Durango Texas

Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind

2008-07-19T12:20:00.001-07:00

I was looking at YouTube videos, trying to find something funny about Fort Worth, when I saw several titled "Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind." Country singer George Strait's name was attached to several of the "Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind" videos.

I figured someone was either being ironic or sarcastic asking such a question, due to, well, my thinking that the answer, from most people, to that question, would be no.

So, it turns out this is a well known George Strait song. Shows what an uncultured ignoramus I am a lot of the time.

Anyway, below is the video of George Strait singing about Fort Worth. The video is a series of photos of Fort Worth. In the first photo you'll see a construction crane hovering over the now defunct boondoggle formerly known as the future downtown Fort Worth campus of Tarrant County College.

I think the person who made this slide show was somehow making fun of Fort Worth. I couldn't tell for sure, but the videographer did insert a photo of Dallas that shows what Dallas will look like if Dallas builds its Trinity River Vision Project. Fort Worth copied the Dallas vision a few years after Dallas first had its vision. Fort Worth seems to have forgotten where they got their Trinity River Vision.

Enchanted Rock State Park

2008-07-19T08:14:00.001-07:00

My elderly cousin, Scott, has been on a long road trip all over the country. When he passed through Texas he did so entering via the Panhandle, driving across North Texas as near to the Oklahoma border as roads permitted. And then he decided the entire state of Texas was boring scenery-wise. He did concede he had not seen very much of the state and so there was a chance something, somewhere in Texas might be something other than flat and boring.

I've seen more of Texas than my elderly cousin, Scott, has. I've seen parts of Texas that are quite satisfying in the scenery department. Enchanted Rock is one such place. Enchanted Rock is a very popular state park. Some days so many people show up you have to wait til someone leaves before you can enter.

Enchanted Rock is a huge pink granite dome. Indians thought it was possessed by spirits, hence Enchanted, due to the noises the rock made when the sun went down. Later, less superstitious sorts realized the noises were due to the rock contracting as the temperature dropped.

Enchanted Rock is in the Texas region known as Hill Country. The route to Enchanted Rock via Austin takes you to the Pedernales River Valley, right by the LBJ Ranch where Lyndon and Lady Bird are buried. During wildflower season this is a very scenic spot on the planet.

To get to Enchanted Rock, via this route, you go through the tourist town of Fredericksburg. It is sort of a German-themed town. It's a short side trip from Frederickburg to Luckenbach.

$11.2 Billion For President's Helicopter

2008-07-19T07:34:00.000-07:00

It seems of late I can not go a day without one thing or the other making me think we live in a totally insane world. Today's fresh insanity came via the news that the price tag for a new fleet of Marine One helicopters, for the new incoming President, has risen to $11.2 Billion.

That's $400 million per copter for the fleet of 28 helicopters.

Why does 1 President need 28 helicopters, I could not help but wonder? For the most part the things are used only to ferry the President the short distance from the White House to Andrews Air Force base. Occasionally Marine One copters are used for other things, like flying over a town torn apart by a tornado.

When Marine One takes off there are always additional Marine Ones in the air as well, as a decoy, playing a sort of shell game to confuse would be assassins. Sometimes as many as 5 Marine Ones are used for this purpose. So, why the need for a fleet of 28 of the things?

Marine One copters are equipped with anti-missile devices. They are heavily fortified.

The original estimated cost for the new fleet was $6.1 Billion. The price tag keeps rising because new bells and whistles keep being added.

Apparently, anywhere in the U.S. or the world that Air Force One goes to, the Presidential Limousine and Marine One helicopters also go. I've no idea how they get the copters to far away places. Maybe the copters can be stuffed inside an airplane.

Do China, Russia, the UK or France go to such elaborate expensive lengths to ferry their leaders around the planet? I remember reading, long ago, so my memory might be a bit bad, but I think it was back when then Vice President Nixon flew to Moscow where he had an infamous confrontation with Soviet leader Kruschev called, I think, the Kitchen Debate, that when Kruschev met Nixon upon landing in Air Force One, called Air Force Two when the VP uses it, that Kruschev was embarrassed to see the American leader traveling in a fancy jet, while he tooled around the Soviet Union in an old propeller powered plane.

What that has to do with this $11.2 Billion worth of Presidential Copters I don't know, but it somehow seemed to relate.

CNN & NPR Interview FWCanDo

2008-07-19T05:30:00.000-07:00

Fort Worth's Top Rated Rabble Rouser, Don Young's, continuing Don Quixote-esque battle against the Chesapeake Energy windmills is going national, with incoming investigations into gas driller's dirty dealing in the Fort Worth zone, courtesy of CNN and NPR.

Below is Don Quixote Young's email regarding CNN and NPR....

FWCanDo will be interviewing with correspondents from NPR (National Public Radio) and CNN next week at CanDo HQ. We will also escort them on guided tours of Dirty Ol' Town.

Both media giants just happen to be in town the same days to shine a spotlight on the multi-tentacled, Barnett Shale phenomenon.

http://www.npr.org/

http://www.cnn.com/

FWCanDo is very grateful for this opportunity to remind a mass audience that not everyone in Texas is related to Jeb Clampitt or J.R Ewing or even, Tommy Lee Jones. Some of us are not blinded by money.

There are real people here who have grave reservations about natural gas extraction, production and marketing, both urban AND rural.

There are many people who believe that what's on the surface of the Earth, where we live, work and play, is just as or more valuable than the fossil fuels that lie beneath.

There are many people in Fort Worth and around the USA who are demanding that the natural gas industry abide by the same rules and laws as other industries.

It's time to end local, state and federal exemptions for a dirty, dangerous and arrogant industry that is degrading our safety, our water, our air and our quality of life.
Stay tuned and stay involved.

Don Young
FWCanDo
P.O. Box 470041Fort Worth, TX 76147
http://www.fwcando.org

"God bless Fort Worth, Texas. Help us save some of it."

