Flower Power

I'm sure there's a proper name for it, but we just call it the Big Hibiscus. And it's got its first bloom of the season:

The plant is loaded with unopened buds. If they decide to bloom simultaneously, I don't think it can support the weight – but it should be a sight to behold.

Well, we're not far off with our naming of the plant. There's not much difference between Big Hibiscus and Giant Hibiscus. Only an ad executive would quibble.

Take your friends where you find them

Via Wallace over at Streams comes this visual reminder that we can learn a lot from animals:

Movie Review: Yippee-ki-yay

Note: This review contains spoilers. If you want to skip the details and just get the rating, I'm going with 4 ants out of 5.

Of all the "action adventure" movie franchises, the Die Hard series is our favorite for its combination of logic-defying stunts and plot-lines and comic relief. There's never any suspense about the outcome; you're concerned only with how much punishment John McClane can take before he exacts justice on the bad guys.

The latest installment, Live Free or Die Hard, is a worthy fourth member of the franchise, and features Bruce Willis playing his age (unlike, say, Harrison Ford in the disappointing Firewall [Gazette review here]). The fact that he's apparently even more resilient and indestructible than ever is in keeping with the most ludicrous plot thus far: the hacking into the secret government system that stores the details of every financial transaction in the American economy – strictly for backup purposes, you know.

McClane's unwilling sidekick in this installment is Matt Farrell, a 20-something cracker/slacker who unwittingly provided some of the coding for the Big Hack, and has been targeted for elimination by the bad guys. McClane is sent to bring Farrell in for FBI questioning and, of course, all hell breaks loose from the moment they meet. Farrell is played by sloe-eyed Justin Long (the Apple in the "I'm an Apple/I'm a PC" commercials). He's the requisite new and hotness yin to McClane's old and busted yang, but he brings the same likable, earnest geekitude that we first saw in Galaxy Quest.

Together, McClane and Farrell survive more shock and awe than Rasputin, and reveal some innovative touches for the dispatching of bad guys. (One scene, however, takes an obvious cue from a similar setup in Jurassic Park 2.)

The movie also relies on the goodwill and perceptiveness of its fans, with occasional inside jokes like a reference to "Special Agent Johnson" (think back to the first movie in the series).

The plot has holes big enough to fly an F-35B through, including one scene featuring that airplane. But you really don't care, because it's fun – it's a cartoon with human characters – and you're willing to suspend belief and logic to play along.

If you're a fan of the Die Hard series, put this one down as "must see." It's a worthy addition and you won't be disappointed.

Technorati tag: Live Free or Die Hard

Tagged!

Soccer Dad has tagged the Gazette to participate in the craze that's sweeping the nation. It's similar to the "7 Things About Me" meme, only with a diabolical twist: you have to list eight things. Whew. Well, here goes:

1. I've been to Kralendijk, Bonaire; Windwardside, Saba; and Tegucigalpa, Honduras...
2. ...but I've never visited San Francisco, Chicago, or New York City.
3. I've never seen an episode of The Sopranos.
4. I may be one of the few web designers in the world who knows the difference* between sideoats grama and tobosa, by virtue of having competed on a grass judging team as a mere youth while in 4-H.
5. I once rode 105 miles in one day on a bicycle. Through the Texas Hill Country. On purpose.
6. I refused to eat bananas until I was past the age of 30, at which time I realized that was dumb, and made myself learn to like them.
7. For that same period of time I ate zucchini even though I didn't like it, until I realized that was dumb, and stopped.
8. I like hot tea but not iced tea; cantaloupe but not watermelon; dark chocolate but not white; Diet Coke but not regular Coke; mayonnaise but not Miracle Whip.

Now, I'm supposed to tag eight other bloggers to do this, but everyone I know seems to have already done it, or a variation thereof. So, go tag yourself, and think of me while you're doing it.

*OK, honestly – I no longer know the difference. But, I used to.

Thanks!

I wanted to take a moment to give a sincere "thank you" to everyone who left comments, send e-cards, made phone calls, transmitted text messages, and generated emails with birthday greetings. You guys are great.

A number of you also left a variety of questions in the comments to yesterday's post about one of my birthday presents, and I didn't want you to think I ignored them. So, here are the answers: no, yes, yes, probably not, twelve, there's no proof of that, Angelina Jolie.

Thanks again!

Innocent as Doves

I've always been of the opinion that doves are among the most stupid of birds. They flock by the score in our neighborhood, and are continually being struck by cars because they insist on squatting in the middle of the street.

They're also inexpert nest builders; if there was a nest equivalent of a shanty, it would be built by a dove. And they often choose the oddest places for a nest. Well, like this one:

I spotted this dove roosting on a nest she'd built on top of a ladder leaning against the wall of our neighbor's house. I assume she's keep guard over an egg or two. Here's a close-up:

As silly as this behavior seems, I have to admire her nurturing instinct and bravery. I was able to get within six feet to take the second photo, and she gave no sign of contemplating flight (and dove are just as skittish as they are dimwitted). The nest might not have been much to look at, but it was hers, by gosh, and she was going to stick with it and its contents no matter what.

I suppose this is some of what Jesus was referring to in his admonition to his disciples to be "shrewd as serpents and gentle as doves." He was sending them into an uncertain and hostile world where the natural tendency would be to flee. But he was also empowering them to overcome that tendency, not through equal force or aggression, but through purity of motive.

This would seem to be a characteristic worth emulating, regardless of whatever else we might think of doves.

Random Thursday: Birthday Edition

Why, yes...it is my birthday; what tipped you off?

And it's been a special one already, starting at 2:00 am this morning when a greeting via text message arrived from our favorite Kiwi (and she even recorded a song for me).

The fun continued at breakfast where MLB presented me with her usual cool and unexpected gift, which I'm modeling below:

That's right. It's a Geordi La Forge costume kit! OK, not really; it's even better than that, difficult as that may be to imagine. It's a MyVu "personal media viewer," aka iPod glasses. I haven't had time to do more than watch about ten minutes of a movie (Serenity, if you must know), but first impressions are quite favorable. The picture is high quality, the sound is incredible, and you aren't completely cut-off from your surroundings, meaning that I can watch all my favorite episodes of The Office while driving around town! (Just kidding. Probably.)

OK, you know what? I was going to do this whole Random Thursday post thing, but, hey, it's my birthday! I have toys to play with! Catch you tomorrow.

Ten Worst Jobs in Science

Popular Science has published its annual list of the Ten Worst Jobs In Science. It's not surprising that many of the jobs on the list involve interaction with the detritus, debris, garbage and other disgusting deposits of nature, including Whale-Feces Researcher (#10), Olympic Drug Tester (#8), Coursework Carcass Preparer (#5), Garbologist (#4), and HazMat Diver (#1). Oh, and Microsoft Security Analyst (#6).

I think the fact that the PopSci editors consider swimming in sewage only slightly more odious than working with Windows is, well, hilarious. Others may take a somewhat different view. ;-)

Ledes I wish I'd thought of sooner

While being walked by the dog this morning, and pondering further the issues that led to this post, the following sprang fully-formed into my otherwise blank brain:

The French have nothing on our city council when it comes to capitulation.

Fortunately, I didn't think of that line sooner, as it would have reflected poorly upon our good allies, the French.

Rick Gets Richer

I was flabbergasted to learn that our city council approved a $481,000-and-change settlement with departing Midland City Manager Rick Menchaca. This settlement includes 16 months of salary, one-third more than was called for in his supposedly "at-will" employment contract.

According to news reports, the council (in a 5-2 split) approved the magnanimous settlement in order to avoid potential litigation. This is an interesting theory of city governance – decision-making through lawsuit avoidance – although the recent "dry cleaners/pants lawsuit" in New York proved again that anyone can sue for anything. In the case of the city manager, the defensiveness of the council makes one wonder whether Menchaca's departure was handled properly from a contractual perspective.

However, it's not insignificant that the only practicing attorney on the council, Mayor Canon, voted against the settlement. His response was that he was comfortable sticking to the strict requirements of the employment contract, which seems an eminently reasonable thing to do.

Being the cynic that I am, I'm probably reading too much into the arrival in Midland tomorrow of a DOJ mediator to hear concerns about recent city police actions. The mediator is coming in response to a request by LULAC, the same group who held protests in response to the dismissal of Menchaca.

The council's generosity with taxpayer's money is one thing, but the long-term significance is in the implicit message to future employee-litigants: "you litigate; we capitulate."

Photography Website Discoveries

While thumbing through an issue of SilverShotz at Barnes & Noble (which is how I do most of my magazine reading nowadays), I was struck by the work of a couple of photographers which I feel are worth passing along.

