Bruce Hall-mighty

I was quite impressed to see that the front page of today's Dallas Morning News had a front-page feature on Bruce Hall, my old dorm at UNT. From the description in the article, it appears that little has changed since I lived there:

In every hallway, at every turn: the sound of trumpets, saxophones and violins. In the lobby and out in the courtyard: guitars, flutes and the thunder of drums. Even in the parking lot, music seeps from the building, a constant soundtrack.

All across the dorm, students sit in their rooms listening to obscure jazz. In most dorms, music is mere background sound.

In these rooms, it's the focus. These students sit quiet and still, their eyes closed. They study every note.

So goes life at Bruce Hall, the oldest and one of the most eclectic living spaces at the University of North Texas.

Most of the 492 residents are students at the prestigious College of Music.

The rest are artistic types in for the ride.

Bruce is a unique place. It almost had to be the musicians' dorm, seeing as how it's located right across the street from the Music Building (this made it possible to accidentally sleep until 7:55 in the morning and still make it to an 8:00 class on time--been there, done that.) Having the most liberal practice hours on campus also helps (when I lived there, one could practice in the room from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m.), and an entire room full of Wenger practice modules in the basement can be checked out 24/7. Live jams in the lobby took place on a regular basis, and sometimes, the people in there would ultimately appear on CD's that you'd buy a few years later. It was, and is, a great place for a musician to live.

It was also a weird place, as might well be expected with so many creative types in a single location. One of my old band directors used to say that Bruce "pretty much hovered about four feet off the ground at all times." Virtually any mode of dress or expression was accepted (I'll never forget the girl with Statue of Liberty hair). On my first night, I walked in after marching band practice to see a group of upperclassmen playing the children's game "Duck, Duck, Goose" in the lobby. It was a great environment to get used to college without being judged by one's peers.

I didn't immediately warm to the place, mind you. The first thing I said to myself as I walked through the lobby on move-in day was, "What a (expletive deleted) slum." The lack of air-conditioning at the time, the dust (stirred up by utility construction) that came in through the window and all but choked the life out of my little box fan, and my pot-smoking hippie first roommate made for a rough start, but I grew to love the place so much that I stayed for my first three years of school.

The DMN article also does a good job of capturing the vibe of the College of Music itself, especially in terms of its effect upon newly-arrived students:

Every musician here was among the best back home. A "big fish," they say.

Many are prodigies who've read music since they could read words. They come to Bruce from all over the world.

For the first time in their lives, they are surrounded by musicians of their own caliber – with similar experiences, tastes and habits.

The dorm provides an environment in which kindred musical spirits find one another. The world of competitive music can be stressful and lonely. But here musicians find acceptance and support.

Alumni from Bruce play in metropolitan symphonies and bands across the country, including one well-known UNT jazz major, Norah Jones.

The environment is simultaneously tense and laid back.

While some students jam in the lobby, others are alone in their rooms, practicing until their fingers go numb.

Yup, it sounds like not much has changed at all.

Since I have a job that allows me to nurture prospective music majors, some of them ultimately end up at UNT and living in Bruce, which means that I've had the chance to see the place every now and then. Save for the A/C units, the swipe-card entries and (thankfully) the renovation of the community bathrooms (yes, it's now possible to flush the toilet while someone is in the shower without taking all their cold water away), the building is much the same as when I lived there. (A few years ago, I even had the chance to be a Bruceling again for a night. I went to a concert in downtown Ft. Worth with a former-student-turned-friend who lived on my old wing; we got back so late that my friend insisted that I crash on his floor rather than try to drive home. It was quite a blast from the past, especially the part about having to move my car from the front parking lot in the morning before the free-parking hours ended.)

Read the whole thing, especially if you're a fellow former Bruceling; it'll bring back lots of memories. And check out the video here.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The guys who brag the most about how much music they know are just insecure about their playing. Sometimes people here can get a little pretentious when they are nervous inside. The best players don't need to brag."--Sam Reid, saxophonist and music ed/jazz studies major at UNT (hmm, sounds familiar), in the DMN article.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Lest anyone doubt the power of music, check out this inspiring video about Patrick Henry Hughes--blind and crippled since birth, he's overcome many obstacles to become a talented pianist and trumpeter, and--with the help of his dad--has even earned a position in the University of Louisville marching band.

A Saturday Smorgasbord

Once again, all the news that's fit to link:

• Builders in Maine completed a nearly 32-foot-high sand castle that they hope will go into the Guinness Book of Records.


• A Kentucky farmer is being sued because the propane cannon he uses to scare birds away from his crops is too loud, according to his neighbors.


• Golfers in Washington state were confused when an emu appeared on the course and started following them around from hole to hole.


• A Japanese man has won the world air-guitar championship for the second straight year.


• A woman in North Dakota was surprised to discover that her front yard was full of baby snapping turtles. Now, if only she could train them to mow the lawn...


• A Seattle-area woman, protesting the ability of people to register to vote without providing photo identification, signed her dog up to vote, but she was hit with a $250 fine for doing so.


• A Canadian man was charged with reckless driving of a horse and buggy; among other things, the horse ran over someone's bike.


• And finally, a man in Alaska decided that he was too drunk to drive home, so he had his 11-year-old son do so instead.

Regular posting returns tomorrow.

Happy Friday! Enjoy a Trip to the Mall...If It's Still There

While I was researching the post about the return of Copeland's Restaurant to the Metroplex a few days ago, I came across an interesting site: deadmalls.com. It tracks--yes, you guessed it--malls that are no longer in business, many of which have been knocked down and redeveloped (though it surprised me to find out that Dixie Square, the abandoned Chicago-area mall used for the first great car chase scene in The Blues Brothers is still standing; don't forget, that movie came out in 1980. While I went to the site while researching Prestonwood Town Center (since redeveloped as a big-box power center), I also found a post for its former Houston cousin, Town & Country Mall (the two of them may well be the shortest-lived malls ever built in the United States, at 25 and 21 years, respectively, though both were nearly vacant for years before they were demolished).

WIth contributions from people all over the country, this site has a wealth of information. It was interesting to me to discover that the two malls I visited as a youngster when visiting grandparents in Dayton and Cleveland (Salem Mall and Westgate Center, respectively) have both been torn down and are being redeveloped as open-air town centers. (I'd provide links to all this stuff, but deadmalls.com is a framed site, so the URL never changes for all the internal pages). As I said two years ago when Firewheel opened out here, the town center seems to be the wave of the future; people want to have nicely-built, walkable shopping areas with greenspace instead of huge air-conditioned boxes, and they want to be able to drive right up to their favorite store if need be instead of parking out in the hinterlands somewhere. I won't be surprised if more boxy malls remake themselves as town centers in the future.