Palo Duro Canyon State Park

2008-07-18T14:19:00.001-07:00

Palo Duro Canyon is the Grand Canyon of Texas. It's also where Charles Goodnight started a huge ranch that continues to this day. Charles Goodnight's life helped inspire Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove.

Palo Duro Canyon State Park is the setting for an over the top Texas spectacle called "Texas".

"Texas" is sort of an outdoor musical drama telling the story of the settling of the Panhandle.

Palo Duro Canyon is near Amarillo.

That part of Palo Duro that you see sticking up in the photo is called The Lighthouse. You can hike or bike to The Lighthouse. It takes about 4 hours to hike roundtrip. Much faster to bike.

Palo Duro Canyon has great mountain biking. Several years ago I talked Gar the Texan into learning how to mountain bike. This had mixed results. And a lot of bad wrecks. Gar the Texan's parental units live near Palo Duro Canyon, I believe in a town called Canyon.

Below watch video of me and Gar the Texan mountain biking to The Lighthouse in Palo Duro Canyon State Park.

Pull Up Your Pants

2008-07-18T13:48:00.000-07:00

For those of you who live in other parts of America, like the West Coast, for instance, you'd be shocked by what parts of this part of America look like.

I was at a location today in south Fort Worth, near Interstate 35. Heading east of I-35 on either Seminary, Rosedale, Berry or Lancaster, you'll go through some sections of Fort Worth that could be used as movie sets representing 3rd, 4th or 5th World Nations. Til I moved to Texas, the only other place I've seen things like this, is in Mexico.

So, I was driving along, enjoying the scenery, imagining I was in another country, far far away, when the above amusing billboard popped into view.

"Grandma says: Pull 'Em Up!" The billboard also says "HipHopGovernment.org." I went to that website and was assaulted by rap music. I don't quite get the connection of that website to Grandma and the pants.

I don't know if this wearing your pants halfway to your knees thing is just a Texas fad or if it's plaguing the rest of the country as well. It looks so inconvenient having your pants off your butt. It makes the person sort of waddle. Are they proud of their underwear and want to show it off? Is that what it's about?

Last week I was out on my resident Puerto Rican's balcony and we saw a guy walk by with his pants down, totally exposing his very nice boxers. They appeared to be silk. So, the Puerto Rican told me that earlier that week she'd been driving Boca Raton. That's a street near here. And these two guys were working on a car, when one of the guy's pants fell down. He had no underwear on. And he could not quickly pull his pants back up because he was holding onto to something critical to the car repair. So, the Puerto Rican got a good long look at the guy's bare butt. She said it was traumatic. It was not a butt you'd wanna be looking at, she said. Fat and flabby. The opposite of yours, she said.

Zorro's Big, Fat, Texas Buffet

2008-07-18T13:08:00.001-07:00

Ever since I blogged about Zorro's Buffet, last month, my blogstats indicate that it's one of the most clicked on postings I've written. Today I found out why. My blog comes up #1 when people Google for info about Zorro's Buffet. Ahead of the actual Zorro's Buffet website.

So, this morning I got a message from someone who thought I'd "badmouthed" the place. Which I hadn't. All I said was if one were to judge the quality of the food by the quality of their website one might have cause to be cautious.

It seemed obvious to me that the person writing this was not a man and his wife out for dinner, as the writer claimed, then going to such lengths to wax poetic about the place. I figured it had to be either the owner or their ad agency or some other flak. The person suggested I try the place before passing judgement.

So, I said, give me lunch for 2 and I'll give Zorro's Buffet a try for lunch today.

I was told to tell the check-in person that I was Durango.

I took along a buffet expert, Big Ed. We got to Zorro's a bit past 1. The parking lot was pretty much full. Eventually found a place to park. Walked inside. Zorro's is huge. Walked up to the cash register, said, uh, I'm Durango. She said, we've been expecting you. She handed me a drinking glass and a knife and fork wrapped in a paper towel and told me to sit anywhere.

Found a seat, then found the buffet. Zorro's buffet is huge. The first thing I noticed, that I really liked, is Zorro's addressed my #1 buffet pet peeve. That being having to touch all those serving utensils that others have already touched. Usually they're sticky. I always find a napkin to use as a sort of glove. Sometimes it can be difficult to locate a napkin. But Zorro's has napkin dispensers at each buffet table. This should be a universal practice.

Today was Seafood Day. I tried a crab cake, but there was way too much cake and not enough crab. The grilled shrimp were very good, as was the salmon. The fried fish was catfish. Yuck. BBQ baby back ribs were smoky and meaty. The Zorro's grilled chicken was well done, like I like it.

The salads were all good, for the most part. The carrot salad would have been perfect, but there were those little type marshmallows in it. I don't care for that. There were 2 types of cole slaw, both good, a wilted spinach salad, that I liked. And several others I didn't try. The potato salad was not your usual buffet type, with too much mayo. It was made with red spuds with the skins on. Zorro's makes very good potato salad.

One thing that was a good thing, is every time I went back to the buffet there'd be something new. Like one new thing was a mixed seafood noodle dish, with clams in the shell lining the edges and lots of little shrimp in the sauce. It was nice and garlicky.

That's another thing. Most buffets, of the type that try and appeal to the masses, shy away from adventurous seasoning. Zorro's does not shy away. Some were quite adventurous, like a pasta salad that I thought was tossed with some sort of greenish pesto sauce, but instead the green turned out to be from cilantro. That was quite tasty.

I'm not a dessert eater, but there were quite a few dessert choices, including hard ice cream. I did have a dish of flan. It was very good.

So, is Zorro's Buffet the best buffet I've ever been to? No. Is it better than Golden Corral? Oh, by a long shot. Would I go again? Yes. But not anytime soon. And how did Big Ed like it? Well, you'd have to go all the way back to 1995 and the Luxor Buffet in Vegas, when Big Ed so overstuffed himself that sweat balls were popping out of his forehead, after which Lulu's first husband decided we were all Buffet Sluts. The name stuck.