Beth Moon has photographed trees around the world, and the images are ethereal and evocative. Some of these trees may well have been growing when Jesus Christ walked the earth; they're amazing things to contemplate; the low resolution images hardly do justice to them...but don't miss them, anyway.

On the other hand, her collection entitled Thy Kingdom Come is a bit disturbing – not in an overt or titillating way, mind you – with its pairings of children and apparently dead animals.

Rob Gray's work is more rooted in realism, as the collection on his website primarily reflects his nature photography taken around his home continent of Australia, where he traveled extensively in the world's weirdest and largest motorhome.

Rob also has posted some excellent tutorials, and an interesting discussion of his equipment arsenal (he switched to digital in 2004 and hasn't looked back).

However, it was his Faces in Nature collection that was showcased in SilverShotz and which drew me to his website. These are photographs of natural subjects like waterfalls and rocks which have been mirror-imaged (via Photoshop, I imagine) to reveal, well, faces. The serendipity involved in creating and discovering these images seems fascinating.

Technorati tags: Rob Gray | Beth Moon

Romper Room Reminiscing

A couple of years ago, I posted about a local cartoon show from my childhood called The Admiral Foghorn Show. That post and another one about an artist who appeared on the show stimulated a number of comments and emails from folks who remembered the shows and/or the actors from the decade of the 1960s. A few people mentioned a similar show of that same vintage, Romper Room, the local version of which (the show was essentially a franchise that appeared in just about every market in the US, and a few overseas) featured Miss Judy.

I was a little older than the target demographic, and thus was more fixated on the cartoons of The Admiral Foghorn Show, but Miss Judy was still a part of the collective consciousness of anyone growing up in west Texas during that period. And so I was pleased to get an email from someone who'd found one of the aforementioned posts, although some of the content wasn't so pleasant. Here's an excerpt:

The email came from Doug DeBolt, who is the Newsletter Editor for GEMC / GEORGIA Magazine. Doug, who graciously granted me permission to post this, was born in Odessa in the 60s, but hasn't been back in almost twenty years. His mother, Judy Fulton, is now 67 and dealing with metastasized breast cancer. She's also an advocate for the implementation of electronic medical records as a way of sparing patients the trials of having to repeat their medical histories over and over to every new physician they encounter.

If you remember Miss Judy from your childhood, or if you had kids that watched her on Romper Room, you might want to add her to your prayer list. I'm sure that she and her family would appreciate it.

Technorati tag: Romper Room

"Makng News: Texas Style" – Week 3

Having just watched the third episode of Making News: Texas Style, I'm wondering more than ever why they haven't subtitled it Cramming 20 minutes of original programming into a one-hour slot. And 20 minutes might be stretching it. As much as I want to see how the series unfolds, I'm not sure how much more I can take of the repetitious "what's gone on before" and "what's coming up next" announcements.

Anyway, here are some additional random observations about tonight's episode:

• The clichéd background music that appears whenever the storyline shifts to "demoted" anchorman Bill Warren is pretty sophomoric. As MLB put it (and at the risk of dating her), "it makes him look like Clem Kadiddlehopper." I wasn't thinking of that precise term, but the bumpkinesque soundtrack is clearly intended to reinforce Bill's age and "avuncular" personality. Points off for lack of subtlety.


• Melissa Correa is a sympathetic character, speaking frankly about her self-image problems and lack of confidence. It's sad really – she's a pretty girl and needs to realize it, but her chosen profession isn't kind to those who fight the battles she's struggling with.


• The fatal flaw in the show may prove not to be the goofy music or the annoying promos, but basic factual inaccuracy. If you're going to come to our towns and shoot some TV, the least you can do is correctly distinguish between Odessa and Midland. Case in point: next week's episode implies that reporter Kara Lee will visit pørn shops on "the seedier side of Midland." As Bleu points out in a comment on an earlier post, this works only if the "seedier side of Midland" is, in fact, Odessa. I realize this won't mean much, if anything, to viewers outside the area, but if the producers get this fundamental thing wrong, what else are they messing up?


• It was interesting to see Barry Marks, the station manager, on camera, giving a gentle dressing down to the troops for their failure to make up ground to their bitter competitors, KWES-TV (the NBC affiliate from which they "stole" Jay Hendricks, the new anchor). I once helped pitch a business idea to Marks. He passed. And the idea failed, proving that his judgment is to be respected.

Overall, tonight's episode was not the sort of thing that makes one wait with bated breath for the next one.

Technorati tag: Making News: Texas Style

Twins Wed Twins: Mystifying Marital Math

My wife called my attention to the wedding photos page in yesterday's Lifestyle section, where the pictures of two lovely – and apparently identical – young women posed in (non-identical) wedding gowns. The twin sisters had gotten married on Saturday, one at 5:00 p.m. and the other at 5:30 (wonder how they decided the times?), in the same church.

As if this wasn't unusual enough, further reading of the accounts of the weddings revealed that the girls' new husbands are also twins. And that raises all sorts of interesting questions.

According to this article, there are only about 250 documented instances where identical twins married identical twins (for the record, we don't know if the people described above are identical twins; the girls certainly look that way, but we weren't given photos of the guys). I'm sure this combination has practitioners of various disciplines – including psychologists, geneticists, and, um, crime lab scientists – salivating at the prospect of doing research.

The primary question that came to mind was whether any of the children born to these couples would be identical (and would they be cousins...or siblings?). There seems to be a difference of opinion regarding this issue (just google "twins marrying twins" and start reading; I can't do all of your research for you!), but the most compelling scientific arguments give the answer of "highly unlikely."

But, still, as I dimly recall some of the basics from my college genetics course, there is at least a statistical possibility that the offspring of these couples could be genetically identical. In any event, I'm sure these folks will be a hoot at family reunions. I hope name tags are provided.

"Making News: Texas Style" – Kara Responds

For those who are following the discussion arising from recent posts about our local reality TV series, you might be interested in KOSA-TV reporter Kara Lee's response to this one entitled "Making News: Texas Style": OK, I'll go first.... Scroll down to the penultimate entry to read her comment (bloggers always reserve the right to have the last word on their own posts. ;-)

As you may recall, I (and others) were pretty hard on Kara about her dialog and behavior shown in last week's episode. While I'm not backing off any of those observations, I do appreciate her willingness to give her side of the story with good humor. She can't be too upset about the fact that she's the one generating much of the buzz about the show.

Technorati tag: Making News: Texas Style

Ignorance is This

The plan was simple: hit the road around 6:45 a.m., return around 8:15, have a leisurely breakfast, coffee, and newspaper, and then figure out what to do with the remainder of our Saturday.

Since the friends we usually meet for Saturday breakfast are out of the country, we decided to upend our schedule and try something different. Last night, I lowered the tandem from its ceiling nest, aired up the tires to the preferred operating pressure, and moved the bike to the front of the garage for a quick exit the next morning.

We arose on time this morning, got dressed, shot the dog, and I went into the garage to wheel the bike out for an on-time departure. Everything had clicked into place; all systems were go. Only someone forgot to tell me that a flat rear tire was on the schedule.

It's always the rear tire, by the way. It's far too easy to fix a flat on the front.

This is where it got interesting. I figured I'd just pop the wheel off the bike, peel the offending tube off the rim and replace it with a new one. Disconnecting the rear drum brake cable was less straightforward than I'd hoped, thanks to partially stripped threads on the bolt, but the more serious problem was revealed when I unrolled the new tube and started stuffing it under the tire casing – and finding that I had a good two inches of tube left unstuffed after working my way all the way around the rim.

One of the arcane mysteries of bicycling that I've never mastered in all my years and miles of riding is the rationale behind the fact that a 26" x 1.25" tube (or tire) is not always equal to another 26" x 1.25" tube (or tire). Apparently, there are alternate universes where bicycle tubes are made, and those measurements will vary, and the inevitable result is that at 7:00 a.m. on an otherwise fine Saturday in June, I'll find myself dressed in cycling garb, holding a tube that too freaking big for my wheel, and not having an alternative course of action.

(Did I mention that the flat was due to a gash at the base of the valve stem, a condition that cannot be repaired? I offer this detail in case you were wondering why I didn't just patch the silly thing.)

To shorten this sad saga, the bike shop opened at 8:00, so we had our breakfast, coffee, and newspaper first, then I took the old and busted tube in and asked the sleepy-looking young man to give me two new ones just like it (only without the gash in the valve stem, which I'd provide myself at some later date), thereby completely avoiding demonstrating my utter inability to grasp the intricacies of wheel sizing.

Back home, I replace the tube, remounted the wheel, and we were on the road before 9:00. The overall schedule still worked out; we just dealt with a different sequence of events.