Anyway, it's a fun site and a great time-waster if you're into this sort of thing.

Not a dead store, but it looked that way: Thanks to a malfunctioning lock on the front door, a number of shoppers walked into a Dollar Tree store that was supposed to be closed for Labor Day. Amazingly, nobody stole anything, and the store was properly closed when a woman became concerned about the lack of staff and called the authorities.

One more odd retail story: A woman who tried to buy wine in a Maine supermarket was turned down because she wasn't carrying her ID card with her. She's 65 years old, so I hope she took that as a compliment.

Mama Told Me There'd Be Days Semesters Like This

Apologies for the lack of posts. They've been started, just not completed. I'll do my best to catch up over the weekend, because I do have a lot to talk about.

No Good Prank Goes Unpunished

It may not happen in every school, but the senior prank is almost as much a part of high school as pep rallies and bad cafeteria food. I was quite amused to read over the weekend of this prank, which took place in Hilliard, Ohio...but less than thrilled to find out the outcome for its instigator:

A high school student who tricked football fans from a crosstown rival school into holding up squares of construction paper at a stadium that together spelled out, "We Suck,'' was suspended for the prank, students said.

Kyle Garchar, a senior at Hilliard Davidson High School in suburban Columbus, said he spent about 20 hours over three days plotting the trick, which was captured on video and posted on the video-sharing Web site YouTube.

Garchar said he was inspired by a similar prank pulled by Yale students in 2004, when Harvard fans were duped into holding up cards with the same message.

At the end of the video, Garchar wryly thanks the 800 parents, staff and alumni from Hillard Darby High School who raised the cards at the start of the third quarter during last Friday's game played at Crew Stadium, home of Columbus' Major League Soccer team.

"It couldn't have been done without you,'' reads the closing frame of the video, which had been viewed more than 4,400 times by Thursday.

That's right--he was suspended, as well as banned from participating in school activities for the rest of the semester. Can someone say overreaction?

After all, he certainly did a bit of "schoolwork" in preparation for the prank:

Garchar, 17, first went to Crew Stadium to take a picture of the seats. Then he created a grid to plan how the message would be spelled out once fans in three sections held up either a black or white piece of construction paper.

Directions left on stadium seats instructed fans to check that the number listed on their papers matched their seat numbers. Darby supporters were told the message would read "Go Darby.''

"It was tedious,'' Garchar said. "I didn't really think it was going to work.''

But it did, and everyone at Hilliard Davidson has been talking about the trick, said Jordan Moore, a junior.

"That was the ultimate in-your-face,'' he said. "I think it was ingenious.''

I totally agree. It would be one thing if people or property had been harmed by the prank (except maybe the opposition's self-esteem), but it really was just good, clean, clever fun. In my mind, the principal totally overreacted here. You don't have to exhibit control every minute of your life; just sit back, have a good laugh, and enjoy something that was harmless and truly funny.

Read the whole thing, including the comments, where one of the locals notes that Kyle received a standing ovation when he walked into the cafeteria the other day. Contact information is also given for the principal, in case anyone wants to send him a "hey, lighten up!" type of message. And enjoy the video here.

(Hat tip: Dave Barry's Blog, where most of the commenters agree that the principal needs to chill. Commenter ArcticAl has the best response:

Personnaly I think the kid should get extra credit for math (geometry, matrices of numbers), drafting (maping out the grid), communications/english (written instructions for the participants), visual art (it is a picture after all - modern art) and civic duties (increasing school spirit, leadership, taking chances, managing risk, dedication, and all around hard work). Some educators have their blinkers on too tight.

The kid will probably have the last laugh when he creates the next Microsoft, e Bay or Yahoo and comes to the school reunion in 10 years in a chauffeur driven Mercedes and parks in the Principal's spot.

My sentiments exactly. And need I say that I know one good way for administrators to possibly cultivate a sense of humor again? Bring 'em back into the real world again.

Speaking of overreaction: A father in Cape Coral, Florida got tired of his son scaring his sisters with a frog, so he called the police on the boy.

Lileks' Labor (Day) of Love

James Lileks has been on the scene at the Minnesota State Fair, blogging and producing daily videos for buzz.mn for the duration of the event (yes, in some places it's actually cool enough to have such an event; here in Texas, we have to wait another month). While all the videos have been outstanding, he's really outdone himself with the one he's posted today: The fair at twilight, in hi-def. (The musical score is his creation as well.)

Sit back and enjoy, just as I'll sit back and enjoy the rest of this day and resume blogging tomorrow. And if you like the video, go to the Buzz post where he links it and toss a compliment his way.

Everyone have a safe and enjoyable holiday.

The Green: Not So Mean Yet, But Give It a Chance

My alma mater has gotten quite a bit of attention since Todd Dodge was hired as its football coach last December, right before he concluded another undefeated season with Southlake Carroll High School. Some of us were extremely excited by the hire, and we believe that Coach Dodge will take Mean Green football to a much higher level.

But the schedule-makers weren't very kind to him (granted, all this was figured out years ago) when they sent the Mean Green to Norman, Oklahoma for Dodge's debut; the Oklahoma Sooners went into the season ranked #8 in the nation. I'd gotten to attend a few of those games when I was in college, and the losses were pretty lopsided: 69-14 and 56-2, if memory serves. Oklahoma would go into this game favored by 40 points.

Well...if only it had been that close. The Sooners would hang nearly half a hundred on the Mean Green before halftime and ended up winning 79-10. It's not exactly the way Dodge wanted to begin his career at North Texas, but taking on a team like Oklahoma would be an arduous task for most programs. (If it's any consolation, he also lost his first game at Southlake Carroll, 35-14, before starting his string of state championship runs.)

I didn't get to go this time, since the game sold out weeks ago, but I caught most of it either on TV or radio. I had my doubts about letting junior quarterback Daniel Meager start again after his performance last season, and he didn't really seem to get much going during the game. True freshman Giovanni Vizza came on in relief and led the Green on a couple of scoring drives, though he also threw two interceptions. (Granted, both of these guys will be competing with Dodge's son Riley when he arrives next year.)

So I'm tempted not to thnk too much of this game in the grand scheme of things. Sure, a better performance would have been nice, but not everyone can be Appalachian State. And Dodge , as we would expect, keeps it all in perspective: "The journey is on. Myself, my coaches and my players have to make sure we don't knee jerk in the face of adversity."

The "real" season starts next Saturday, at SMU.