The Dark Knight: The Jokers Gone Wild

2008-07-18T07:31:00.001-07:00

I can't remember the last time I bought a movie ticket. One of the benefits of having a website that gets a lot of visitors is sometimes you get freebies. Like I've got a season pass to Fossil Rim Wildlife Center that I've never used.

Yesterday I got 2 tickets to the IMAX Theater in Dallas (Cinemark 17, LBJ Freeway at Webb Chapel Road), along with a big bucket of popcorn and 2 large Cokes.

The new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, is IMAX worthy. If you can, see it in an IMAX venue.

Before I say anything else about The Dark Knight, let me get this out of the way. Heath Ledger will win this year's Best Actor Academy Award. There, you heard it here first. Ledger's Joker is no Jack Nicholson. The Dark Knight Joker is a total psychopath, who calls himself an agent of chaos. Basically this Joker is a terrorist.

This Batman movie has a very strong post 9/11 angst about it. With the Joker being a sort of one man Al-Qaeda. At one point the Joker broadcasts video of himself performing an execution, ala those we've seen on our TVs courtesy of Muslim extremists.

There is a lot of very graphic violence in The Dark Knight. At one point the Joker rams a pencil into a victim's head. I don't know how this movie managed to be rated PG-13 rather than R.

The Dark Knight runs around 2 and 1/2 hours. Unlike many overly long movies, The Dark Knight did not wear out its welcome. I can not remember the last time I saw a movie this good.

I predict, along with Heath Ledger's Oscar for his pathetic, scary, creepy, funny psychopathic Joker, that The Dark Knight will be the biggest Hollywood Blockbuster in a long long long time and probably win an oodle of Academy Awards in addition to Heath Ledger's.

A Dark Knight Movie Trailer....with the Joker.....UPDATE: The video may no longer work. YouTube seems to be deleting all the Dark Knight Batman movie trailer videos.

Nuke The Muslim World & The Obama New Yorker Cover

2008-07-17T13:21:00.001-07:00

A guy from Arlington, that's a town in Texas that abuses the perfectly fine concept of using the power of eminent domain to gain private property for the public good, like football stadiums. Like I was saying, this guy in Arlington, Edward Dufilho, sent a letter to the editor of Fort Worth's biggest, yet shrinking newspaper, the Star-Telegram.

Mr. Dufilho seems to have taken some umbrage over columnist Cal Thomas's repetitive yapping about the dire danger posed by the Muslim world and its terrorists. Apparently Mr. Thomas has no memory of worse, more dangerous times, you know, like World War II, for instance.

So, the guy from Arlington suggested that if the situation is as dire as Cal Thomas paints it, then the only sane thing for America to do is to unleash our nukes on the Muslim world and be done with them once and for all.

Now, there predictably will be those you did not get the point this Arlington guy was making and who will think he was actually suggesting launching nukes against the Muslim world, just like there were a disturbingly large number of people who did not get who was really being made fun of in that infamous New Yorker cover that has Obama in a turban and his wife packing heat and an Angela Davis doo, while burning the American flag and rapping knuckles.

There really are those out there, I've heard them on the radio, who think Obama is a secret agent, planted years ago, a Muslim, a hater of America. They're too stupid to realize you don't give your Manchurian Candidate a middle name that matches a Middle East dictator's name. Oh, I guess when Obama was named they couldn't have known, then, that a dictator named Hussein would take over Iraq. Regardless, those evil plotters wouldn't have named him Barack Hussein Obama, they would have given him a totally All-American name, like George Washington Lincoln.

I know a scary ignoramus who came here from an island in the Atlantic called Puerto Rico. A few weeks ago she asked me, as if she was telling me an important secret, if I knew Obama was a socco ( not sure how to spell that, it's Spanish ). Socco? Yes, half white, half black, she said. Yes, I said, I learned that years ago, along with the rest of America and America's made it pretty clear we don't care. Later she was shocked to learn John McCain had been a prisoner of war.

Below is the letter berating Cal Thomas......

Quit pulling your punches, Cal

I don’t know why Cal Thomas bothers to write new columns, because the subject is always the same.

We’re in a clash of civilizations! Us or them! Smoking gun! Mushroom cloud! Fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here, or some wingnut talking point.

If this is the death struggle Thomas is convinced it is, why the kid gloves?

All of his rants can be summed up in one word: extermination. Heck, boy. All we have to do is re-target the missiles, get somebody to attack an aircraft carrier and let fly!

I figure that just by ourselves we have more than enough nukes to incinerate every Muslim population center on the planet. The strain on our military would then be greatly reduced, as the only mission after the annihilation of more than 2 billion people would be just hunting down the survivors.

Do you think they’d see the light and become Christians rather than be massacred? You know we can’t trust ’em. Just ask the Spanish about all those Jews who “converted” just to save their skins, but practiced their religion in secret.

No, the only Christian thing to do is to wipe out every last man, woman and child who turns toward Mecca to worship. Of course, Mecca will no longer exist.

I know, I know. There are worries about the Russians and the Chinese, but I think if we divide the oil equally, they’ll come on board. We can count on them to take care of their own Muslim populations. You know what I mean.

As for Europe, I think we can agree it hasn’t been relevant for 50 years, so we, the Russians and the Chinese can offer them a choice: Deal with the Muslim population, or go back to burning coal.

Problem solved! I’m glad it’s finally out there, and boy howdy, do I feel better! I know there’s the small problem of rendering uninhabitable a significant portion of the planet, but that’s the beauty of the marketplace. I see vast opportunities in cleaning up the aftermath. Put in a good word for me on one of those no-bid contracts, won’t you?

— Edward Dufilho, Arlington

Voices From The Third Reich & Kirkland, Washington

2008-07-17T07:05:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I blogged about a book I'd just finished, "Voices From The Third Reich," an oral history from survivors of the Hitler years.

This morning I was reading the Seattle P-I and saw the headline "In Kirkland, Nazi case brings up painful past." The story was yet another voice from the Third Reich.