As fascinating as I know this is for you to contemplate, here's the silver lining. First, we'd ridden the tandem for six months carrying a spare tube that wouldn't have worked had we experienced a flat while on the road – which we didn't. The flat occurred in the safety of our garage.

Second, while scrounging around for an alternative, including a desperate check of my single bike to see if its tube would fit (completely forgetting for a moment that that bike uses presta valves while our tandem is strictly a schraeder valve aficionado) I discovered that I wasn't actually carrying a spare tube on my bike, even though I thought I was. There again, I'd pedaled for months blissfully unaware that I was lacking a basic piece of backup gear – and gotten away with it.

Sometimes, I wonder if our guardian angel ever lobbies God for overtime pay.

A Story

Once upon a time, there was a little golden-haired girl who slumbered in silken sheets, and God whispered his love to her, and she smiled in her sleep.

As she grew older, God continued to whisper to her, but she forgot how to listen to him. She smiled less and less, even though she lived in the midst of riches that the rest of the world could only guess at.

At some point, she began again to hear a voice in her sleep, but it wasn't God speaking, and it didn't make her smile. This voice didn't tell her she was loved, but that she could be loved, if only she would do...things. Things she knew were unspeakable, but the voice convinced her otherwise.

So she did them, and, sure enough, the world said that it loved her. The more outrageously she behaved, the more it applauded her, and the stronger the voice spoke to her in those times no one else would.

Then one day, she did things that even the world would not accept, and her freedom was taken away from her. Everything she held important was taken away.

As she lay on her prison bunk, far from the silken sheets of her youth and drifting in and out of a fitful sleep, the golden-haired girl thought she heard a familiar voice, so soft, so tender. She didn't know how to answer the voice; she didn't know if she even deserved to hear it. But she lay still and silent, and then a wonderful thing happened. She was changed – not physically, not so you tell just from looking at her, although the smile she'd lost as a little girl returned – but in her heart and soul and spirit.

Later, when she was released, the world pretended again to care, and the acclamation seemed overwhelming but the young woman was untouched by it all. The world didn't notice.

A television network came to her and offered a vast sum of money if she would tell her story in front of their cameras, much to the outrage of the competing networks who deemed it unethical (besides, they would have paid more). She agreed to do so, and was soon seated in a studio across from a professional-looking woman – a TV star – who had a long list of questions designed to satisfy the needs of the untold millions of people who would be watching when the taped segment was finally aired.

So, tell us what prison was like, the professional interviewer, who had heard it all before, many times over.

I will tell you, but first, I want to thank your network for paying me so much money to be here. And I want to let you know that I will be donating that money – plus another five hundred million dollars – to an organization called Voice of the Martyrs.

The interviewer frowned, and heard frantic conversation from the director and crew over her earpiece. What is Voice of the Martyrs?! Who knows anything about it? Oh, you've got to be kidding me: it's something religious!

The golden-haired woman continued, with an assurance hitherto unseen. Prison was both the worst and the best experience of my life. But what I want you to know is that I learned once more how to listen to God, and I re-learned his love and grace. I let him change me, and as wonderful as that is, what I want more than anything in the world is for you to experience that same change.

The interviewer's eyes had narrowed to slits, her worldly cynicism turning her lips to flint. She'd heard it all, and she wasn't buying it.

The golden-haired woman continued speaking, her voice low and calm and sweet, her face beatific. And an amazing thing happened. As she listened to the woman's story, the interviewer's features began to soften, following her heart. Her lips loosened and her eyes widened and glistened. And wondrously, inconceivably, she found herself down on her knees, sobbing and crying out to the same God she'd denied her entire life, since the time she, too, decided to stop listening to his voice in her youthful sleep.

The golden-haired girl knelt in front of the TV star, wrapping her lovely arms around the star's shaking shoulders, and calming her with whispers of God's love and redemption.

The producers and director were aghast, and the network executives wasted no time in calling to express their extreme displeasure. We can't use this; it's completely worthless. We'll be laughingstocks around the world. They instructed the producers to destroy the tape, and they mentally wrote off their investment.

Leaving the studio an hour later, the golden-haired woman emerged from the studio hand-in-hand with the interviewer, both faces tear-streaked but smiling, and were engulfed by waiting paparazzi and hangers-on who were oblivious to what had just occurred on the closed set inside the building.

The pair pressed through the mob, the people reluctantly parting, puzzled at the expressions on the faces of the two women. At the street corner, they hugged, and the TV star continued to the right to her parking space. The golden-haired girl waited for the light to change so that she could cross the street to a waiting limo. She found herself standing next to a bag lady, pushing a shopping cart and heading in the same direction.

The bag lady, confused by the scene at the nearby studio and mumbling incoherently to herself, stepped off the curb before the light changed, unmindful of the onrushing bus. No one noticed, because they were all focused – eyes and cameras – on the golden-haired woman.

And thus they were witnesses to the shattering impact of the bus slamming against her slender body, but not before her sacrificial leap had pushed the bag lady out of harm's way. The mob grew temporarily silent at the sight of golden-haired woman's lifeless body, limp and broken, but some would later speak of an inexplicable faint smile on the lips.

None of them noticed the bag lady's exit, nor the faint glow emanating from beneath the tattered red watch cap she wore.

As expected, hundreds of photos and videos of the golden-haired woman's unselfish act appeared within hours on the internet and via national and international news broadcasts. However, the release of the taped network interview on YouTube was completely unexpected – and unexplained. The producers would later swear that it had been destroyed immediately following the phone call from their bosses.

Within a few days, every corner of the earth had seen or heard the golden-haired clear and beautiful testimony of God's salvation, and her cogent explanation of how to follow in her footsteps.

Then, a few days later, seven trumpet calls, blown by unseen lips, were heard 'round the world.

Glockworks

The functioning of a modern semi-automatic pistol is a thing of marvelous mechanical complexity. Pulling the trigger initiates a series of Rube Goldbergesque steps that, at a minimum, cause the firing pin to impact the cartridge, firing the bullet, and channeling the subsequent recoil energy into ejecting the spent cartridge, loading the next one from the magazine, and positioning the trigger and hammer to do it all over again – and all in an eyeblink.

Each gun manufacturer accomplishes these basic steps in slightly different ways, but few if any do it better than Glock. However, unless you are the Man of Steel, or have a really powerful laser guided cutting tool and steady hand, you'll never be able to actually watch the process in action. Well, until now, that is...

Hat tip to the weekly US Concealed Carry newsletter, which in turn was made known to me by my pal Mutt.

Upping the Ante: The Story Continues

Playing around with an old word exercise...something suggested by a reader more than a fortnight back...she knows who she is...

Don't try this at home. Trained professional on closed course. Your mileage may vary.

The cowhide-enfolded steering wheel he clutched was attached to a 1932 Ford. That deuce coupe was his pride and joy, his only affectation in a life that was otherwise fully given over to a single-minded focus on a job the significance of which only eleven other people on the planet fully grasped -- and three of them weren't likely to survive the night.

He'd won the car during a marathon game -- if "game" is indeed the proper term for a competitive endeavor wherein the losers are likely to end up with brainpans filled with the equivalent of three-day old risotto -- of suicide hold 'em, matching wits and hands with a variety of adversaries, most of whom were human, and all but one alive. That last one was, of course, more than an annoyance. If there's anything in the universe likely to grate on your soul, it's playing cards against your wife.

College Daze: And so it begins...

That highly anticipated event is almost upon us and we're giddy with, um, anticipation. No, it's not Paris Hilton's imminent release from prison, it's the beginning of the Nephew's college career.

It got real last night as we helped him get signed up for a session with a faculty adviser (800 miles of driving for a one-hour meeting on July 30th – bye-bye, Blogathon), got the details for the mandatory student orientation in mid-August, and, most importantly, nailed down the deadline for mailing the first tuition and fees check.

We also hopped onto Apple's Education Store website and ordered him a MacBook, meaning that he'll now have a better computer than me, not that I'm jealous or anything.

It's all pretty exciting, actually. I haven't been back on the A&M campus in at least twenty years, and I'm sure I won't recognize much of anything. I doubt that the Corps quad has changed a lot, though, and that's where the Nephew will be calling home for the next four years, if things unfold according to plan.

I'll try not to burden you with every detail – but, no promises. This is a big deal; if he does graduate (and he will) he'll be the first in his family to do so.

Prayers gratefully accepted. Cash, too. ;-)

Random Thursday

Reaffirming the inherent value of white noise, even of the pixelized persuasion, I offer the following for your snoozing pleasure:

• I just found the new issue of Mountain Biking Magazine laying on a side table, under other important publications like the TV program listing and an old Crutchfield catalog. (MBM nowadays comes bundled with Bicycling Magazine, apparently because nobody will read it, otherwise.) One of the cover headlines is Go Faster Without Pedaling. Yeah, it's called "driving."