He thought he was in Pamplona: A bull at the Minnesota State Fair escaped from its handlers, made a run through the crowd and then head-butted a red fire hydrant and died. All this on a day when Lileks wasn't on the scene until evening.

Taking "flying fish" literally: The Colorado Division of Wildlife is using airplanes to stock mountain lakes with trout.

Umm, would you like fries with that?: The Outback Steakhouse has a great dish called Alice Springs Chicken, but over in Australia itself, some natives are enjoying Alice springs cat.

And speaking of feral beasts: Did someone here in Texas really find the mythical chupacabra?

A Taste of the Big Easy Returns to Texas

In the early days of this blog, I noted in the Fun Facts post that one of my favorite restaurants was Copeland's of New Orleans. For years, they had a Dallas outlet over by the late Prestonwood Mall, and I would have my birthday dinner there (if not on the "day of," then at least whenever my parents came to visit) for the better part of a decade.

But when the mall went under in 1999, Copeland's bravely hung on for a few more years (in a by-then-isolated corner next to a defunct Don Pablo's) before closing sometime in 2004. If only they could have managed to wait long enough for Prestonwood to reborn as a big-box "power center" last year with the likes of Barnes and Noble, Circuit City, etc.

So in recent years, a Copeland's trip would mean a visit to New Orleans; I had eaten at the one at St. Charles and Napoleon in the Garden District on a few occasions, though I missed it by mere minutes on the New Orleans Bowl trip in '04. Then Katrina came, and the Napoleon location closed (according to the website, it has yet to reopen). I did get to visit a West Bank location when I visited a friend in New Orleans on a spring break trip in '06, but that had been it so far.

So what I saw this evening came as a total surprise to me. While eating on a patio in Southlake Town Square with that same friend (the by now former New Orleanian), we were comparing Southlake to Firewheel. I noted that Southlake was a bit more upscale, and, while it didn't have any anchor stores, it did have a luxury hotel...and I pointed to the brand-new Hilton behind me. My friend took a look, froze, and pointed towards the hotel: "Oh my God, look!" I turned back and saw what he saw: The familiar Copeland's logo on the side of the hotel.

Yes indeed, there is a Copeland's at the Hilton. Believe me, if we hadn't already ordered drinks at the place we were eating, we would have changed our dinner plans right then and there. But since we'd already made the trek to Southlake pretty much on the strength of a gift card from one of their restaurants, a trip back for one of my favorite Big Easy imports is a no-brainer. And the birthday tradition can be revived as well.

I'll have a full report once we actually go there, but I'm sure that if they waited this long to return to the area, it'll be worth the wait.

Funnyman Gets Serious for a Good Reason

Most of the posts on Dave Barry's Blog are links to offbeat, humorous stories, but a few days ago (yes, I'm getting caught up on my reading today) was quite different; it's a tribute to a beloved former teacher who just passed on. Here are some excerpts:

As a student at Pleasantville (N.Y.) High School in the sixties, I was lucky enough to get to know Anthony Sabella, sometimes known to students as Tough Tony. He was the assistant principal, which meant he was the school's main disciplinarian, which meant I had plenty of interaction with him. But despite the fact that on more than one occasion I was genuinely concerned that he might -- as he threatened -- pick me up by my neck and drop me out of a third-floor window, we actually became sort of friends, or as friendly as a school disciplinarian and a total wise[guy] can be.

In addition to being assistant principal, Mr. Sabella was a much-respected high-school-sports official. He also taught American History. I was in his class one year, and it was one of the best classes I ever took, high school or college. Mr. Sabella was very knowledgeable and had strong opinions, but it never bothered him if you disagreed. He liked the give-and-take, which was not always the case with my teachers. By the end of my senior year, I really liked running into him, and I think he liked running into me, even though these run-ins still sometimes ended with my getting detention.

[...]Over the years I occasionally mentioned Mr. Sabella in columns, and was always delighted to hear from him, and his family. Recently, however, I heard he was not doing well. Today I learned that he died. So I'm sad about that. But it heartens me to think that if there is an afterlife, and if the afterlife has a dress code, it will henceforth be strictly enforced.

Read the whole thing, including the comment thread, where others remember their own favorite teachers, and some of Dave's classmates from 40-some years ago make appearances.

As I noted in my own post, it warms the heart to read so many testimonials about former teachers who have made a difference in people's lives. As a teacher myself, that's certainly one of the reasons I do what I do. (It's not the money. LOL.)

And even though I almost feel bad about using a solemn moment like this to push one of my pet causes, it should not go unnoticed that Mr. Sabella remained a teacher after he became an administrator. I'd bet money that a root cause of his effectiveness could be found right there.

As I said at the close of my own comment, may all of you not only have a Mr. Sabella in your lives, but also get the opportunity to be one to somebody.

Yet another movie sequel: Snakes at a Taco Bell.

Not exactly "Free Willy" for these tourists: Last year, on the big band trip to Washington state, we spent an afternoon whale-watching. It was very enjoyable (except for the few in our group who got seasick), and I'm glad we didn't have to experience what a group of tourists in Japan did recently, when the whale they were watching was harpooned by a whaling boat before their very eyes.

Photo of the (yester)day: Sunset with schooner, by Ann Althouse, whose outstanding photography has been on display quite a bit since she relocated to Brooklyn for a yearlong teaching assignment. I wish my work hours didn't keep me from seeing the sunset so often...

Beijing Olympics: "No Engrish Spoken Here"

A lot of preparation is underway for next year's Olympic Games in Beijing. Among the projects being undertaken by the Chinese authorities is an effort to rid restaurant menus of mangled English translations:

Hungry visitors to next summer's Beijing Olympics won't have to choose between "steamed crap" and "virgin chicken" if Chinese authorities succeed in ridding restaurant menus of mangled English translations.

The Beijing Tourism Bureau has released a list with 2,753 proposed names for dishes and drinks, designed to replace bizarre and sometimes ridiculous translations on menus, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

Foreigners are often stumped by dish names such as "virgin chicken" (a young chicken dish) or "burnt lion's head" (Chinese-style pork meatballs). Other garbled names include "The temple explodes the chicken cube" (kung pao chicken) or "steamed crap" (steamed carp).

"These translations either scare or embarrass foreign customers and may cause misunderstanding on China's diet habits," Xinhua said.

It's the latest effort by Beijing Olympics organizers to clean up the city and ensure that the best image is presented to the hundreds of thousands of visitors expected next summer.

Etiquette campaigns are afoot to stamp out bad manners such as jumping ahead in line, spitting, littering and reckless driving. The revised menu names are part of an effort to ban unintelligible English, known as "Chinglish," that abounds on signs everywhere.