The man you see in the photo is named Sreten Nesic. He was listening to the radio when he heard that a Bellevue man, Peter Egner, had been identified by the Justice Department as a member of a Nazi killing unit in Yugoslavia, created by the Nazis to arrest and execute Jews, Gypsies and Serbian resistance members.

The Yugoslav Nazi killing unit murdered around 17,000 people. The Nazi from Bellevue is accused of participating in the murder of 11,164. I've no idea how they came up with this precise number.

The man from Kirkland was 1 year old, living with his mom and dad in a village outside Belgrade, when his dad was arrested and taken to a concentration camp. His dad was murdered about a year later. His mother died of pneumonia a short time later, pneumonia contracted from traveling in the bitter cold, repeatedly bringing money to bribe officials to try and get her husband released.

When the money ran out, Nesic's dad was forced to dig his own grave. And then shot and killed. Nesic knows this because a second cousin, who survived the Nazis, was in the concentration camp and helped bury his father.

So, when Nesic heard on the radio that a Nazi member of the Yugoslav Death Unit, that had murdered his dad, was living in the town next to his, well, it brought back all the painful memories. And he got rightfully, righteously mad.

The Bellevue Nazi is now 86. The Nazi was living in an assisted living facility. Nesic is now 67. His dad was 25 when the Nazis arrested him. 26 when the Nazis murdered him.

You can read the entire Seattle P-I article here.

Chesapeake Facts May Not Be Ones We Need

2008-07-17T06:46:00.000-07:00

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has one reporter who has never managed to annoy me, with either misinformation or by writing something ridiculous or by acting like a shill for the Chamber of Commerce and Fort Worth's Ruling Junta.

In other words there's this guy who writes for that paper, named Mitchell Schnurman, who rather pointedly takes on some of the little issues that many of us in the Fort Worth zone make note of, but which are not much examined by the local paper of record.

A couple weeks ago, Schnurman was appalled, as were many, by the bizarre turn of events that had Tarrant County College abandoning their ambitious, likely to have been quite an impressive addition to Fort Worth, that being a new college on the banks of the Trinity River, to buy Radio Shack's Corporate Headquarters, which Radio Shack built just a few years ago. This boondoggle is costing the taxpayers a lot of money.

In today's Star-Telegram, Schnurman takes on the Chesapeake Energy/Tracy Rowlett controversy. Chesapeake Energy has many people here shaking their heads in bewilderment at their bizarre ad campaign.

Here's a blurb of what Schnurman had to say....

"Capitalism is driven by self-interest, even in journalism, but is Chesapeake’s goal to enlighten the public or keep the gas flowing?

It may hope to accomplish both, but no one should doubt Job No. 1 in North Texas. Chesapeake is making billions by pumping natural gas, not producing news shows.

Rowlett says the Barnett Shale is the biggest story since the Stockyards a century ago. The natural gas play is boosting the local economy in a significant way and is an important piece of the energy puzzle. I’ll even buy Chesapeake’s argument that drilling is worth the "short-term inconveniences" of noise, construction and truck traffic (although that’s easy for me to say because no pipelines are being buried in my yard)."

Click here to read the entire column.

Schnurman's honest, opinionated, factual style is more what one would usually find in FW Weekly, than the Star-Telegram. Maybe none of the powers that be at the Star-Telegram and the Ruling Junta get around to reading what he writes, maybe that's how he is getting away with telling the truth...

Bravo's Project Runway 5 & CBS's Big Brother 10

2008-07-17T06:20:00.000-07:00

I tried to make it all the way through the first episode of the new season of Project Runway, really I did. I made it as far as the point where the Top 3 and Bottom 3 were singled out.

But, unfortunately, Project Runway had not hooked me and I did not care who won that episode or who got the boot. So, I bailed. By this morning I don't even remember a single one of the dressmakers. Maybe I was too tired to be watching TV. I had had a long day of working at the computer and staring at a monitor.

I think what non-plussed me about this Project Runway show is that it is about making dresses, near as I can tell. I know for a fact I will live my entire life without ever making a dress. Or caring how one is made. Or knowing if one is fashionable. One of the reasons I find a similar Bravo show, Top Chef, interesting, is that it is about cooking food.

Cooking food. And eating it is something I actually do. So, at times I actually learn something from watching Top Chef.

But watching men and women, or semblances thereof, make dresses, was like watching someone knit. The only minor entertaining part of it was how goofy the dresses were and what they were made of.

The challenge was the group of dressmakers were let loose in a grocery store to find something to make a dress out of.

One of the dressmakers made his dress out of blue plastic cups. The judges liked that one. Another dressmaker made her dress out of black garbage bags. The judges didn't like that one. Only those two were retained in my memory.

Another thing I do remember is the Guest Judge. His name is Austin Scarlett. He was the winner from a previous season of Project Runway. I found him sort of scary. That's him in the photo. Actually I'm not totally certain he's a him, I guess I'm assuming that due to the "Austin" name.

Now, why did I mention Big Brother 10 in the title to this blog? Well, some cruel person calling himself "dvrgasm" commented on what I said about Big Brother, telling me...

"Sorry to tempt you, but it has just gotten started and it is already soooooo good. You are missing out..."

Well, despite the temptation I have continued, and, as God is my witness, will continue to resist the temptation to watch Big Brother.

DaFoWo Show & The Big Cheese Rodent Factory

2008-07-17T06:11:00.000-07:00

Below is this week's DaFoWo Show. A Fort Worth Star-Telegram production. The show uses the Big Cheese Rodent Factory stinking story as humor fodder. My one longtime reader may remember me blogging about this a few weeks ago. There is also an amusing bit about Exorcism. DaFoWo had to use subtitles so we could understand one of the Texans being interviewed.

Chesapeake Energy: In The Pipeline---Fresh News From Dirty Ol' Town

2008-07-16T12:13:00.000-07:00

Don Young, also known as the chief rouser of the group known as the Eastside Rabblerousers has taken to calling Fort Worth "Dirty ol' Town." I don't know if this is a reference to dirty politics, dirty gas drilling, dirty air, or what. Maybe it's a combo of all three. And more.