• I noticed that the sports page in our local newspaper is sporting a new story category. Alongside of "Major League Baseball," "Track and Field," and "NFL" we now have "Felony Roundup." (I suspect the sports department is having a little fun with us.) It's a sad commentary on modern life that (1) there are enough stories to fill out such a section and (2) they don't even have to resort to misdemeanors.


• And speaking of misdemeanors, this morning's paper carries a report of a naked man walking through our neighborhood yesterday evening. (I have an alibi, so put that thought to rest right this minute.) He was arrested somewhere on Boulder Street, just south of Loop 250. Boulder is just a block or two from the Gazette Global Headquarters and Manufacturing Facility. What's notable is that the story made a big deal out of the fact that he was "in the neighborhood" where Parker Elementary School is located. Well, not to defend anyone crazed enough to expose that much flesh to our newly-hatched mosquito population – although, frankly, we've all done it, haven't we? – but Parker is a half mile away, across a drainage ditch the size of the LA River, and school has been out of session for several weeks. It just seemed to be some unnecessary arm-waving about a felony that almost was.


• I shudder to think what this might do to the Gazette's search engine traffic, but on a windless day disposing of the remains of a fully-grown Hindu can take six hours and 500kg of wood. That's according to this article in The Economist. This poses a pretty significant problem for India's environment:
  
  With around 8.5m Hindus expiring each year in India, these pyres exact a huge environmental toll. By one estimate, they consume around 50m trees a year, producing 500,000 tonnes of ash and 8m tonnes of carbon dioxide.
  
  Why, that's the equivalent of the carbon footprint of a month's worth of jacuzzi baths for Al Gore. (Oh, man – there's another unfortunate Google phrase.)

In closing, let me remind you that according to the Texas Mileage Guide, it's 391.9 miles from Midland to College Station. The significance of this number, and others of even greater magnitude will be made clearer later on. In the meantime, I'd appreciate if you'd start rounding up your spare change; I'll provide mailing instructions.

"Are we that shallow?"

Following up on the previous post about Making News: Texas Style, I revisited Geoff Fox's blog to get his impressions of the second episode. The title of this post was lifted from his report; here it is in context:

Geoff uses "we" in the first sentence because he's a TV weatherman at WTNH in Connecticut. He's experienced and competent (they don't give Emmys to just anyone) and so it's a bit surprising to me that he'd even ask the question.

Yes, Geoff, you are that superficial. But, really, it's not your fault; we've made you that way.

We – the TV audience – judge you on-camera folks on the most shallow of criteria: Are you thin enough? Are your teeth white enough? Is your smile winsome enough? Do you have good hair (weathermen and, occasionally, sportscasters get a pass on this one)? If you're not at least as pretty as what we see when we look in our mirrors, then your credibility takes a hit. Your career is dependent on whether you can entice us to keep putting your channel on at 6 and 10, instead of watching Seinfeld reruns.

The good news is that you're no more superficial than anyone else in America who makes more than a subsistence income and thus has the time and energy to worry about what other people think about them. You just happened to have chosen a profession that requires you to stress over the issue.

If I have a beef with your observation, it's that you've labeled as shallow people you don't know. You, of all people, should know how the camera and the editor can join forces to make a silk purse from a pig's ear, or a saint from a horse's rear. Judging the competence of the news crew at KOSA – and especially their "intellectual depth" – based on a few minutes of "reality TV" is unfair at best. (And before you take me to task for doing the same thing, keep in mind that I've observed many of these folks on TV and in "real life" for years.)

Maybe we don't have as many life-or-death issues out here in the flatlands of west Texas, or perhaps our discussions aren't often burdened with an excess of gravitas. Frankly, that's why we like living out here. (Lord knows it isn't for the scenery.) Having nothing to cover except a basketball game featuring some waitresses doesn't make the reporter any less serious about his profession, or any less competent. We all have to work with what we've got.

I know. Perception is reality. That's the curse, and the pleasure, of so-called realty TV. But heaven help us when we start believing everything we see.

Technorati tag: Making News: Texas Style

"Making News: Texas Style": OK, I'll go first...

I could grow old waiting for the other local bloggers to write anything about Making News: Texas Style. You'd think that an original reality show set in west Texas featuring well known local people would generate some insights and opinions, but I guess I'm the only one with nothing better to do.

I caught the second installment of the series last night (my wife DVRed the first showing but I haven't decided whether I'll watch it) and offer the following observations. But to bring newcomers up to speed, the show was filmed at the local CBS affiliate, whose studios are in a mall in Odessa, and it offers "behind the scenes" looks at the news operation.

• First, all those years of watching CNN and Fox News have apparently paid off, as the continually scrolling program listings at the bottom of the screen weren't as distracting as I expected. Still, watching an actual show on the TV Guide channel is, well, strange. It's kind of like letterboxing on steroids.


• There's an old adage in the training profession that goes, "tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em, tell 'em, and then tell 'em what you told 'em." That sort of repetition does improve the effectiveness of a classroom, but it hardly makes for compelling TV. And thus we're maddened by the massive number of "reviews" and "previews" immediately preceding and following commercial breaks (of which there are many, as in, like, infinity). Seriously, do they think our attention spans are so small as to render us unaware of what happened five minutes earlier? [Now, out of an overdeveloped sense of fairness, I'll concede that the very nature of the TV Guide Network probably justifies such reminders, what with people popping in and out at odd times to check on which channels are not showing "Law and Order" re-runs; those folks are probably shocked to see actual programming taking place, assuming they even notice it. Just as I unconsciously filtered out the program listings, I'll bet many of the TV Guide visitors filter out the program itself, thinking it's an ad.]


• Anyway, my point in that previous paragraph is that this series is supposed to consist of thirteen episodes, and I'm curious as to whether they've actually got the footage for that run, given that last night's one hour broadcast was a pretty solid twenty minutes of original content.


• The show itself was probably entertaining for viewers who are familiar with all the characters. I'm not sure how captivating it was for the other 200 million American viewers. According to this website, the Midland/Odessa market is #159 (just behind Minot-Bismarck-Dickinson (Williston), ND and just ahead of Biloxi-Gulfport, MS) out of #210. However, the size of the market is what should attract viewers, because it shows a component of the TV news business that is rarely seen. Everyone focuses on the major markets, forgetting that millions of people don't get their local news via those outlets.


• The fascination with the show comes in seeing familiar people let their guards down, and some come off better than others. Here's my scorecard...
  
  
  • Jay Hendricks - Not surprisingly, Jay comes off as the eye of the storm. He's confident in his role and his abilities, even if he's champing at the bit to get back on camera (his non-compete clause with his previous employer kept him off the air for six months).
  
  
  • Tatum Hubbard - The former Miss Texas and Jay's co-anchor is relegated to a bit part in this episode; her only line of dialog is an almost unintelligible response to one of the station's reporter's complaints about a story the reporter is involved in. I assume we'll see more of Tatum in future episodes.
  
  
  • Kara Lee - Lee is a young reporter from Houston and occasional back-up anchor who is passing through this market on her way to bigger and better things. She's the most entertaining character of the bunch, but that's not necessarily a good thing. She curses like a sailor and doesn't hide her disdain for us rubes out here in Hicksville. Darlin', you may be able to ratchet up your Texas twang a bit in an attempt to ingratiate yourself to the citizens of Goldsmith, but don't mistake good-natured tolerance for acceptance. Also, you might want to learn the difference between a donkey and a burro. However, you do get props for chasing down and confronting the tow-truck driver who blew his airhorn behind you just as you began a live report from the field. Kara may be a force to be reckoned with if her skill and on-air charisma ever catch up to her ambition.
  
  
  • Jeff Stewart, the station's sports director, seems to be having the most fun of the group. He laments that he has to use his own vehicle to chase down stories because the station's fleet is broken and acknowledges the irony of the station owner also running a car dealership. But he's having fun because he gets to play basketball with the Hooter's Girls (in an exhibition game that the girls win by one point, an accomplishment that escapes at least one of them: Did we win?, she queries one of her teammates after the game). It puzzles me that Jeff doesn't get billing with the main cast of characters for the show; perhaps last night's episode marks the apex of his reality show involvement. This segment of the show is also marked by the brief appearance of Scott Shields, the sports director over at the NBC affiliate, and it offers a glimpse as to how media outlets in small markets work together, even as they compete.
  