Part of me is disappointed to hear that news, because this phenomenon, also known as Engrish, has provided hours of entertainment for me and my friends. Sure, not everyone is brave enough to try a dish named "Salty egg king steams the vegetable sponge," but others might be intrigued enough to at least inquire about it. (That dish, mentioned at the bottom of this post, came from a menu posted here; also included are such delicacies as "Cowboy leg beautiful pole," " The carbon roasts the sheep sparerib" and "Big bowl flower immerses pork kidney." Read it and be prepared to laugh.)

Another Made in China story: A Japanese man claimed on an Internet posting that China's famed Shaolin monks were beaten in combat by an unarmed ninja. The monks are demanding a retraction.

The compasionate criminal: A guy in New York state robbed another man at knifepoint, but he only needed four dollars, so he waited patiently as his victim got change for a ten before taking the money.

The Fun Police Strike Again

A school in Colorado has banned tag on its playground:

An elementary school has banned tag on its playground after some children complained they were harassed or chased against their will.

"It causes a lot of conflict on the playground," said Cindy Fesgen, assistant principal of the Discovery Canyon Campus school.
Running games are still allowed as long as students don't chase each other, she said.

Oh, no--we couldn't have kids chasing each other. Someone might have fun...or even get exercise!

If this story sounds familiar, it's because you may have seen it before; I included an account of another school district doing so in this post. That district was even more chicken-hearted, in my opinion, because they did so out of fear of liability for injuries.

And yet people wonder why we're raising a nation of overweight wimps. So many things that were the bedrock of childhood have either been squelched by overprotective parents or outright legislated out of existence by schools and municipalities running scared of lawyers all the time. We're past due for a return to sanity; who's going to step up to the plate and lead us there?

Cool gadget of the week: The Mac G3 Beer Server.

Blowing out the candles: Happy birthday to my old buddy Fletch, serving our country in parts unknown.

Give This Guy an A in Entrepreneurship 101

When George Hotz starts classes this fall at Rochester Institute of Technology, he might have to write a "what I did this summer" essay for an English class. If so, he'll have some ready-made material that might well outshine the efforts of anyone else in the class. Besides the usual hanging-with-friends stories, Hotz has a unique one: He hacked the iPhone in order to untether it from the AT&T network.

Hotz announced the news on his blog last week and then provided step-by-step instructions which, if followed, should allow the phone to be used with any SIM card. After an unsuccessful attempt to sell the phone on eBay (where fraudulent bids pushed the price of the phone into the stratosphere), Hotz ended up trading it to a Louisville-based cell phone repair company this week for a "sweet Nissan 350Z" and three iPhones.

(There could, however, be a snag in the works for anyone with commercial designs for the unlocking procedure, as word comes today that Apple might consider legal action against anyone who plans to make money from the hacked phones. The Louisville-based company, Certicell, has stated that it currently has no desire to commercialize the unlocking procedure.)

So Hotz has moved into his college dorm now, and will probably start blending in with all his fellow students. But he has a very noteworthy accomplishment under his belt, and a well-documented blog by which to remember it. (And he also has his own Wikipedia page, as well as a very quotable way to describe his major, neuroscience: "hacking the brain.")

Do not Despair, the blog is there: Despair, Inc. has started a blog, which is bound to be hilarious. Here's a paragraph from the opening post: "Yes, at the moment, the much hyped and already once delayed blog is rather sparsely populated with videos already available (in lower-resolution format) in our Corporate Spin section. Is there any better way to kick off the Despair, Inc. blog than with a dollop of disappointment, sprinkled with annoyance?" Check it out on a regular basis. (And yes, as always, in the spirit of full disclosure, this company is run by a family member, but I'd buy their stuff no matter what.)

Happy anniversary, not-so-happy anniversary: Today is the 2nd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. If you have a chance, visit the New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund site for a moment. (It's also my sixth anniversary as a homeowner, and I'm still lovin' it.)

Famous Restaurant is Ducking Out

I was quite dismayed to read over the weekend that the Duck Inn in Lake Dallas is closing its doors on December 1 unless a new owner can be found:

Just as renovations of the hush puppy room at Tierney's Duck Inn are complete following a fire last year, the doors of the well-known restaurant are about to close.

Greg Tierney, who reopened the restaurant in May 2002, is planning to close in Lake Dallas by Dec. 1 and open the Old Town Café and Tavern in Lewisville.

[...]The 8,424-square-foot building is now up for sale for $639,500, according to Steve Howard, whose grandmother, Nellie Howard, opened the catfish restaurant more than 60 years ago.

With the rights to the restaurant's name, Duck Inn, and the knowledge of family recipes, Mr. Howard said he hopes to find someone to reopen the restaurant that is the family's legacy.

"Help me find somebody who wants to keep it alive and I'll do like I did with Mr. Tierney and I'll come and show them how to do the hush puppies," he said. "I'm one of the only people who know how to cook them."

Mr. Howard said that Mr. Tierney, who was leasing the building, wanted to purchase it, "but he didn't have the funds to purchase it for what it was appraised for." Mr. Tierney said he made an offer to Mr. Howard, but it was less than the amount the family was seeking.

The building needs renovation, he said, and the cost of the building was too much.

"It's a gamble I'm not willing to take," Mr. Tierney said.

Besides having great catfish and hush puppies, the Duck Inn has recently been home to the Original Texas Jazz Orchestra, a big band of UNT faculty and other alums, led by my former professor Jim Riggs. (Among the many highlights have been the regular appearances by Leon Breeden, Director Emeritus of Jazz Studies at UNT.) The once-a-month gigs are resuming this weekend, and the excitment about their return has now been tempered by the news of the Duck Inn's impending closing. I really hope that either someone will be able to buy the restaurant and keep it open without interruption, or that the band will be able to find a new home in the area.

A good walk spoiled by a not-so-good ride: Across the country, golfers are getting upset at courses that have instituted mandatory cart requirements in order to speed up play.

Somebody give this guy a hand: A London teenager went to visit his girlfriend, parking his motorcycle outside her house and leaving his prosthetic hand attached to the bike's grip. When he came back out ten minutes later, the bike was still there, but the hand was gone.

Evidently, These Guys Didn't Learn from Dallas

On this, the first day of school (i.e. the day I have to start wearing long pants and real shoes again), it's only appropriate that my post is one that tweaks somebody for trying to impose a dress code where it probably doesn't belong.