So, I just got email from Don Young, up to his usual Rabblerousing Duties. The subject line of the email was the same as the title of this posting, minus the Chesapeake Energy part.

The email contained several links to websites and blogs with articles about recent Chesapeake Energy and other gas driller's shenanigans and Monday night's protest in Fort Worth.

Here's a blurb from the West and Clear article about the Monday night Chesapeake Energy event at which Fort Worth protesters tried to be heard....

"The whole thing had this tense, antiseptic quality. Everyone seemed nervous and concerned about staying on message. Why? Why was everyone gripping it so tight?"

Read the entire West and Clear take on what sounded like a bizarre Chesapeake Energy event on Monday.

The July 9, 2008 edition of FW Weekly, Fort Worth's real newspaper, had an interesting article about the Chesapeake Energy/Tommy Lee Jones/Tracy Rowlett/Shale.TV controversies.

Here's the first paragraph from the FW Weekly article....

"For the past few months, North Texans have been listening to Oscar-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones spew about the wonders of the Barnett Shale natural gas drilling. Come fall, we might be hearing about similar wonders from beloved North Texas newsman Tracy Rowlett. Or, we might be hearing about the darker sides of the huge drilling boom."

Read the rest of the FW Weekly article here.

Another FW weekly blurb in their Blotch section, took on Tommy Lee Jones and his two-faced hypocrisy. Here's a Blurb from Blotch...

"...he stares at the camera and says with all the charm of a manic depressive serial killer, “Let’s get behind the Barnett Shale.” He spoke a different tune during a Parade magazine interview in 2006 when he described his high school summers spent working on oil rigs as “dirty, noisy, and dangerous.”

Read the rest of the Blotch here.

Meanwhile, the community newspaper of the community I sort of live in, Meadowbrook Today, had its own detailed take on Monday's Chesapeake Energy protests. Here's the blurb...

"Residents crowded into the Sycamore Community Center with questions for Chesapeake/Texas Midstream but the answers they received did not please all the attendees."

Click here to read all the Meadowbrook Today info about the battles with Chesapeake Energy and pipelines running through yards.

And then Wise County's wisest, and might I be a sexist pig and add, most beautiful Blogger, Texas Sharon, aka Bluedaze, blogged in her usual sharply pointed and well-aimed manner at that shooting fish in a barrel target known as Chesapeake Energy. Here's a Bluedaze blurb...

"The comments indicate that the Barnett Shale Honeymoon is over in Fort Worth. Residents are not thrilled with Tommy Lee Jones telling them to "Get Behind the Shale" or the propaganda thrown at them 24/7 from Chesapeake."

Read the rest of what Bluedaze had to say about Chesapeake Energy in her blog here.

Meanwhile, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, known to many as being the mouthpiece for Fort Worth's Ruling Junta, does not report much about Fort Worth's citizen's growing discontent over being the first urban zone in America to experiment with drilling thousands of gas holes and running hundreds of miles of gas pipes, piping odorless gas inside a city limits, under people's yards.

However, today the Star-Telegram did advise us that ozone levels are high and to stay inside if you have allergy or respiratory problems. I won't bother with a blurb or a link to the Star-Telegram.

Project Runway Tonight On Bravo

2008-07-16T06:55:00.000-07:00

Awhile back I realized my favorite TV shows are all on Bravo. Top Chef and Flipping Out and Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List are my favorites. Top Chef is about cooking. Flipping Out is about an over the top guy with a severe case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, flipping expensive houses in Southern California. Kathy Griffin's show is about, well, Kathy Griffin. She's a funny vulgarian with a hilarious elderly mother.

Tonight is the first episode of Bravo's Project Runway's 5th season. I did not know til reading it this morning, in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, that Project Runway was the first of what has become a Bravo TV staple, that being several shows using the same formula, those being the aforementioned Project Runway and Top Chef, and also Sheer Genius.

Each of these shows starts with a short competition, the person who wins that usually wins immunity from being kicked off the show or some other advantage. After that the chefs, haircutters or clothesmakers get their big task for that week's episode. That's the interesting part, watching all the drama and comedy as they rush to get their tasks done. Then, usually, a bottom 3 is singled out, along with a top 3. One gets the boot, one gets the win.

I think there is a 4th Bravo show that follows this formula, but I can't remember what it is.

I've not watched Project Runway before, except for short bits during lunch. Watching weird people with serious personality disorders make clothes didn't seem very interesting to me, but that's what I thought about the haircutting Sheer Genius show and it turned out to be very funny. Tacoma Dumpster Diva, Lulu, claims Project Runway is one of her won't miss it shows. Lulu usually has good taste, though that has come into question of late, what with her declaration that the Golden Corral is her all time favorite buffet.

So, maybe I'll watch Project Runway tonight.

Heidi Klum is the host. She's a model. She is watchable, but she is paired with a co-host named Tim Gunn. He seems to be a bit of an odd duck with an unnatural interest in clothes. It'd be interesting to see Tim Gunn paired up with Flipping Out's Jeff Lewis.

All these type Bravo shows have guest judges. Project Runway has some sorta odd ones. Like Apolo Ohno and RuPaul and Sandra Bernhard. Brooke Shields I get, but an ice skater, a drag queen and Sandra Bernhard? I don't mean to be rude, she may be funny, but she is sort of hard on the eyes. Is she known for dressing well?

But, aside from any other reason I may have to watch Project Runway, the primary reason was provided by this morning's Star-Telegram, with its latest Texas connection to a tv show.

Here's the quote---

"There's only one Texan in it to win it. He's 28 year old Jerell of Houston, though he now lives in L.A., according to the network. Remember, it was Houstonian Chloe Dao who won PR's big prize on season two. Texas represent!"

Geez, that is so pathetic. Why do I keep reading this idiotic paper? Let alone pay for the privilege.

The Seven Regions Of Texas

2008-07-16T04:45:00.000-07:00

This Blogspot Blogger thing has a serious malfunction this morning, in that it goofs up when I try to upload an image.

