Snowed In

RIP, Dublin Dr Pepper

2012-01-11T17:28:00.000-06:00

As readers of my blog may remember, I mentioned in June that Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc. had sued the bottlers of Dublin Dr Pepper. Sadly, that case has ended with the result that I, at least, expected: Dublin Dr Pepper is no more. Per The Dallas Observer: From here on out, per a settlement agreement just announced in the case filed by Plano-based Dr Pepper Snapple Group in June, the

Unfairly forgotten song #10: Girls With Guns by Tommy Shaw

2012-01-10T00:06:00.000-06:00

I'm not gonna lie: what made me think of this was a recent comment by one Sarah Palin (as quoted by National Review via Conservatives4Palin) in which she stated, "I’m all in favor of girls with guns who know their purpose." How could this child of the 80s not think of Tommy Shaw? Tommy Shaw, as most of my readers probably don't know, was the lead guitarist for Styx through the late 70s and

I am resolved

2012-01-09T23:10:00.000-06:00

I'm not usually one to make New Year's resolutions. Really, the most I generally strive to reach when a year begins is to try to write the correct year on all my checks. (Yes, I still write checks, which may very well make me a relic in 2012.) I tried actually writing some resolutions down back when I was a child, but they were mostly just habits that I was trying to break. Such resolutions

Can't we all just get along?

2011-12-10T11:21:00.000-06:00

In the last two months since Sarah Palin announced she was not running for president, two factions have formed among those who were (are?) called Palinistas. One group took the viewpoint that "Gov. Palin has made her decision, and we need to accept it," while the other group recalled a moment in which Sarah Palin, when asked what sort of metaphorical earthquake would be required to get her to

The Roots drag Jimmy Fallon's show down into the depths

2011-11-22T12:20:00.000-06:00

I happened to turn on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night and was surprised to see Michele Bachmann as a guest. And they seemed to be having a good, friendly conversation; it was enjoyable to watch. That was before I learned about the message that Mr. Fallon's house band, The Roots (yes, I know they're famous for more than just being his house band, but that is what they are in regard to

Cap Metro does something helpful!

2011-11-21T23:32:00.001-06:00

From the "credit where credit's due" department: Capital Metro, Austin's occasionally decent but oftentimes maligned public transportation service (for examples of maligning, see here, here, and here) has finally done something that has caused me to give them a few kudos. The backstory to my kudos starts here: during a recent vacation (recounted, with some perspective, here), we used a local

Sarah Palin on Congress's incredible double standards

2011-11-21T22:24:00.000-06:00

Despite the hopes of many, Sarah Palin is not going away. She has had a couple of prominent speeches since her announcement that she is not running for president, and in Friday's Wall Street Journal, she lets members of Congress (on both sides of the aisle) have it in a column entitled "How Congress Occupied Wall Street". Very quickly, her tone is set as she refers to "this permanent political

2011 Online Red Kettle, and other ways to help out this holiday season

2011-11-18T21:12:00.000-06:00

As I have taken some time today to remember what's truly important, I have remembered that this is a time of year when a lot of people think of others. And so, I am repeating almost word for word what I said last year. As has been my wont for the past three years, I am once again hosting an Online Red Kettle for the Salvation Army, for those who have either already finished their shopping or

What's important again? Part 2

2011-11-18T20:37:00.000-06:00

No, my second long hiatus from blogging in a month and a half is not related (this time) to the announcement by one Sarah Palin that she is not running for President. No, this hiatus was related to my taking the family on a cross-country trip. And honestly, it was good to step away from the computer every so often and reevaluate things. And did I ever get the opportunity to reevaluate. See,

Austin Radio gets funnier

2011-10-25T22:46:00.000-05:00

As I tweeted Thursday (retweeting the good folks at RadioInsight.com), Emmis has flipped local (Austin) translator K274AX to a comedy format, ending a ten-month simulcast of 93.3 KGSR (as originally reported, back when that simulcast started, here). The new format, Comedy 102.7, is actually the HD3 feed of KGSR, so those lucky few who have HD radios won't be hearing anything new. Over the last

Another day, another celeb taking a cheap shot at Sarah Palin

2011-10-25T22:02:00.000-05:00

I have a theory that goes something like this: a fading celebrity, in a desperate attempt to get some attention and thereby jump-start a flagging career, will get just the attention they are craving by saying something outrageous and totally over-the-top and, of course, insulting to some conservative or another. In the past three years the conservative target has, more often than not by my

On Governor Palin's announcement

2011-10-05T23:24:00.000-05:00

After reading/hearing Sarah Palin's announcement (through a written statement and an interview with Mark Levin, available here) that she will not be running for President in 2012, I have a few thoughts, directed toward a few different, but involved, parties: To Sarah Palin, who, I'm quite sure, will not read this*: I respect your decision not to run. I'm sure that you didn't make it lightly.