  
  • The drama in the show is attributable to the presence of Bill Warren, the previous anchor whose place Jay Hendricks is taking. He's not happy with the demotion and says so. [Completely peripheral issue: he talks about the situation where he's now working for Jay. I figured the whole news department reported to the news director. Does the anchor actually have supervisory authority over other members of the team?] Bill's contract expires in July, and he's unsure of his future past that time. His angst is palpable and understandable, and yet he deals with it with humor, albeit of a gallows nature.


• One obvious absence in last night's show was the entire weather team. Again, perhaps that will change in future episodes, but the weather reports are a big reason people tune into local broadcasts, and CBS-7 has made some interesting choices in their choices of weathermen.

In summary, Making News: Texas Style has good production values, and demonstrates that the profession of TV news reporters is not all that different from any other in terms of day-to-day challenges. The people are flawed – just like you and me – and they're probably less confident in their abilities than you and I might believe. But they like what they're doing, and they take their responsibilities seriously. I doubt the show will win any Emmys, but it's not a waste of time, either. We'll be watching again next week.

Here's another blogger's take on the show, based on the first episode. Perhaps we'll see some other local bloggers chiming in at some point.

Wherefore art thou, Chantico?

Big companies make big deals out of new products, especially menu additions at retail food and beverage outlets. But the demise of failed products is rarely noted (except, perhaps, by the competition, which can be so catty sometimes).

Thus it is that I've finally put my finger what that hole in the Starbucks menu board once held: the pretentiously-named "Chantico drinking chocolate," the introduction of which I hailed – sort of – two years ago.

It may well have been absent from the Starbucks lineup for a year, for all I know, but I'm just now noticing it. I tried it once, and found that despite assertions to the contrary it is, indeed, possible to have too much of a good thing, even when that good thing is only an ounce or two of melted chocolate. The drink was obscenely rich in calories and fat grams, but this was also at a time when the American public was in thrall to Krispy Kreme, so it's not like the demand for food pørn was unplumbed. It also had an odd flavor, which I decided without the burden of any insight whatsoever was some kind of additive – diesel, perhaps? – designed to keep the chocolate liquefied.

Apparently, people lined up in droves to not order Chantico, and thus it's been relegated to some future entry in a Trivial Pursuit game. But I do have to wonder if somewhere, some poor product designer has an edited Dilbert strip affixed to his or her cubicle memorializing the one that never quite made it out of the infield.

Sharia Banking

I bought a copy of The Economist last week, enticed by the cover story, Apple and the art of innovation. Imagine my surprise to find that the article was a one page essay which, while mildly interesting – especially the contention that much of Apple's success is due to its willingness to bring in ideas from outside the company, and then build on them – was hardly worth the $5.99 cover price. (To be fair, there was another three-page profile of Steve Jobs elsewhere in the magazine, but it didn't plow any new ground.)

Fortunately, The Economist is chock-full of interesting tidbits that almost justify the steep single-issue price, especially if you can get a post or two out of it. One that caught my eye was a profile of Hussein Hamid Hassan, a resident of Dubai who has the highly specialized profession of issuing financial fatwas, which are essentially Islamic seals-of-approval certifying that the instruments or arrangements in question are sharia compliant.

The sharia financial system prohibits, among others things, the charging or paying of interest (although, apparently, returns from equity investments are permitted; you're just supposed to not make money from money. This Wikipedia article clarifies the concept somewhat.). Financial instruments that skirt this prohibition are called sukuk, the equivalent of an Islamic bond. I don't purport to understand the intricacies of such an instrument, but it appears that the main distinction between sukuk and traditional bonds is that the former is more closely tied to a specific tangible asset, a technicality that presumably qualifies it for Mr. Hassan's fatwa.

A lot of this seems to be financial sleight-of-hand, semantics, or playing loose with the facts, but the real significance is that the Islamic financial system is rapidly gaining strength. Mr. Hassan is quoted in the article as predicting that "...in a few years all the Gulf states will move to an Islamic financial system." And, in fact, last year East Cameron Partners, based in Houston, issued a $166 million sukuk, making it the first American company – and an oil company, at that – to do so. This PDF describes in detail that instrument, which was used to finance the acquisition of overriding royalty interests in some offshore GOM production. It's interesting to note that the transaction was scrutinized by not one but two shariah advisers, one in the US and one in Bahrain. The final instrument was actually a "Sukuk al-Musharaka", which is a joint venture arrangement.

It remains to be seen whether sharia-compliant banking is another sign of an Islamic conquest of the world. The issuance of significant numbers of sukuks and other shariah-compliant instruments by non-Islamic entities seems to be a double-edged sword, and raises some interesting questions, such as whether US companies should engage in business practices that are explicitly Islamic in nature.

In the attitude of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," some might argue that one might as well make the best of things, and make money in the process. In addition, there's an argument to be made that investment decisions surrounding sharia-compliant financial instruments are not substantially different than those made in keeping with other ethical or moral guidelines (e.g. the decision to buy stock in cosmetic companies that don't do product testing on animals).

There are some equally interesting peripheral issues, as well. If sharia banking grows as predicted, business schools will be forced to adjust their curricula accordingly. Tufts University's Fletcher School of International Affairs has a course entitled "Islamic Banking and Finance," which is an overview of the subject; it has similar courses for finance in China, Latin America, and East Asia. However, at some point the business school curricula will have to move from the overview into the practical, training accountants, economists, bankers, financiers, and so on in the hands-on issues related to such things. That transition may not be smooth. It took decades of corporate abuse to convince MBA programs of the need for beefed-up ethics training; what will it take to make them create a curriculum that is explicitly rooted in a specific religion?

And, finally, the new instruments could present challenges to analysts and potential investors who are trying to assess the financial status of companies who have issued (or invested in) them. Should a sukuk be treated as traditional debt in computing liquidity or leverage ratios? How does one assess the risk associated with such instruments? Clearly, these are issues that require new thinking for professional training and investor education.

An excellent overview of this topic is found here, Islamic Finance - The New Mainstream Alternative, via InvestorsOffshore.com.

Technorati tags: Islamic Finance | Islamic Banking | sukuk

The Next "Napoleon Dynamite"?

The Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern reviewed Eagle vs. Shark last Friday and liked it a lot.

The trailer seems to support Morgenstern's recommendation. Gotta love those Kiwi accents, too (right, Rachel?).

Unfortunately, as it doesn't involve a $100 million/per hour running time budget and 8,000 CGI artists*, it likely won't appear in Midland except in individual mailboxes courtesy of NetFlix. Nothing seems to anathematize a film in the eyes of local programmers quite like the combination of the adjectives "quirky" and "foreign."

*Not that's there's inherently anything wrong with such films. But do they always merit four screens at a time? I think not.

Charles Sovek (1937-2007)

I've noticed more than a few visitors are coming to the Gazette* seeking information about Charles Sovek's obituary. As a public service – I'm not sure it's linked anywhere else – you can find it here. This page also has a link to the funeral home's guestbook. If you were a fan or student of his work, I'm sure his family would appreciate your condolences.

*Charles was an internationally recognized artist and author, and my client for more than five years. His death on June 8 was a shock, and I will miss him. We had exchanged 5,000 emails since 2002 (he was an active participant in the management of his website), and I came to think of him as a friend as much as a client. Our discussions ranged from website design to computer graphics and hardware, to the next kind of van he was thinking about buying. I never met him in person.

Fender Bender Render

Last week, I wrote about the experience of witnessing a car crash in the parking lot of a local coffee shop, and not having the presence of mind (aka, "journalistic instincts") to take any photos. Someone left a comment lamenting the lack of visuals, and I promised to provide a separate but equal answer.

I secured the services of a professional crime scene sketch artist named Julio, who is living in our country under the auspices of a secret government program. I can't tell you how I came to know Julio; you're better off not knowing – plausible deniability and all that. Anyway, I spent some time describing the horrific scenes from that fateful evening when our friend – let's call him "Jeff" – had his very existence shaken to the core in front of the south-side Starbucks.

What I'm about to show you is an artistic re-creation of the events leading up to the event in question, as well as the event itself, and its frightful aftermath. After experiencing this re-creation, I suspect that you'll feel as though you were an active participant. I can provide you with the name of a competent trauma counselor if you so desire (and your insurance will accommodate the visits).

In the first scene, it should be obvious that the setting was custom made for a disaster. It's also obvious that "Jeff" parked his car in the worst possible place, and while I'm sorry to have to shine the light on his culpability, it's just my journalistic instincts finally kicking in. Note, too, how blithely unaware we all are of the horror that's about to unfold before us. Such was our blissful innocence about the cruelty of the world we inhabit that we were focused more on the unusual smelling cigarette smoke coming from the table next to us than on the murderous tableau mere feet away.

