you with way less fat than the colonel's chicken.

Wal-Mart Really Does Suck

I do not really understand how Wal-Mart overtook all other retailers to become the planet's #1 store. It's based in Arkansas. One would think that would be a cautionary sign right there.

What perplexes me is how does Wal-Mart do so well? Yes. I shop there. Why? It's convenient and many things are cheaper in price, yet, unfortunately, also often cheaper in quality as well. And there are other issues.

In the D/FW Metroplex, in which I am currently incarcerated, there are dozens of Wal-Marts, mostly Super Wal-Marts, which is your regular type Wal-Mart after a steroid injection. And then there are the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets. One of those is almost walking distance from where I live. Very convenient. 3 miles from my abode is a Super Wal-Mart. Adjacent to my abode is the carcass of a dead Wal-Mart, killed when that new one opened 3 miles away. Oh, I forgot, most of the Super Wal-Marts here have a Sam's Club next door, Sam's Club being this sort of downscale copycat of Costco.

I like Costco's $1.50 hot dog and a drink deal. It's a good hot dog. If you are vacationing in Maui it's a cheap lunch to eat at Costco's Cafe 150. Sam's Club totally copied the Costco cafe concept. And then totally yucked it up. Example. I was in a brand new Sam's Club in west Fort Worth. I ordered the $1.50 hot dog deal. The Sam's girl brings me my dog and asks for $1.27. I said "huh?" I want a drink too. She tells me the drink machine is broken. I see people getting drinks. I ask for a cup. She tells me she'll have to charge me for it. I'm thinking I clearly asked for the $1.50 hot dog and drink deal. Then she decided to just give me the cup. I went over to the drink machine, hit the ice dispenser, causing a geyser-like eruption. I tried to just get water, but did not like the color. I tried one of the soda dispensers and quickly realized there was no carbonation. I gave up on the drink and concentrated on my hot dog. I pumped the mustard dispenser, but it just passed gas, no mustard. I cranked the onion dispenser to see onion juice, I assume it was onion juice, come out of the grinder. I gave up and resigned myself to trying to eat a mustard-less naked hot dog on a soggy bun. And resolved, as God was my witness, to never sit foot in a Sam's Club again. That resolve lasted a week or two. I needed a printer. But no more hot dogs.

More on Wal-Mart in future blogs. I have other issues with Sam.

Hillary & Wild Video

Well. It's been a week plus one day since my New Year's Day hike at Tandy Hills Park in rugged jungle-like Fort Worth. Today I finally got around to making a video of that hike. You can find it here by going to the webpage with the video link. Or click the Windows Media Player pic with the newspaper banner saying TANDY HILLS PARK and that should open the video or click here. If you watch the video you may be surprised that such wild open land is so close to a big city downtown.

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See if I pay any attention to polls anymore. FOX, CNN, MSNBC, all of them had polls with Barack Obama way ahead of Hillary Clinton. I thought it was a foregone conclusion after listening to the talking heads that Hillary was going to lose New Hampshire and that her campaign was in full, total, careening out of control, collapse.

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A couple of my nephews, Blue and Max, have started blogging. Blue and Max are my little sister's offspring. Recently a pair of nieces have been added to the mix, Emily and Abby. They live in Tacoma. That is in Washington.

High Noon for Hillary?

The voting shuts down in about an hour in New Hampshire. It is looking bleak for Hillary. At least according to the latest polls. Maybe this is not a bad thing. I mean, isn't there something a bit disturbing about the idea of another 4 or 8 years of a Clinton being president? That would make it so 2 families controlled the presidency of the U.S. for up to 28 years, if Hillary got 2 terms. That means someone who is 30 years old would have no memory of anyone but a Clinton or a Bush being president. That's like something that would happen in a banana republic, not here.