Dave Ramsey on the President's jobs plan

2011-09-24T20:14:00.001-05:00

Radio host Dave Ramsey, who has been mentioned on this blog at least once before, appeared this week on CBS's "The Early Show" to talk about President Obama's jobs plan (incorrectly referred to in this interview as "The American Jobs Act", though that title has now been taken by a quite different bill*). The video, helpfully enough, appears here: You can also access the same video at CBS

The mysterious departure of Rhonda Lee

2011-09-24T19:50:00.000-05:00

In what I believe is a first, I have been alerted to a change in Austin's news media by checking out the searches that led people to my blog. Today people have been visiting my blog looking for information on KXAN weekend morning meteorologist Rhonda Lee (mentioned on my blog when she joined KXAN about a year and three months ago). Apparently, according to her Facebook page, she has been gone

Now this is a nice ad

2011-09-23T15:22:00.000-05:00

I haven't done much in quite a while with my old label "your ad is lousy", which highlights exactly what you think it does. I expect, given that there's a presidential election next year, that I might have more material for that label soon enough, but today, I thought I would highlight a fairly good online commercial from the Perry campaign. And, since the Perry campaign (based on hearsay) is

Coming soon

2011-09-21T22:50:00.001-05:00

My regular readers (of whom I believe I presently have as many as ten) might be wondering why I have not updated in the past week, especially given the explosion in the blogosphere/twittersphere that started from a certain Daily Caller article about someone who would exemplify my recurring label "useless celebrity", who commented recently about one of the recent salacious rumors from the recent

The patience of Todd Palin

2011-09-15T09:43:00.001-05:00

Over the last three years, Todd Palin has seen his wife and family subjected to some of the most vicious filth I have ever seen in modern politics. He's seen the punk kid who cheated on his daughter every chance he could doing some of the worst lying in the history of untruth (and by worst, I mean that this person--who, you will remember, is no longer to be named in this blog--is a flat-out bad

A call for patience

2011-09-08T22:05:00.000-05:00

Apparently the Palin hatred about which I wrote last week was just the tip of the iceberg. In the past two days, there have been too many people to count, all of whom have felt the need to make some sort of statement to the effect that Sarah Palin must declare her candidacy for president (or not) on their schedule, rather than hers. And this has sparked a lot of screaming (as it were, given

What's important again?

2011-09-05T22:42:00.000-05:00

I wanted to finish up a few half-completed posts during the holiday, but ever since I saw how bad the wildfires all over the central Texas area have been, I really haven't been in the mood. I know one firefighter taking on the Spicewood/Pedernales fire who was on the job for four days straight until he got four hours of sleep today. I know his wife, who has had to learn to deal with his being

Palin's Tea Party Rally speech...and a warning

2011-09-03T16:48:00.002-05:00

I don't know about anyone else, but to me, Sarah Palin's speech at the Tea Party Rally today sure made it seem as if she is going to be a presidential candidate before too long. It was a great speech, taking aim at the "permanent political class" on both sides of the aisle (because we all know that neither side has a monopoly on people whose first priority is to stay in power), and it laid out a

New old meme: Palinistas are crazy idiots!!!!

2011-08-31T23:16:00.000-05:00

How do they hate Sarah? Let me count the ways. Let's see, I've in the past commented on people falsely characterizing her as an extremist, insulting her daughter and her son, and, of course, calling her every possible synonym for "idiot" (and, occasionally, much worse). We can't forget the blaming her for violence having nothing to do with her, either. And we've even heard the "Palinistas are

Why I don't trust government at pretty much any level: Part 3

2011-08-30T17:07:00.000-05:00

Okay, I am going to state at the outset that there might be some backstory to this with which I am not familiar. I hope that's true. If not, this is totally ridiculous: a mom may be breaking the law by letting her daughter ride her bicycle to school. Really? And it gets better from there: Major Verran of the police department returned Ms Tryon's call. She said he told me, "He had spoke

Jedediah Bila: "What pundits should be talking about when it comes to Palin"

2011-08-26T19:50:00.000-05:00

As regular readers of this blog (of which I have none) may know, I have become quite the fan of the writings of one Jedediah Bila in recent months. (I most recently said as much here.) Ms. Bila, as seen on her site, has written a quite interesting book, which I intend to review at some point in the future when I learn that crucial skill of time management. (After thirtysomething years, it's

Snowed In hits the big time!

2011-08-23T14:35:00.000-05:00

I knew all my posting and tweeting of important salient points would pay off for me. Oh, wait. It was a timely piece of snark. About an earthquake. There's gotta be something wrong with that. Oh, well, in any case, I made Washington Post's Top 17 Earthquake Tweets. As the author of the piece, Dylan Matthews, says: As you’re probably aware, D.C. was rocked by a 5.9 earthquake: just

"Big Talker" quiets; True Oldies moves

2011-08-15T21:06:00.002-05:00

I discovered on my drive home what many other Austinites discovered earlier today. I was flipping around the FM dial (the family beater does not have an auxiliary port or a working cassette player at present) and was surprised to hear music coming from my radio at 98.9 FM, which, until recently, was KXBT, the "Big Talker". Given that I heard the voice of Scott Shannon, and that the local