At this time last year (one year ago yesterday, to be precise), I blogged a story about a Dallas school board member who tried to get the City Council to ban saggy pants. That's right--not just in school, but in the city at large. Efforts like this (as well as a more recent effort by a small-town mayor in Louisiana) never seem to actually be made into law--and they tend to get splattered all over the Internet, making a laughingstock out of its originator in the process--but that never stops people from trying the same thing somewhere else.

This time, it's happening in Atlanta, and the City Council is behind the effort. It's pretty much the same old song and dance:

Baggy pants that show boxer shorts or thongs would be illegal under a proposed amendment to Atlanta's indecency laws.

The amendment, sponsored by city councilman C.T. Martin, states that sagging pants are an "epidemic" that is becoming a "major concern" around the country.

"Little children see it and want to adopt it, thinking it's the in thing," Martin said Wednesday. "I don't want young people thinking that half-dressing is the way to go. I want them to think about their future."

The proposed ordinance would also bar women from showing the strap of a thong beneath their pants. They would also be prohibited from wearing jogging bras in public or show a bra strap, said Debbie Seagraves, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.

The proposed ordinance states that "the indecent exposure of his or her undergarments" would be unlawful in a public place. It would go in the same portion of the city code that outlaws sex in public and the exposure or fondling of genitals.
The penalty would be a fine in an amount to be determined, Martin said.

I only have two points in response to this. First, as the ACLU's Seagraves points out later in the story, such a dress code would be unlikely to survive a court challenge, because it targets a style that comes from black youth culture. (Whether I agree with this logic or not is immaterial, but that's probably how it would go in court.)

Also, let me repeat something I said in the earlier post:

Is this style of dress annoying? Sure. But do we really need to get the police involved in enforcing it? Surely not. The time when the council should be devoting the city's resources to something like this would be when crime levels are nonexistent, when all the potholes are fixed, there's not a homeless problem downtown, the police and firefighters are paid the same as their suburban counterparts....in other words, not anytime soon.

I may not know firsthand whether Atlanta has all of the above issues, but you get my point: This is a waste of city time and resources to be talking about this when so many truly serious problems are out there.

More dress code cluelessness: In an effort to tweak administrators who had instituted a new "business casual" polo-and-khakis dress code at a Florida high school, one student, Austin Perkins, decided to go "above and beyond" the code by wearing a coat and tie to class. The principal suspended him. (Check out the comments at that post--especially the ones by a commenter named "PrisonPlanet" from yesterday at 11:40 and 11:41 a.m. They offer some historic reinforcement of what I've been saying all along--dress codes in schools have very little to do with safety and a lot to do with control. Hat tip--Dave Barry's Blog, where there are also some good comments, including an appearance by yours truly.)

Better saggy pants than none at all: Last Thursday, for no apparent reason, a guy decided to get naked in the Dallas County Courthouse.

The Summer of Broken Stuff

It doesn't matter what the calendar might say; for myself and many other educators, today is the last day of summer. Since the public schools were required to start no earlier than tomorrow by the Legislature, both the schools and my college start on the same day--no more buffer week, where the former started before the latter. I haven't been able to do too much with the Dread Sked yet, as everyone's loads are still being solidified at the college, so I'm just taking each day as it comes, knowing that it will all be settled soon.

It's really been quite an enjoyable summer--lots of time to relax and hang with friends--but there has been an unusual underlying theme from almost the beginning: This has truly been the Summer of Broken Stuff. Never can I remember a time when so many things have fallen into disrepair. Here's the list as I can remember it at the moment:

• The main entrance to my neighborhood has been closed since mid-June. They're widening the main road next to us, so some downtime was not unexpected, but they closed it with little notice, requiring me to scramble and email all the students for the rest of the week to give them alternate directions. (Some people missed the email or got lost anyway.) Despite the fact that another street farther down in the project (to a neighborhood which has many more options for ingress and egress*) was only closed for a month or so, we remain blocked off and seemingly forgotten-about. An email to the city yielded not even a response; my council member is the next one to hear from me.


• Kevmobile 1.2 broke down on two different occasions over the summer. It really got to the point for a while there where I wasn't sure I could trust it, but, after an uneventful month and a half (and last weekend's roadtrip to Austin), things are finally back to normal for a while. *knocks wood*


• My cable went out at pretty much the exact moment that Dad and I completed the contstruction of a new entertainment cabinet in my living room; it would be out for over two weeks. The repair to the outlet was quick and easy, and my Internet wasn't affected, but the bill would get messed up; that's just now getting resolved.


• The heavy rains we had in June and July made the ground so saturated at my house that it messed up my underground power lines, and I started having brownouts. After a call to the city, the lines had to be rerouted to above-ground, encased in something that looked like a vacuum-cleaner hose (with special plastic barriers across the driveways of my house and the one next door). They didn't get returned to their underground location for nearly a month.


• My alto case was already broken and basically being held together by the custom-fit case cover that goes over top of it. During the summer, the zipper on that case cover broke as well.


• About a month or so ago, I developed a small crack in the corner of my windshield. Thankfully, it hasn't gotten any bigger for a few weeks now.


• And finally, my washer hasn't been agitating or spinning for several weeks now. It appears to still get clothes clean, but it's definitely not working right.

The latter three things aren't fixed yet due to the diminished finances of summer. The ironic part is that, now that I'll have money to fix everything, it'll be tricky finding time to do it while I'm teaching in schools all day. I'm betting that a windshield-repair place might do weekends, but I'm less confident that a washer could get fixed in that time frame. At any rate, I hope that all my stuff will be considerate enough to not break down quite so much at once in the future.

*I love using words like those because of the "exotic" factor; they just sound fancier than "entrance" and "exit." But I still say that "egress" could also be the name for a female egret.

This guy took the "Boomer" part of "Boomer Sooner" a bit too seriously: An Oklahoma University fan became verbally and then physically abusive to a guy who committed the egregious "offense" of walking into an Oklahoma CIty bar wearing a Texas Longhorns T-shirt.

When Grandpa goes bad: William Tinnen was charged with cocaine trafficking this week, which wouldn't be all that unusual except for the fact that the North Carolina man is 93 years old.

Unfortunate criminal of the week: A guy who was already on probation for drugs was set to be arrested for questioning in a new case. When officers arrived to take him in, he asked if he could put his pants on first; they obliged and followed him to his room. Unfortunately, the dresser drawer where he kept his pants also contained his bag of pot.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Check out Grip, a live video with professional trampoline gymnasts who simulate various computer effects.

The Doctor Will See Play For You Now

Remember the rock group Queen, and its guitarist, Brian May? Well, it's Dr. Brian May now; the rocker has finally completed his doctorate in astrophysics this week from London's Imperial College. He had started working on it in the '70s, but he had to put it on the shelf when his band started to take off.