I heard on the radio today that Hillary has fired some key advisers and is bringing in some old helpers, like James Carville. I'm wondering if she is secretly calling Dick Morris, the Clintons go to guy for decades in times of political trouble. Last week I read Morris's book about helping Clinton called 'Behind the Oval Office'. In that book he makes himself seem like the brains behind the Clinton operation and he makes Hillary look good. After that he turned on the Clintons and wrote 2 more books, one countering Bill's long-winded 'My Life' and the other countering Hillary's 'Living History'. I'm currently reading the book where he turns on Bill, called 'Because I Could'. It is not a flattering portrait of the Clintons.

At the same time I'm reading 'Because I Could' I'm reading a book called 'Bad Boy from Rosebud'. Not that there is any connection between the two books. I like the true crime genre with my favorite author being Ann Rule. One of the reasons I like Ann Rule's books is because so many of them tell of crimes that occurred in the Pacific Northwest and I will often either remember the crime or know exactly the location she is describing.

So, unbeknownst to me 'Bad Boy from Rosebud' is also about locations of which I am familiar. The surprising wrinkle being it is Texas locations. I'd barely begun the book when I realized I remembered the scandal of this criminal. Kenneth McDuff. He committed brutal murders in the 60s, sent to death row. Somehow got paroled by the early 90s. And began to kill again. Texas had been emptying prisons due to over crowding, letting thousands of bad guys out. Due to the public outrage in Texas over McDuff, laws were passed called the McDuff laws that hopefully prevent such a thing from re-occurring.

Anyway, McDuff's murders in the 60s took place just south of where I live, in the town of Everman. His hometown was down near Waco. He was all over this area, often in Fort Worth. So, it was sort of a surprise to accidentally pick up a true crime book and find that it was once more describing places with which I was familiar.

Well, it is coming up on 7pm Central Time, that is 8pm New Hampshire time, when the polls close.

Coarse, Vulgar, Shameful & Shameless

I was watching that infamous 2004 Super Bowl half time show, 4 years ago, when for a fleeting second part of a breast was exposed, destroying western civilization as we knew it. I apparently blinked at the wrong moment and did not witness this assault on civilization until I viewed it via video downloaded from the Internet. When I finally saw the exposure I was pretty much non-plussed and perplexed as to what all the fuss was about. I mean, those Super Bowl halftime shows have been pretty tacky, bad and vulgar for years now, with occaisonal moments of okayness, like when U2 performed at the post 9/11 halftime. Paul McCartney's halftime show, post the boob exposure show, was tasteful, but, for the most part, the Super Bowl half time shows, both before and after Boobgate, have been pretty much embarrassing spectacles that cause one to wonder what those people in all those other countries supposedly watching think about it all. I'm guessing there is a lot of head shaking and remarks about American culture being so strange.

But, what gives me pause to ponder is if such a brouhaha could erupt over this singular moment of wardrobe failure, resulting in the banning of bare butts from network prime time TV, among other bannings, why are some of the shows on MTV and VH1 and others allowed? Yes, I know, MTV, VH1, HBO, Fox News...etc. are beyond FCC regulating, they are broadcast over cable, not the airwaves. But really, how many people saw their halftime boob exposure via a signal brought in through an antennae? Do you know anyone who gets their TV signal over the airwaves? I've not seen an antennae in decades.


What is worse? A boob exposure that few actually saw? Or something like MTV's Parental Control? Or check out another MTV gem, A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, in which a bisexual Vietnamese migrant born in Singapore, now thoroughly Americanized, and not in the good ways one can become Americanized, searches for love among a group of guys and girls. Much hilarity and vulgarity ensues. Like going home to meet the prospect's parents. Texans can be particularly proud of Tila Tequila because when she left Viet Nam she went to Houston's Vietnamese area where she grew up, learning to be an American Texan---a Singaporean, Vietnamese, Texas, American. How could she help not ending up on MTV with that background? And don't get me started on VH1's I Love New York. This show is wrong in too many ways to count. The fact that it is VH1's top hit and that it continues to spawn sequels may be this year's most blatant indication that the apocalyptic end may be near.

Don't ask me why I know about these shows. Suffice to say I have a fascination with viewing metaphorical train wrecks. I can't look away.