In Scene 2, we find that the assailant has launched her rocket disguised as a beater Cougar (not to be confused with a "cougar beater," which is illegal in all 47 contiguous states and Arkansas) toward the unsuspecting Pontiac, the latter having no more acumen about its fate than a three ball sitting on the felt before the cue ball explodes into it.

A fraction of an instant later – as quickly as a gnat's wing beats, oh, say two or three times...four, tops – the damage is done. Note the extreme surprise of "Jeff" and his companions. However, the four people sitting at the next table stayed calm and cool, carefully shepherding their unusual cigarette. Note also how the concussion of the impact seems to have transported the witnesses, along with their tables and chairs, off the patio and into the interior of the store itself. (Frankly, I don't remember this happening, so I suspect it's the result of some artistic license on Julio's part.)

Scene 4 has the potential to be somewhat incriminating, as it shows "Jeff" and his companions exulting over the inert body of the unfortunate driver who caused the wreck, after they bludgeoned her with the Pontiac's rear bumper. Here again, I don't really remember this; all I remember was how strong that dang cigarette smelled. In any event, Julio was pretty insistent that since all of his past sketches had involved chalk outlines, he wanted to make sure one got included here, too.

It's worth noting that the teleportation effect first documented in Scene 3 is still in effect.

I hope this has been helpful to you in visualizing what happened that night. If you really want to get the full effect – and I'm not suggesting that you should do this, mind you – you can print this post, cut out the four scenes, and make a flip-movie out of them. I'm pretty sure that's the way Pixar does their stuff.

In case you need me...

...I'll be in an undisclosed location watching this, which I received yesterday as an early birthday present from my brother and his wife.

This could prove to be a very unproductive week for me.

Technorati tag: Firefly

Chill Bump Inducing

Update: Deborah (whose absence from the blogosphere has only one acceptable excuse, which is that she's focused on writing a novel – and if that's not the case, then we demand some new Glove Box Stories, toot sweet) tells me that the man in the video linked below is singing the Nessun Dorma from Puccini's "Turandot," one of her favorite operas. She provides a helpful link to a translation and exposition of that aria. While I'm impressed with her knowledge and passion for this art form – and I love having opera-lovers for readers; it makes me feel less low-rent – for me, this video is not really about the opera. The guy could be singing the back of a Cheerios box and still deserve a standing ovation. Although I'll confess that his performance is made more meaningful because of his choice of material. He's obviously in it for the love of the music, and not for the commercial potential.

Jimmy posted a link to the short version of the following video. It speaks for itself.

Firefox Plugin: iTunes Store Search

One of the features I appreciate about Firefox is the ability to change the default search engine in the Search Bar. Although I primarily keep Google as my default, I often switch to Wikipedia, IMDB.com or Amazon.com, depending on what I'm working on.

You can use the Manage Search Engines option on the Search Bar to download and install additional search plugins via Mozilla's Add-On page. However, that page does not include a complete list of all available search add-ons. Mozilla also hosts the Mycroft Project Sherlock & OpenSearch Plugins page, which provides a portal to more than 11,000 search plugins. If your mind is boggled by that number, take comfort in the fact that you can search the Mycroft database to find just what you're looking for.

And that's precisely how I came across a gem of a search plug-in for the iTunes Store. This plug-in, created by Matt Cox of the UK, installed without a hitch on my version of Firefox (2.0.0.4, running on Mac OS 10.3.9), and works just like any other search plug-in. When selected in the Search Bar, any terms input to the search box (or highlighted and right-clicked in the body of a web page) are submitted to the iTunes Store for matches. It's a great way to check on the availability of music or videos at iTunes without leaving your browser.

Sort of. In reality, the search is not carried out via your browser. Firefox actually hooks onto iTunes, opens that application, and submits the search to the iTunes Store's search engine. From a computer resource perspective, it's not any more efficient, but it does save a mouse click or two, and the ability to hightlight/right-click on a word or phrase also saves keystrokes.

I don't know if this plug-in works in Windows. The documentation says that it's based on the Sherlock standard, which Apple developed, but I don't know if it's cross-platform. If you are running Firefox under Windows and want to try it out, I'd love to get a report as to if and how it works.

Update: My pal Jim confirms in the comments that this plug-in works fine on his Windows setup (Ffox 2.0.0.4 on Win XP sp2).

Buy this DVD: "Rocking the Boat"

My "Pre-Release Special Limited Edition" copy of Rocking the Boat: A Musical Conversation & Journey arrived in yesterday afternoon's mail delivery. I opened the package immediately but managed the discipline to delay putting it in the player until late in the afternoon. Good thing, too, because once I started it, I couldn't tear myself away.

I mentioned this movie in a recent post about Delbert McClinton's local appearance last Saturday. In that post, I lamented the lack of intimacy in the concert venue that kept McClinton's music from being at its best. This DVD overcomes that limitation, and then some. The movie is a compilation of interviews and performances arising from McClinton's annual floating R&B festival – a chartered cruise ship filled with amazing musicians and appreciative fans. If you appreciate "lyric based rhythm and blues" (and, really, who doesn't?), and especially if you like the Texas and Louisiana flavors of the blues (as opposed to, say, Mississippi and Georgia), then this disk is an absolute must-have.

The cruises feature a wide range of music, ranging from alt-country to gospel to roadhouse blues to zydeco. Most of the songs are performed by the people who wrote them. Joining Delbert are luminaries such as Marcia Ball (who is introduced by a worshipful McClinton – "listening to her is like...hearing the truth."), Rodney Crowell (whose rendition of "Dancin' Circles Round the Sun" had me filling my iTunes Store shopping cart with more of his music), Paul Thorn (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Jason Statham of The Transporter movie franchise, albeit with an Alabama accent), and many others.

As much as anything, this is a tribute by, for, and to people who just like making music. They're not in it for the money; they're in it for the music, and it shows. If that statement doesn't resonate with you, you're better off with anything from the Hottest Hits rack at Best Buy, but if you know what I'm saying, you'll want to click over and buy the movie. At $25, it ain't cheap, but when you spread it out over the repeat viewings and listenings you'll subject it to, it'll be a rare value.

Note that this movie is unrated, and there are a few occurrences of strong language.

How Not to Administer a Privacy Policy

I recently received an email from MarketWatch, a Dow Jones financial news and research service. The email was alerting me to a new privacy policy for the MarketWatch website:

Clicking here leads to the website's privacy policy page, as I expected. What I didn't expect was the complete absence of any explanation as to what was changing from the previous policy. And, in fact, the previous policy was nowhere to be found – despite the fact that the new one isn't scheduled to become effective until June 26 – so that even if I wanted to try to compare the two statements, I couldn't.

Someone at MarketWatch really dropped the ball on this one. Privacy and data security issues are important enough that every company should go out of its way to describe in detail its policies, and to highlight changes in those policies. This would seem to be especially important for a financial services website, but it applies universally.

For what it's worth, the new policy is explicit in describing MarketWatch's use of cookies, web beacons, and third-party targeted ads. I haven't decided whether to continue my subscription to the site's services, but their lack of consideration for their visitors is not pushing me toward staying with them.

Texas Monthly's "Best & Worst Legislators" List

Want a sneak peak at the 2007 edition of Texas Monthly Magazine's list of what its staffers consider to be the best and worst state legislators? You can read the article (for the next 24 hours, anyway) via this non-registration link. The article will appear in the July edition of the magazine.

If you want to cut to the chase, here are the "winners":

The Best and Worst Legislators for 2007, in alphabetical order, are:

THE BEST
Rafael Anchia, Democrat, Dallas
Sen. John Carona, Republican, Dallas
Byron Cook, Republican, Corsicana
Sen. Bob Deuell, Republican, Mesquite
Scott Hochberg, Democrat, Houston
Lois Kolkhorst, Republican, Brenham
Jerry Madden, Republican, Plano
Sen. Steve Ogden, Republican, Bryan
Sylvester Turner, Democrat, Houston
Sen. Tommy Williams, Republican, The Woodlands

THE WORST
Lon Burnam, Democrat, Fort Worth
Warren Chisum, Republican, Pampa
Speaker Tom Craddick, Republican, Midland
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Republican
Sen. Troy Fraser, Republican, Marble Falls
Charlie Howard, Republican, Sugar Land
Sen. Eddie Lucio, Democrat, Brownsville
Sen. Dan Patrick, Republican, Houston
Gov. Rick Perry, Republican
Debbie Riddle, Republican, Houston

An additional list of "Furniture" is also provided. Here's how the magazine describes this category: The concept of “furniture” originated in the early years of the Legislature to describe members who were no more consequential than their desks, chairs, inkwells, and spittoons—the equivalent of backbenchers in Parliament. Today the term is only mildly pejorative; the sin lies not in being furniture but in failing to recognize it.