His 48,000-word thesis, incidentally, is called "Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud," and he noted that submitting and defending it to his examiners was, at least at first, as nerve-wracking as playing any stadium gig.

In other rockin' news: Enjoy a list of the Ten Best Bands That Never Existed (think Spinal Tap, the Rutles, etc.). The band in first place may surprise you...

For really lazy music lovers: Japanese engineers have come up with a piece of gear that lets iPod users start the device hands-free by clenching their teeth.

Maybe he should have stuck to doing his homework: A Finnish high school student has been fined for posting a video of one of his teachers singing karaoke at a school party. It wasn't the singing part that caused the trouble, but rather the fact that the student labeled the video as taking place at a mental hospital.

Another Smorgasbord

So many unusual stories, so little time to post this week...

• Stupid criminal of the week: A woman, upset that the cocaine she bought turned out to be a fake, calls the police for assistance.


• Stupid crime of the week: A 12-year-old boy was accused of assaulting a senior citizen...with a cocktail sausage. (A court later threw out the case and gave police and prosecutors a lecture for pursuing it.)


• In the same vein--and also in England--charges were also dismissed against a pair of female sunbathers who flashed a TV camera in a public beach area.


• One more from across the pond, and this one hasn't been dropped yet: A man was arrested in London for surfing the Web using someone else's unsecured Wi-Fi connection.


• Weird technological item of the day: A urinal for women.


• An interesting day, and a good name for a heavy-metal band: Goth Day at Disneyland. (I always got a kick out of the Goth kids that showed up to outdoor rock concerts; their skin was so pale that they burned in an instant. And here's a Fun Fact about me: My last Halloween costume--save for the Chipotle burrito thing, of course--was as a Goth, in 1998.)


• Speaking of Fun Facts, some of you know that I was an extra in the movie Necessary Roughness, which was filmed on my campus while I was in college. Among the players on the ragtag Texas State Armadillos (before an actual university assumed that name) was a 35-year-old quarterback. But now another Texas school can do that one better: Sul Ross State University in Alpine will include a 59-year-old cornerback on its fall roster. (Another piece of trivia that I just found out while researching this article: Among the cast members of Necessary Roughness was former Senator and possible Presidential candidate Fred Thompson.)


• I'm in ur iPhone, hax0ring ur networkz: A 17-year-old from New Jersey has figured out how to hack the iPhone in order to get it on other networks besides AT&T.

I'll have a more topical post or two over the weekend.

30-3

I listened to a bit of the Rangers game last night on the way to a faculty meeting at the college. When I went inside, our boys from Arlington were doing well--they were ahead of the Orioles, 14-3 in the seventh inning. So I was quite shocked to get in the car about an hour later and learn that the Rangers had tacked on sixteen more runs in the last two innings! That's right, thirty runs--the most scored by a single team in a single game since before 1900.

(Incidentally, this game was the first of a doubleheader, and the Rangers entered the nightcap already holding the record for most runs in a doubleheader before the first pitch of that game, which they would also win, 9-7.)

The Rangers haven't had a great season so far, but it was great to see a bright spot like this--one that won't be forgotten for quite some time. (The funniest stat connected with the game was provided by KRLD's Victor Rojas, who pointed out that the Baltimore Ravens, who play next door to Camden Yards, haven't given up 30 points since Game 10 of the 2005 season. You have to admit that 30-3 really does sound like a football score.)

Here's hoping that the team can build on this and salvage a respectable finish this season.

UPDATE: Here's a great essay from the Dallas Morning News writer Jean-Jacques Taylor on the magic of sports; it's true that you really never know when something special will happen during what might otherwise be a completely ordinary game.

A Fairly unusual snack: It's way too hot for this in Texas, but a lot of other places are having their state fairs right about now. Over at buzz.mn, James Lileks will be making live appearances and blogging the Minnesota State Fair for its duration. Meanwhile, in Illinois, the food vendors are going beyond the everyday corny dogs, fried Twinkies and fried Coke for an unusual sensation: Breakfast on a Stick.

A fair trade? A Malaysian man who married two wives has to give his original family a buffalo and a pig as compensation

I has a donut! Nooo, they be stealin' my donut: Senior citizens in Putnam County, New York were up in arms because the city decided to stop allowing day-old donuts to be donated to senior centers, citing health worries. The seniors decided that they were old enough to make that decision themselves, and the donuts will be coming back, though still not stored at the centers.

Grilled bird? It's not on the menu quite yet: A wild bird was hit by a car in Michigan and then spent two days trapped behind the vehicle's grille. Amazingly enough, the bird surivived and is recovering at a local residence.

Another yourbaby.com story: Last week, I posted a story about a Chinese couple who wanted to name their baby with the "@" symbol. Now comes word that some couples here in the U.S. are choosing baby names based on availability as a domain name, which they are then securing for the baby upon its birth.

Chocolate Reigns

Unless you have either 1) been in a cave for the past few weeks, or 2) don't have a computer, you've probably heard the song "Chocolate Rain" by Tay Zonday (if you haven't, click here). The song has taken on quite a life as an Internet meme over the past several months. The song actually has a really deep message about racism, even if, upon first hearing, it almost comes off like a parody. (Between the extremely deep voice coming out of Zonday--he's actually a 25-year-old Ph.D student at the University of Minnesota, but he looks so young that I'd probably card him if I worked at a movie theatre--and the random graphic messages such as "**I move away from the mic to breathe in" superimposed over the top of the video, it takes a while to realize that he's serious.)

But the song has spread like wildfire. I've had friends tell me that they'll break into that song in random public places and always gotten a laugh out of someone. And the parodies are great; the song has "performed" by Darth Vader and McGruff the Crime Dog, spliced into a really old McDonald's commercial, mashed up with Radiohead and Snoop Dogg and sung by someone using a helium balloon. But the funniest by far are the individual parodies, the best of which is Vanilla Snow. (Not so successful, but still funny, is the song being sung rather badly by a fat white guy.)

UPDATE: How about a DDR remix?

Among all the hype, Zonday actually is a serious musician; other songs (with more than a single looped chord progression are on his MySpace page. A recent article about him from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune appears here.

This place was so secure, it made her feel insecure: A woman in California, examining her safe-deposit box, was accidentally locked in the building for six hours after closing time.

Some people blew their tops over this: Signs advertising a "topless car wash" in New York state were quite disappointed when they arrived to find that all the car-washers were shirtless male firefighters.

Thinking way outside the bun: Police were called to a Taco Bell parking lot in Arkansas after patrons noticed a couple apparently having sex in a van. (The guy was also busted for pot at the same time.)