Which leads me to the most appallingly pornographic show on TV. A show that bares things much more disturbing than the obvious disturbing sight of a bare breast. One of the top shows on TV. A show on the network known for having the highest quality shows, known as the Tiffany Network. Yes, I'm talking about CBS and its top show, CSI. A show that shows no bare breasts, but does show gruesome details of gruesome crimes in gruesome detail. All for your prurient viewing pleasure. Which is what makes it pornographic. But allowed by the FCC.

Now, me, perverse nature that I have, would much prefer to see dozens of bare breasts flopping on my screen than a single autopsied decapitated head. It would not bother me in the slightest to see a bare butt now and again on my TV screen, I really don't see the harm. I mean, a bare breast or a bare butt has rarely killed anyone or inspired someone to kill someone, as far as I know. Where a show like CSI is sort of like a guidebook on how to commit a gruesome crime. Yet somehow that escapes FCC scrutiny or the wrath of the ultra religious freaks.

Super Bowl XLV

The temps reached into the balmy 80s on the first Sunday of the New Year. So I went bike riding at River Legacy Park. There was a large number of like minded people out on the trails enjoying the temporary respite from winter. On my third time around a group of 3 younger guys came up behind me. I sped up. They kept up. I asked if they wanted to pass. They said no, that I was setting a good pace. I sped up. I don't think they realized I was much older than them and that they could possibly be pushing me to an early heart attack. After about a mile of this un-asked for punishment I came to a bypass (that is not a heart attack reference), so I took the left and the speed demons did not. So I was rid of them. And not a crank of the pedal too soon.

After the exhilarating exhausting bike ride I decided to head to the new Dallas Cowboy Stadium to snap some pics of the current state of construction. As many of you know the new stadium is pretty much being built on a graveyard of stolen homes and destroyed apartment buildings and bulldozed businesses.

As I got to the stadium zone I came in from a new angle, that being heading east on Randol Mill Road. This direction brought me to a very unfortunate unflattering view of the new stadium, with rundown tenement looking apartment buildings of a way more decripit state than those destroyed by the stadium, sitting now in the shadow of the new, according to Cowboy owner Jerry Jones, Roman Colisseum of the 21st Century.

To get a pic of the newly added banner extolling the upcoming 2011 Super Bowl hosted in the new stadium we pulled into one of the commercial buildings appropriated by the Cowboys. I got my pic and then drove in front of the building attempting to escape the parking lot, to no avail due to a line of traffic cones. Turning around I saw a large sign in the window of the former bank, saying "Dallas Cowboy Preview Center". It must give one quite a sense of empowerment to be able to take owner's places of business for your own purposes. It's almost like living in the Wild Wild West. Or the former Soviet Union. With Eminent Domain laws making it all very legal.

I have not as yet heard if Jerry Jones and the Cowboys are going to invite the former residents, of the land they legally stole, to the opening football game or the Super Bowl, or even for a look at their old land. I don't know know if it is known nationally what the Dallas Cowboys and Jerry Jones did to people to get this stadium. I believe the total of Tony Romo's new contract is larger than the total paid to the victims. In addition to his 5 year contract Tony Romo got a $13 million signing bonus. As far as I know neither the Cowboys or Jerry Jones has given any of their land grab victims even so much as a Christmas card with a hard loaf of fruit cake.

I have not yet called up the Cowboys to pay my $100 non-refundable fee to be put on a list to pay $50,000 for a Personal Seat License Fee that gives me the right to pay a couple hundred bucks for a game ticket and hundreds more for a parking ticket. I gotta get right on that today. I'll be so sad if all the Seat Licenses sell out before I get myself one. I so don't want to miss that Super Bowl in 2011. Then again, maybe by then there will be such a big national stink over the way the Cowboys and Jerry Jones built their new stadium that the NFL pulls the game from Dallas and awards it to a more civic minded, more decent, more humane, more worthy team. Yeah, I'm sure that is gonna happen.