Well. The image that I can not upload is a map of Texas divided into 7 regions. Why would I want to show such a thing?

Well. Yesterday I finished the first stage in a huge expansion of my Eyes on Texas website. I've been sort of stuck with my Eyes, for the most part, only looking at the zone of Texas I primarily roam in, with short forays to Houston and Galveston and Amarillo and a few other places.

Some of the Regions of Texas are obvious, like the Gulf Coast Region. Others not so easy to see why its a special region.

The aforementioned Amarillo is in the Panhandle Plains Region. It's called that, I guess, because that rectangular shaped part of Texas that sticks up into Oklahoma and New Mexico sort of looks like the handle of pan.

Some of the Regions of Texas are less obvious, like where I live, in the D/FW Metroplex, this region is called Prairie & Lakes. Texas has only one natural lake, that being Caddo Lake. But Caddo Lake is not in the Prairie & Lakes Region.

To the east of my location there are a lot of pine trees, so it is called the Piney Woods Region. Sometimes this is called East Texas. The aforementioned only natural lake in Texas, Caddo Lake, is in the Piney Woods Region, not the Lakes Region.

The center of Texas, where Austin is, is called Hill Country, for obvious reasons, because, well, it is hilly down there.

Big Bend Country is sometimes called West Texas. It's called Big Bend Country because this is where Big Bend National Park is located. El Paso is also in Big Bend Country.

The South Texas Plains Region is where San Antonio is, and Laredo, on the Mexican border.

Texas is divided up into regions like this, I think, to make it easier to describe the state for tourism purposes. Looking at the map I realize I've actually been to every region of Texas, but just barely into the South Texas Plains Region, that being a visit to San Antonio at the north end of that region.

I need to explore Texas in more detail.

North Cascades Highway With The New York Times

2008-07-15T13:47:00.001-07:00

A fellow Washington Exile living in Texas is always sending me things he thinks I'll find interesting that he finds in the New York Times. Usually I don't find these things at all interesting. This afternoon was an exception to the rule.

A New York Times correspondent, William Yardley, took a photographer, named Stuart Iselt, with him and traveled the North Cascades Highway, in Washington, from Sedro Woolley on the west side, to Twisp on the east. That is a screen shot, above, of the article in today's NY Times.

The North Cascades Highway opened in 1972. A northern pass across the Cascades had been in the planning for years. It was a major engineering feat. It connected the west side with an isolated part of Eastern Washington. This changed both sides. My side of the mountains, the west side, in the Skagit Valley, sort of boomed in the following years. My old hometown of Burlington got a huge regional mall, called, appropriately, The Cascade Mall, the design sort of replicating Cascade Mountain peaks, in sort of the same way Denver's new airport's look is inspired by the Rockies.

The New York Time's article consists of a very well done interactive map. Go here and start the tour. Click next to go to the next stop. At each stop there is a video that gives you a good idea of what that stop is like. The first stop on the tour is Sedro Woolley. Sedro Woolley is where my longtime fun friend, Tacomaite, Lulu's first husband grew up. I'll see Lulu in a few days. If I'm lucky my contact with her first husband will be limited. Like we who lived in the Skagit Valley often said, those Sedro sorts are difficult. Sedro Woolley is known for its Tarheels. I think that means hillbillies from North Carolina, but I'm not sure.

I remember going over North Cascades Pass the September before I moved to Texas. I doubt I will get that far north when I'm up in Tacoma for a month in about 5 days. But you never know.

Big Brother 10 on CBS

2008-07-15T06:40:00.000-07:00

I did not realize Big Brother was back on. I did not watch a single second of last winter's Big Brother 9, that CBS quickly threw on the air during the TV writer's strike.

But, I will, with some sense of slight embarrassment, admit I have gotten hooked on 4, or is it 5, of the 10 seasons of Big Brother.

I am fairly certain I will not get hooked on the current version, that being Big Brother 10. One thing is it can be too addictive. It's on 3 nights a week. That's 3 hours a week.

And then there is the live feed. I watched the Big Brother 2 live feed, because it was free. And I watched a lot of the Big Brother 6 live feed, because that was a summer I was in Tacoma and Lulu paid to watch the live feed.

I remember when I first saw Lulu watching the live feed she was viewing it in this little postage stamp size window and holding a speaker to her ear. I did a one button click and the live feed became full screen, to Lulu's amazement. She'd pretty much strained her eyes to borderline blindness watching that little picture. Then I fixed her speakers so Lulu could listen without holding the speaker to her ear.

On the live feed you see stuff you'd never see on network TV. Most of the good stuff ends up on YouTube. Like on Big Brother 4: The X Factor, everyone was in the house with someone they had a prior relationship with. It was on Big Brother 4 that Big Brother history was made, as in the first time the Big Brother cameras filmed a couple doing that thing that in olden days you were supposed to wait to do til you were married. And then the next day the guy in that coupling voted to evict the girl he'd been coupling with. Appalling.

That was Big Brother 6 that Lulu had the live feed for. That was probably the best Big Brother ever. The house split between the Good People and the Nerd Herd. The Nerd Herd were deluded, they thought they were the good people, but they were despicable and really easy to hate. The Nerd Herd was led by the worst case of Little Man Syndrome I've ever seen. The Good People were led by a Marilyn Monroeesque beauty named Janelle.

Big Brother 2 was also very entertaining. Big Brother 2 produced the guy who many consider to be the #1 Reality TV star of all time. Dr. Will Kirby. You started off thinking he was totally nuts. And evil. And then it became obvious he was very conniving and clever. And then he became one of the funniest characters ever on TV.

Dr. Will and the aforementioned beauty, Janelle, were on Big Brother 7: All Stars. That was an unfortunate season of Big Brother. It could not be Big Brother without Will Kirby. But he insisted the disgusting person known as Mike Boogie, a creature who for reasons no viewer could understand, became Will Kirby's best friend. Boogie was hated by the viewers on BB2. No viewer considered him an All-Star. And then he won the thing and the half million bucks that go with it. Beating everyone's favorite, the beauty Janelle. It was appalling. Afterwards Boogie was harassed in public, and by Rosie O'Donnell on The View. Boogie being on BB All-Stars and winning tainted the whole thing.