When animals attack...each other: Croc vs. shark.

The most tabloid-sounding story of the day that's actually true: Elvis's stolen handgun found in portable toilet.

Putting Up the "Gone Fishin'" Sign for a Day

Two hours of teaching this morning. Five-and-a-half hours of auditions at the college this afternoon and evening. Another hour and a half of discussion thereof.

In other words, I'm beat. Regular posting will resume tomorrow.

Spam? A Lot! Part 3

A while back, I posted on the subject of spam, and the noteworthy element that time was unusual word strings (such as "nadiaprovisiondonahue") that were used for the "name" of the alleged sender. (An even earlier post covered the nonsense combinations of words used in subject lines.) And now, being inundated with spam once again on the two listservs which I manage, the creativity continues, as the subject lines have now become (sometimes rather lengthy) sentences of their own:

• If your browser supports Java, you should see an animated image above (generated by a Java applet embedded on the page).


• Can you take me to her.


• Extended features are available through modules which can be loaded into Apache.


• I've also had to do this to ease the communication between mappers and packers several times.


• A lichnyj transport vsjo-taki, na dannom etape, predstavljajet soboj tupik civilizacii, jesli ispol'zujet iskopajemyje vidy topliva. (from a Norwegian address)


• I often get drunk these days, there's no denying it, but that's the only way I can stomach the thought of what we're doing over there.


• Due to the side effects performed by this intrinsic, the function form is not recommended.


• This option is always enabled by default on certain machines, usually those which have no call-preserved registers to use instead.


• It was some fiend.


• No, my old friend, don't worry.

I'll see if I can find a Norwegian translation engine later.

This would have been a great SNL skit in the old days: Samurai Gas Station Robbers.

It hasn't super-sized them yet: A British couple has eaten lunch at McDonald's every day for 17 years.

Talk about a frivolous lawsuit: A South Carolina prison inmate is suing Michael Vick for $63 quintillion dollars, claiming that Vick stole his pit bulls and sold them on eBay to "use the proceeds to purchase missiles from the Iran government." (This guy has filed other wacky lawsuits in the past.)

A Sign of the Times

While I was down in Austin yesterday, I stopped at an intersection where there were panhandlers on three of the four corners. The one closest to me--looking every bit the part, with long hair, scraggly grey beard, tattered clothes--was holding up the funniest sign I've ever seen a panhandler use:
LEAR JET
OUT OF FUEL
PLEASE HELP
Being near the end of the down side of my business cycle, I didn't actually have any "gas money" for him, but I did get a good laugh out of it. (And one of my friends pointed out later that I should have told him he could have sold the jet and gotten quite a bit of money out of it!)

Those T-shirts don't say "KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD" for nothing...

Best excuse, used by an adult, that could have come from a middle-schooler: The goat ate my euros!

I'm in ur atmusfeer, defyin' ur gravities: A cat fell out an 18th-floor window of a Chicago highrise...and survived. Eight lives to go...

Travel Advisory

I'm taking a quick day trip to Austin to help celebrate my nephew Micah's first birthday. Too much work left to stay more than a day, so I'll be back tonight and might even have another post for the day.

Tax Takes a Holiday

If you're here in Texas, enjoy the sales tax holiday this weekend. Here's a list of what is and isn't exempt from the tax.

Looking at the list...does anyone buy handkerchiefs anymore? Does anyone in Texas buy gloves in August? And how would anyone consider personal flotation devices (which aren't on the list) or cowboy boots (which are) a necessary back-to-school item?

Me, I might snag a few pairs of pants over the weekend, but otherwise, I'm good. My only issue this weekend is the Dread Sked, which is even more complicated than usual. Too many people, not enough slots, just like always. Thankfully, there's still a week to tweak it.

(Lack of) Fire Safety 101: It's bad enough when your lawnmower blows up as you try to start it. It's even worse when you try to throw the gas can out of the garage to avoid the flames, but you miss.

Sticking it to the man, in small denominations: An Indiana man showed his frustration with having to pay a large (as in over $12,000) tax bill by doing so in $1 bills and coins.

Tour de Amputation: A Japanese bicyclist got so caught up in the race he was riding that he didn't even notice that one of his legs had come off during the ride.

This would be even funnier if they added ".com" to the end of their last name: A Chinese couple has rankled government officials by choosing "@" for the name of their new baby.

Thursday Smorgasbord

All the news that's fit to print type and hit the "publish" button:

• Remember the blind guy who was caught driving drunk? He's been caught again.


• A woman attacked a man in a Seatlle karaoke bar because she didn't like the way he was singing a Coldplay song.


• Happy cat: A New Jersey feline survived a house fire by hiding in the couch.


• Not-so-happy cat: A man who was upset with his ex-girlfriend took it out on her cat by castrating it with a box cutter.


• Someone who robbed a bakery in Phoenix took several boxes of cupcakes, but left the cash.


• A New Hampshire homeowner called police after she saw a couple having sex on her trampoline.


• A British university lecturer hopes to improve his students' spelling performances by publicly shaming them; in other words, he plans to publish the most egregious of their errors in a professional journal.


• Interesting thought for today: What would have happened if Elvis had never been born?

Blowing out the candle (singular): Happy birthday to my youngest nephew Micah, who's a year old today. Cute baby picture here.

Supermarket Loyalty Programs: Is Something Bad in the Cards?

Longtime reader Gary P. left a couple of interesting comments in Sunday's post (about the adulterer who was "caught" by an online floral company) that I thought deserved further discussion here. This was his original comment:

The purchase records of supermarket "loyalty" cards are another data source being mined in legal proceedings. Folks in divorce proceedings who bought condoms or pregnancy tests on a "loyalty" card without the other spouse's knowledge, or people in child custody cases who bought cigarettes or liquor or lots of fatty foods on their "loyalty" cards wind up with lots of 'splainin' to do in front of the judge regarding their fitness for custody.

NoCards.org had a link to a story some time back of a Seattle-area firefighter who was convicted of arson primarily based on the evidence that he used a "loyalty" card to buy some firestarting material similar to what was used to burn down his house shortly after. Just before he was to be sent to jail, someone else stepped forward to claim responsibility for the fire and the innocent firefighter was freed.

But hey, "loyalty" cards are all about "convenience" and "great price savings," right?

The story he's referring to is here, and the writer notes that "The moral of this story is that even the most innocent database can be used against a person in a criminal investigation turning their lives completely upside down."