Alma Allen Democrat, Houston
Roberto Alonzo Democrat, Dallas
Wayne Christian Republican, Center
Senator Craig Estes Republican, Wichita Falls
Joe Farias Democrat, San Antonio
Jim Jackson Republican, Carrollton
Senator Mike Jackson Republican, League City
Nathan Macias Republican, Bulverde
Armando Martinez Democrat, Weslaco

If you're expecting some kind of commentary from me about any of this, I hate to disappoint you but you'll need to look elsewhere.

[Not] Thinking Like a Blogger

My wife and I were visiting with a friend and fellow blogger last evening on the patio of our favorite caffeinery when our conversation was interrupted by the roar of a car engine followed immediately by that sickening metal-on-metal crash. Thirty feet from our table, a older-model black Cougar had backed forcefully into a new Pontiac, which in turn was pushed into a new Tahoe parked next to it. A new Tahoe which, unfortunately, belonged to our friend.

We sat, stunned, for a couple of seconds, not believing what we'd just witnessed (for we had looked up at the sound of the engine just in time to see the crash). We then rushed over to the female driver who was already out, inspecting the damage, and in tears. She was fine, physically, but shaken by what she'd just done.

The Pontiac was badly damaged. The driver's side rear wheel was canted at an unnatural angle and the rear quarter panel was collapsed. However, it was difficult to discern the damage to the Tahoe, because the passenger side rear quarter panel was firmly embedded in the Tahoe's front passenger side panel (it had been backed into its parking space). There was no way to move either car without adding to the damage.

We had been preparing to leave for home when all of this happened, but we stayed around long enough to loan a cell phone for a call to the police and requisite family members, and to assure ourselves that the situation was under control. When we left, our friend was discussing Harry Potter with a barista, while the unfortunate woman driver continued to shed tears while sitting on her car's damaged bumper.

"So," you're probably asking, "what does any of this have to do with the post title?" Good question; I'd expect nothing less from my astute readers. Here's the deal: it never occurred to me to take photos. We had two perfectly good phones with cameras, and we didn't capture any part of this scene for later reporting.

I've never had illusions that this blog is a journalistic resource, and this seems to confirm it. Of course, it's not like this was Big News – not like, say, "Paris In Prison" or "Paris Not In Prison" or "Paris Eats Cheerios in Prison" – but it was something out of the ordinary. A real journalist would have responded differently.

On the other hand, it's also a bit comforting to realize that maybe I'm not an obsessed blogger, after all. If my first (or even second or third) thought wasn't, "man, I've got to blog this!" then perhaps there's hope for me after all.

On the third hand, I did blog about it, didn't I?

It's worth noting that if a picture is worth a thousand words, I've at least offered 45% of a photo via this post. Not including this footnote.

"Making News: Texas Style"

I had heard rumors about a new reality show supposedly filmed at a local TV station, but until I saw this article* in this morning's newspaper, I had no details.

Making News: Texas Style is a behind the scenes look at the new operations at KOSA-TV, the local CBS affiliate broadcasting from – if you can believe it – a shopping mall in nearby Odessa. If it sounds low-rent, don't believe it; KOSA is the hot ticket in local TV nowadays, giving the previous 800-pound gorilla in the market, the NBC affiliate (KWES), a run for its money.

The fun thing about this series is that all the characters are familiar to west Texans. We see most of them every day – not only on TV but all around town – and some of them we've "known" for decades. The exposure of the reasoning and strategy behind some of the recent decisions and personnel moves should be fascinating.

One important detail omitted in the newspaper article is that the TV Guide Network is Channel 76 on Suddenlink's system, and Channel 18 on Grande Communications. (Sidenote: Good luck finding any programming guide on Suddenlink's website; I guess that's proprietary information.)

The first installment ran last Monday, but it's being repeated at 11:0 p.m. this Friday, and again at 11:0 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. this Saturday. New episodes will air at 7:00 p.m. on Monday, June 18 and June 25.

*I have no idea why the online version of the article is entitled "Star Telegram less than glowing in its review of KOSA/TV Guide reality show," as I found the column to be quite positive on the whole. The headline on the print edition was much less judgmental: "Reality series goes behind scenes at local TV station."

Hard Day

I've never seen a book or a course entitled "How to be a Freelance Web Designer" but I'm sure there's one out there somewhere. However, I'll bet it doesn't include a chapter or lesson about dealing with the unexpected death of a client, which is what I've been doing since Monday. In fact, I just finished an email to the client's widow giving her some ideas about a notice to put on his website.

Drafting a death notice for a client's home page. It's probably inevitable that one will eventually face that situation, but does anybody really spend time planning for it?

I plan to write more about the client, because he was a special guy, someone who became as much a friend as a customer over the past few years. He was also what some would consider to be a "public figure," internationally known in his field. However, I want to hold off until the family has published an obituary. It's not my place to make the announcement.

There's also the unfortunate reality that losing a top-tier client directly affects the finances of the freelancer's business. Again, this is not something one can plan for in any meaningful way, but it underscores the importance of trying to diversify one's client base as much as possible.

In the final analysis, however, things like this also serve to remind one to consider what's truly important in life. In that respect, being a successful web designer falls pretty far down the list.

Margarita & Salsa Festival: Part 3

If you're just tuning in, we're continuing our report from last Saturday's Margarita & Salsa Festival in downtown Midland, where Leon Russell, Jonny Lang, and Delbert McClinton provided several hours of live music for an appreciative crowd. Part 1, covering Russell's act, is here, and Part 2, featuring Jonny Lang, is here.

Delbert McClinton's the real reason I was willing to pony up $30 bucks per ticket to attend the Margarita & Salsa Festival last Saturday evening. As I mentioned previously, I'm not a huge fan of Leon Russell, and Jonny Lang's music was relatively unfamiliar to me, but my musical proclivities go way back with Delbert.

He wasn't my first introduction to blues – that would be Paul Butterfield and the Butterfield Blues Band – but I wore out the cassette tape of his 1979 album, The Jealous Kind. But in all those intervening years, I never took the opportunity to see him in concert.

I'd like to say that it was worth the wait, but, frankly, by the time he and his band got on stage, my wife and I were worn out. To make matters worse, the sound crew inexplicably cranked up the volume (and apparently shoved the treble slider up past ten, to boot), creating a sound that could cut steel. Even though we were 75 yards from the stage and speakers, we felt pummeled; we made it through 45 minutes of the set and then headed home.

Another disappointment: Delbert's music is tailored for a more intimate setting, perhaps in a bar with a couple hundred appreciative fans in attendance. His songs tell stories, and fascinating ones at that. I can't blame any musician for seeking out larger venues (and the irony of downtown Midland being considered a "larger venue" is not lost on me), but in McClinton's case, the lyrics get lost in an open-air setting among office buildings.

That's not to say that his music isn't enjoyable apart from the lyrics. As one would expect, he's surrounded himself with excellent musical talent, and his music spans a wide variety of styles. I simply wish I could experience it in a better setting.

Like, say, the Sandy Beaches Cruise that Delbert sponsors each year. It's a cruise ship filled with big time blues musicians and their fans; the 14th edition sails next January out of San Diego and down the western coast of Mexico, and will feature artists like Marcia Ball (did you catch that, Gwynne?), Jimmy Hall, and Stephen Bruton.

It sounds like fun, but the prices are pretty steep. I'll have to be content with ordering the new DVD, Rocking the Boat, which was filmed mostly on last year's cruise. The movie debuted at the 2006 Austin Film Festival. Here's the set list for the DVD.

Despite being a little disappointed with Delbert's appearance (but also pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the previous two acts mentioned above), I do have a little pixelage for your viewing and listening pleasure. The first video focuses on Delbert; the second one features some of his band members.

That wraps up the Gazette's coverage of the inaugural (and oddly-named) Margarita & Salsa Festival. It was a great beginning and I hope the organizers are energized enough to make it an annual tradition in Midland.

Could this explain Ann Coulter?

Comment left by George76 on a Macworld forum thread following yesterday's keynote speech by Steve Jobs at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.

Some have reported that Don Imus was the eBay purchaser, but he obviously didn't get his money's worth. <rimshot>

Thank you, ladies and germs. I'll be here all week.

The Omnivorous Ant

According to the results of the Pew Internet & American Life survey, I'm a Technological Omnivore:

The Pew researchers define ten categories along the tech consumption spectrum, ranging from the aforementioned "Omnivores" to those who are "Off the Network," the latter being quite content to rely exclusively on "old media." You can download the entire Pew report in PDF format.