I swore I'd never watch again after the All-Stars debacle.

And then Big Brother 8 came along. And I got hooked again.

And now Big Brother 10 is under way. I don't know if Lulu is watching it. I am going to resist her attempts to get me to watch, if she is hooked again. When I was up in Tacoma in July of 2004 Lulu was already hooked on Big Brother 5. She talked me into watching an episode. By the first commercial break I was hooked and asking all sorts of questions so I could understand what was going on.

Internet Addiction Woes

2008-07-15T06:08:00.000-07:00

I got up early today. I finished reading the paper, that being the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, in about 5 minutes. It does not take long to read the Tuesday edition of this ever shrinking newspaper.

Today's TV section had fresh goofy Texas connections to people on TV. Apparently some comic named Bill Engvall is on something called Celebrity Family Feud, against somebody called Larry the Cable Guy. We Texans are told we need to root for Engvall because he did his comic act at some point in time in North Texas.

No, I do not make this stuff up.

We are also told there are some Texans on tonight's Big Brother on CBS. I won't further bore you with the towns in Texas the Texans are from or have visited or have a relative living in or would like to visit, because I've not heard of these towns, so I'm sure it'd mean nothing to you either.

Now, when I finished reading the paper, if I'd had an inclination to make fun of this paper, that I continue to buy and complain about, in a similar manner to complaining about Wal-Mart, while I continue to shop there, well, I could not have blogged about it.

Because, apparently my Internet connection stopped working about 10pm last night. Well, actually it was my network router that went into malfunction mode.

When this type thing happens, with either an equipment malfunction or the cable being down, it is quickly appalling to me how dependent and virtually addicted I am to the Internet. My first reaction was to Google for router woe info. Ooops, can't do that, can't connect.

Then I thought, well, til I get to Fry's to buy a new router, I'll just work on a website project I'm in the middle of. Ooops. Can't do that, because I need to access info via the Internet.

Then I thought, maybe I can find a wireless connection. I turned on the wireless connector. There were 3 connections available. All requiring a key. Why are people here so stingy and paranoid? Up in Washington, at my sister's last time I was up north, there were several neighbors I could connect to. Ironically I could not connect to my sister's wireless connection because she did not know the key. Some State of Washington tech guy had set her computer up. My sister assured me she now knows the key, so I won't have to be stealing neighbor's bandwidth.

So, I called my local Miss Puerto Rico to ask her if I could come blog on her computer and get info off the Internet. She said yes, like she always does.

Then, slow-witted dimwit that I am, it dawned on me that I could just plug the router cable that runs to my computer directly into the cable modem.

And that worked. So, I'm not in a rush to get to Fry's now. And my panic attack symptoms have subsided. For now.

Chesapeake Energy Protest Meeting In Fort Worth Tonight

2008-07-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

A large crowd is expected to be present and protesting at a meeting tonight in Fort Worth. The protestors are trying to stop Chesapeake Energy gas lines from running under their homes.

Which reminds me of something.

First they drilled near a home out in the country, but I didn't speak up, because it was far from me. Then they drilled in my city, but I didn't speak up, because it wasn't in my neighborhood. Then they drilled in a park, but I didn't speak up, because I didn't use that park. And then they drilled by me and I'm speaking up before they run a pipeline under my house. Speak up before they are under you.

Fresh incoming, below,
from Fort Worth's #1 Rabble Rouser,
Don Young.

THIS IS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD TODAY,
IT WILL BE IN YOURS SOON!!!
CHESAPEAKE
"STOP"
THE CARTER AVE. PIPELINE
AND THE SCOTT AVE.
"HIGH IMPACT GAS WELL"
***************************************
Please attend in Protest!!
Kathleen Hicks will be in attendance. She needs to see signs of community involvement and support.

COMMUNITY MEETING
***********************
Carter Avenue Gas Pipeline

It is VERY important that you attend this meeting!!!
If you have any questions and/or concerns regarding Chesapeake's plan to place "GAS PIPELINES" under our lawns and neighborhood streets.
JUST SAY NO!!! This is the time to address your concerns.

Meeting will be held at the:
Sycamore Community Center
2522 East Rosedale Street
Fort Worth, TX 76102
Monday July 14th, 2008 @ 6:30 PM

STOP
THE SCOTT AVE.
"HIGH IMPACT GAS WELL"

Wal-Mart Sucking Again

2008-07-14T07:29:00.001-07:00

My little sister informed me last week that a week from now, when I'm in Tacoma, I am banned from shopping at Wal-Mart. This should not be difficult because there is no Wal-Mart in Tacoma.

This morning I went to my neighborhood Super Wal-Mart. I needed paper towels and a few other things. Like lime juice. Wal-Mart did not have any lime juice in stock.

The paper towels had one of those "Price Rollback" signs blaring that the pack of paper towels now cost $5.00. A price rollback of 63 cents. However, between when I put the paper towels in my cart and checked out the price must have rolled back up, because the paper towels rang up at $5.63.

I told the checkout girl that this was not the correct price. She told me I had to go to Customer Service to get it corrected. Even though it was early morning and Wal-Mart had few customers, there was a long long line at Customer Service. I believe Customer Service at Wal-Mart is what is known as an oxymoron.

Now, unlike Krogers or Albertsons, where I don't ever recollect the price mistake being in my favor, more often than not the price mistake at Wal-Mart gives me a bargain. So, I really didn't mind the 63 cent unexpected surcharge.

When I Googled "Wal-Mart Sucks", looking for an appropriate image, I found that there are websites devoted to Wal-Mart Sucking and Blowing. I also found some YouTube videos devoted to Wal-Mart and its tendency to suck in various ways.

Here's WALMART*SUCKS.ORG.

Here's Wal*Mart-Blows.com.

Here's Disgruntled Human complaining about Wal-Mart Sucking.