I can't argue with most of the Omnivore description as it applies to me (other than being almost twice the median age, and not a student [at least, not in the traditional sense]). However, I tend to disagree with the interpretation put forth by Ask The Propeller Heads, from whom I discovered this survey via their column in our local newspaper.

They refer to "Omnivores" as "alpha geeks" who "love technology for technology's sake." That's not me; if it doesn't do a job for me, I'm not interested, except perhaps intellectually. I don't own a Tivo, my cell phone won't talk to the Interweb, I rarely use the Terminal window of my Mac, I enjoy the treeware versions of newspapers, and I don't have a webcam (yet). But I firmly believe that technology has helped me do a better job (OK, it is my job, but, still...) and connect better with family, friends and associates.

Margarita & Salsa Festival: Part 2

If you're just tuning in, we're continuing our report from last Saturday's Margarita & Salsa Festival in downtown Midland, where Leon Russell, Jonny Lang, and Delbert McClinton provided several hours of live music for an appreciative crowd. Part 1, covering Russell's act, is here.

By the way, I'm less than impressed with the response time for YouTube to process and activate the video clips I've uploaded. Those linked below were uploaded around 4pm yesterday and as of this writing (16 hours later), are still awaiting processing. If you aren't seeing the YouTube video links below, I've provided alternate links to the original QuickTime movie files. The alternative movies are higher quality than the YouTube-rendered videos, for what it's worth.

Jonny Lang is a musical prodigy. At 26, he's still just a kid, at least as far as the blues genre goes, but his voice and guitar skills are a match for anyone in the business. My first encounter with Lang was his appearance in the uniformly awful Blues Brothers 2000; he was 17 when the movie was released, and he was a wild child apparently born with a guitar in his hand. I never saw him again until last Saturday night.

Jimmy compares him to a Joe Cocker/Stevie Ray Vaughan hybrid, and while I bow before the Jimster's superior musical intellect, I think that the only thing Lang shares with Cocker is his ability to become totally immersed in his music. But there's no doubt that Lang, as our friend Toni put it Saturday night, "has a voice made for the blues."

As with the previous installment, I'm providing some horribly amateurish video clips to go along with this report. Here's one focused on Lang himself:

Lang has surrounded himself with some fine musicians. Here are clips of his backup singer and rhythm guitarist. The former could easily front his own group, and the latter's immaculate control is a great complement to Lang's more free spirited riffs.

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Of course, what concert would be complete without a drum solo?

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And, finally, here's the whole ensemble, performing a portion of Faithful:

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Much has been made about Lang's conversion to Christianity, and his music reflects that change. The instrumentals are as driving as ever – there's nothing the man can't do with a guitar – but the lyrics, while still bluesy, speak more often to redemption, hope, and positive change. He's not overtly evangelistic, but he's putting out a message of optimism that's a pleasant contrast to many on the contemporary music scene. (His latest album, Turn Around, contains some traditional Gospel tracks, some of which are getting airplay on XM Radio's Contemporary Christian channel as well as on Air1.)

Lang and his group played for more than an hour, leaving the stage to a standing ovation shortly after 10:00 p.m.

Next up: Delbert McClinton and his classic Texas blues

Bill O'Reilly: Confused about Christianity

I'm not a Bill O'Reilly fan. I do agree with much of his politics and many of his views on cultural and societal issues, but I'm generally put-off by his style and attitude. And I now have an additional reason to view with skepticism anything he writes about faith and religion.

His column entitled "Suddenly, atheism has become 'cool' for many people" ran on Sunday's Opinion page in our local newspaper, and it was a discussion of the increasingly loud voices of atheists in our society. O'Reilly – who claims to be a man of faith, presumably Christian – describes a portion of his debate with Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. In response to something Dawkins says about the origin of the universe, O'Reilly makes the following statement:

Well.

I gave up long ago trying to be anyone else's spiritual Jiminy Cricket, once I realized that I have very few answers, and those I have I don't always fully understand. I've also found that it's more than sufficient to simply rely on the Bible in all issues of faith. And the Bible clearly says that Bill needs to re-examine his beliefs and his faith if he wants to be a spokesman for Christians.

The Bible isn't vague or disingenuous about the identity of Jesus Christ and his role. According to the Bible, he was before time and space, and will be after time ceases; he's the Alpha and Omega. He's the creator, and the sovereign ruler over creation. He's the loving savior – the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except through him. He's King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Bright and Morning Star, the Lion of Judah. He's fully God and fully Man, a concept which we'll never be able to fully grasp this side of Heaven. No, the Bible leaves no doubt as to the identity of Jesus, or whether he is God.

If none of that were true – if any of that is false – then, like the apostle Paul put it, we Christians are to be pitied more than any other people, because our faith is nothing apart from the reality and truth of Jesus Christ and his saving grace.

My advice to Mr. O'Reilly, worth what he's paying for it, is to forgo a few debates with atheists and spend the time studying the Bible.

Margarita & Salsa Festival: Part 1

Last night was the inaugural Margarita and Salsa Festival in downtown Midland, an event which I hope will become a permanent fixture if this year's edition is the standard for future shows. This outdoor concert featured three legendary musicians, Leon Russell, Jonny Lang, and Delbert McClinton. It was an interesting mixture, considering that the first and last performers are old enough to be the middle one's grandfathers, but they all have tremendous musical talent, and I'm still impressed that someone in Midland had the mojo to get all of them on the same ticket.

One puzzling thing about the event was the conspicuous absence of, well, margaritas and salsa (and guacamole). We had understood that there would be a competition in those three categories, but if it occurred, it took place in an undisclosed location, and the identities of the prizewinners are a state secret. But that didn't detract from the quality of the music.

I'm going to break my report into three parts to make it more manageable (not only for me, but also for you, dear reader – I'm always thinking of you!). First up: Leon, who opened the show, and played a non-stop set of about fifty minutes. And when I say "non-stop," I'm not exaggerating. He said perhaps five sentences to the audience, and none until after a half dozen songs. His set was eclectic – as one would expect – with covers of "Jumping Jack Flash," "Great Balls of Fire," and "Georgia On My Mind," among many others. I've never been a huge fan of Russell's music, but his band is tight and they get the crowd rocking.

I toted my little DV cam to the concert, leaving the still camera at home, and while I did regret not getting some close-up stills, I also found that I captured some interesting video footage, and I want to share some of that (courtesy of those fine folks over at YouTube). The following clips are not intended to provide examples of Russell's music; instead, I've concentrated on some of the more, um, esoteric aspects of the concert.

For example, I was fascinated by the percussion instrument played by the lone female musician of the evening. Can anyone identify it (Kyle?)?

Update: According to a YouTube commenter, the instrument is a shekere, which in its original form was a dried gourd covered with beads or shells. Russell's variation appears to be a bit more high-tech, but the basic premise is probably the same.

Russell's lead guitarist has an interesting technique. As far as I could tell, he uses only his thumb, and doesn't use a pick. But that didn't stop him from slamming out some smokin' riffs:

[Update: YouTube has failed to render the video of Russell's drummer despite two separate uploads, so I've deleted it as well as the description of it in this post. Because of this, some of the comments may seem irrelevant.]

Here's a short clip of the band at work:

In closing, I ran into a friend at the concert told me that he was there to hear Delbert McClinton, but his wife was a big Leon Russell fan. He then said, "I saw Leon in concert in 1973 and he was old then!" How old is he? (Not as old as Delbert, which you might find surprising. And unspoken was our mutual understanding that neither of us are that much younger than Leon.) Watch this clip to the end in order to get a familiar cultural reference:

Next up: Jonny Lang, Nodak rocker extraordinaire (and nice guy, to boot!)

Scattershooting while wondering what ever happened to content

It's Friday and I got nothing, making it pretty much like any other day, but, still. Anyways, it seems like a good time to reinforce the nothingness of what I got by copying the meme sensation that's sweeping the nation (or at least the blogs of Bret and Gwynne).

SCATTERGORIES meme

Guidelines:

Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following categories. They should be real places, names, things...nothing made up! If you can't think of anything, skip it (but be prepared to explain why you don't know Google's URL).

Copy and Paste to answer in your blog.

Your Name: Eric

Famous singer: Eric Carmen

4 letter word: Ecru

Street name: E

Color: Oops. Used it above. Dang. Talk about a lack of planning.

Gifts/presents: Eau de cologne

Vehicle: Enzo (by Ferrari)

Things in a Souvenir Shop: Edible undies (no, wait; I'm thinking of something else...)

Boy Name: Ed

Girl Name: Elwyn

Movie Title: Eight Legged Freaks

Drink: Eau de cologne; hmm