Here's Wal-Mart Really Sucks.

Okay, that's enough with the Wal-Mart Sucks websites. Now for some Wal-Mart Sucks video.

In the first video two guys whine about Wal-Mart, as they drive along. The best part of this one is at one point, like me, they lament that they continue to shop at the very place they are complaining about.

The second video is about a Wal-Mart employee and the shenanigans that go on during the late night shift.

The Closer To Texas

2008-07-14T05:39:00.001-07:00

Yes, I know I said I was going to stop making fun of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's goofy practice of mentioning any connection between someone in the news or on TV to Fort Worth or Texas, no matter how remote or pointless.

The worst practitioner of this eccentricity is this incredibly shrinking paper's TV writer, Robert Philpot.

This morning, Philpot wrote about the season premiere, tonight, on TNT of a show called The Closer, starring Kyra Sedgwick, produced by someone named James Duff.

Here's the goofy verbiage----

"Although its lead character is an Atlanta woman transplanted to Los Angeles, TNT's crime drama The Closer has a heavy Texas connection.

Series creator and executive producer James Duff grew up in a variety of Texas cities, thanks to his father's job with Sears, Roebucks & Co., and Duff's parents live in Arlington (Duff visited recently when his mother had neck surgery). Duff attended Texas Tech, where one of his teachers was G.W. Bailey, who plays the curmudgeonly Detective Lt. Provenza on the show. Among Bailey's best friends is Tarrant resident Barry Corbin...."

Eventually Philpot gets past the fascinating, totally important Texas connections to share some actual information about The Closer.

Miss Venezuela Wins, Miss USA Falls, Miss Puerto Rico Missing

2008-07-14T02:21:00.000-07:00

My local Miss Puerto Rico must be devastated. Near as I can tell, looking at the news in the wee wee hours of the morning, Miss Puerto Rico didn't even come close to the coveted title of the Miss of the Entire Universe.

Kidnap victim, Venezuelan Dayana Mendoza, proved the Vegas bookies have a keen eye for beauty, with the odds on Vegas favorite beating 3 other Latin American Misses for the most prestigious title in the known Universe. The runner-up was Miss Columbia Tailana Vargas, Miss Domincan Republic Marianne Cruz Gonzalez was 3rd, Miss Mexico Elisa Najera came in 4th, with Miss Former Soviet Union Vera Krasova rounding out the top 5.

Miss USA was Miss Texas, Crystle Steward. Crystle was in the Top 10, but unfortunately she had a serious wardrobe malfunction when she tripped on her jewel encrusted gown and fell down. This is the second Miss Universe show in a row where the Miss USA girl takes a tumble. Last year Miss USA Rachel Smith also took a fall and bounced right back up, just like Miss USA did this year, as you can see for yourself in the video below. That is Miss USA on the ground in the photo on the right.

Miss Puerto Rico did not make the Top 10. In addition to the previously mentioned, Miss Kosovo, Miss Australia, Miss Spain and Miss Italy were the other Misses in the Top Ten.

I was over at my local Miss Puerto Rico's last night before the most important event on the planet was beamed live from Viet Nam's resort city of Nha Trang to the rest of the Universe. By the time I got back here I forgot, like millions upon millions of other Americans, that Miss Universe was about to be crowned. I made popcorn and watched The Simpsons instead. And King of the Hill. Neither Homer or Hank Hill watched the Miss Universe thing either.

Lake Grapevine Rockledge Park Video

2008-07-13T14:45:00.000-07:00

Like I said I was going to do, in a blogging earlier today, I went to Lake Grapevine to hike, swim and picnic. I'm back from that ordeal and have already YouTubed a primitive video.

The hiking was hot. I hiked in my swimming suit which made swimming an easy transition. I was sweating like a fat pig. Was so looking forward to the water. I'd not been in Lake Grapevine since I was attacked by a maniac turtle way back in July of 2002. I'd sworn off getting into murky Texas Lakes. But Lake Grapevine was somewhat clear today. And warm. Way warmer than the swimming pool water. The air temp was near 100. I don't think the lake water was far behind. The only time a lake has felt warmer was way back in 1999 at Lake Mead in August with my nephews.

We had some difficulty finding a picnic table, but eventually found a huge pavilion that was supposed to be used by reservation only. And I assume a fee. But, we weren't the only scofflaws. Soon after our picnic began, a huge family showed up with quite an elaborate set up, including a hammock.

Anyway, here's a very short video giving you a very short idea of what Rockledge Park on Lake Grapevine is like on a HOT July Sunday in Texas.

Miss Universe Drives Miss Puerto Rico Nuts

2008-07-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

One of the first times I was visiting my local Puerto Rican it was the night of the Miss Universe contest. I did not realize those Miss Universe Miss America things still took place.

But, my local Miss Puerto Rico acted as if it was the Olympics or a Presidential election. Well, that night, Miss Puerto Rico won. Even though it was late, Miss Puerto Rico called her mother, on the island, so they could celebrate together. This was the first time it crossed my mind that this person may be nuts.

Well, tonight is the Miss Universe Pageant. It's on NBC. Live from Viet Nam. Apparently Third, Fourth and Fifth World countries have revived this thing, as in it's a big deal to them. Some really poor countries can not afford the entry fee. Like Armenia and Nepal.

My local Miss Puerto Rico is certain Miss Puerto Rico, Ingrid Rivera, is going to win. Bookies pick Miss Venezuela, Dayana Mendoza, to win. Miss Venezuela vexes my local Miss Puerto Rico due to her being from Hugo Chavez's country and some remarks Miss Venezuela made about it being unfair for other countries to have to compete against women from her country due to their over abundance of beauty. Or something like that. Miss Puerto Rico can sometimes lose something in the translation.

Miss Puerto Rico insists I watch the Miss Universe thing with her tonight. That is not going to happen.

Below is video of Miss Venezuela. I hope she beats Miss Puerto Rico. I hope Miss Puerto Rico does not read my blog. She's got a nasty temper.