(I've been trying to find a link for the story I heard on the radio several years ago, where someone sent a reporter out to pretend that they had found a set of keys with a card from a local chain attached to the keyring. If I recall it correctly, they called the store and were able to get the person's home address from the number on the card, despite not being asked to verify that they were in fact the card's owner. If memory also serves, the person at the store who did that got in quite a bit of trouble.)

Some of the stories at nocards.org are certainly enough to make one think twice about using these cards. I don't have that big of a personal dog in this fight, because I do the bulk of my food shopping at Super Target, which is cardless thus far. I'll occasionally get gas at Tom Thumb with their card, or maybe some breakfast stuff if it's late and ST is closed, and I use my Albertson's card far less than that. Still, the question is this: Should companies like this be required to turn over such information to law enforcement officers and/or attorneys of other parties in lawsuits? And will people cut up their club cards well in advance of the time when, say, insurance companies start monitoring one's purchases (of, say, junk food, beer, cigarettes, etc.) and using that information to deny a claim? How much paranoia is healthy in this situation? Feel free to chime in using the comments.

A view from the other side of the checkstand: One of the things I discovered while researching this post was the Mad Cashier blog. It appears to be written by a DFW-area worker who was a casualty of the recent Albertson's downsizing.

(More links later, or tomorrow.)

Floored by the Tone

I had a Big Serious Post about a major social issue planned for today, but things took a wonderful detour instead.

The distraction came in the form of a simple MySpace bulletin from whomever runs Bill Frisell's site (maybe the man himself?), announcing today's release of a CD from a group called Floratone, featuring Frisell on guitars and effects, UNT and SNL alumnus Matt Chamberlain on drums, and...two producers? OK, now I remember reading about this group.

Here's what happened: In much the same way that the legendary Teo Macero assembled the Miles Davis masterpieces Bitches Brew*
and On the Corner, Tucker Martine and Lee Townsend took raw material generated by Frisell and Chamberlain's studio jams and ran with it--editing, looping and processing it until they came up with a set of "songs." From there, bassist Victor Knauss (of Frisell's West Coast group) came in and added bass lines, and Frisell wrote horn and string parts to be played by Ron Miles (cornet) and Eyvind Kang (violin/viola). Chamberlain and Frisell added some more tracks of their own, and, two years after the initial studio jams, Floratone was born.

This isn't music that's easy to describe with one or two simple words, as it doesn't really fit into a specific genre. John Kelman of All About Jazz calls it Ambient Americana Sound Sculpting, while co-producer Townsend chooses "futuristic roots music." All I can say is that it's a fascinating combination of sounds--not 100% jazz, but there's a strong element of that in there, along with Chamberlain's catchy grooves, Frisell's trademark sound painting and the cool, skronky effects added by the producers. (Incidentally, the band's name is a hybrid of Martine's Flora studio and Townsend's Tonefield Productions.)

The band's website generously allows the first five tunes on the CD to be played in their entirety, and I heartily recommend checking them out. Having just seen Frisell in concert recently and purchased one of his CD's, I've been getting into things that have been a bit off the beaten path. The CD has already been ordered, and the website will keep me sated until the package arrives.

*Uh-oh...there goes my blog's "G" rating, I bet...

Weird gadget of the week: As the temperature continues to top 100 degrees in the Metroplex this week, office workers who are not fortunate enough to work in casual settings might enjoy this device: A USB necktie cooler that plugs right into a laptop! (It's a Babelfish translation from a Japanese site, so the instructions contain a wonderful helping of Engrish. Hat tip: Lileks, over at buzz.

The iBill is a New Kind of iBook, In a Way

Now that the iPhone has been out for a bit over a month, people are starting to get their first bills for the new service...and evidently, they're huge--not necessarily in price (though that could be the case as well), but in sheer volume. Ben at Ars Technica posts that his bill was 52 pages in length:

As you enjoy your weekend, ponder this bit of humor: while the iPhone may be master of the digital mobile experience (for now), dead trees come in for a flogging, as AT&T's iPhone bills are quite impressive in their own right. We're starting to get bills for the iPhone here at Ars, and while many of us have had smartphones for some time, we've never seen a bill like this.

One of our bills is a whopping 52 pages long, and my own bill is 34 pages long. They're printed on both sides, too. What gives?

The AT&T bill itemizes your data usage whenever you surf the Internet via EDGE, even if you're signed up for the unlimited data plan. AT&T also goes into an incredible amount of detail to tell you—well, almost nothing. For instance, I know that on July 27 at 3:21 p.m. I had some data use that, under the To/From heading, AT&T has helpfully listed as "Data Transfer." The Type of file? "Data." My total charge? $0.00.

This mind-numbing detail goes on for 52 double-sided pages (for 104 printed pages!) with absolutely no variance except the size of the files.

Read the whole thing; there are pictures.

As I've said before, I'm in no hurry to get one of these things, though I'm sure it'll happen sometime down the road. And when it does, I'd have to think seriously about taking the plunge into e-billing if they're going to mail me War and Peace every month. (My reasons for not doing e-billing thus far? Among other things, I would be nervous about somehow missing a bill; I have a separate email address for "commercial" concerns, and it gets more than its share of spam. I'd also have to figure out a different system besides the old-fashioned bill holder--with its numbered slots for each day of the month--that sits above me on the computer desk, and I'd have to print the e-bills out using my own paper and [overpriced] toner. For now, I'll kick it old-school on this one.)

I'd hate to see the printout for this one: Meanwhile, in Malaysia, a wireless company sent a dead guy a bill for $218 trillion dollars--this despite the fact that the man's son had gotten the service disconnected in January.

Cheating Spouse Tripped Up by Toll Tag

People who feel that they might be the victims of a cheating spouse have plenty of tools at their disposal to find out the truth, be they old-school (spy supplies, actual private detectives, credit card bills) or new-school (GPS records, cell phone records, surveillance cameras). But I bet that a philandering spouse would never expect to have been caught in the act by electronic toll records:

Adulterers, beware: Your cheatin' heart might be exposed by E-ZPass.
E-ZPass and other electronic toll collection systems are emerging as a powerful means of proving infidelity. That's because when your spouse doesn't know where you've been, E-ZPass does.

"E-ZPass is an E-ZPass to go directly to divorce court, because it's an easy way to show you took the off-ramp to adultery," said Jacalyn Barnett, a New York divorce lawyer who has used E-ZPass records a few times.

Lynne Gold-Bikin, a Pennsylvania divorce lawyer, said E-ZPass helped prove a client's husband was being unfaithful: "He claimed he was in a business meeting in Pennsylvania. And I had records to show he went to New Jersey that night."

Generally mounted inside a vehicle's windshield behind the rearview mirror, E-ZPass devices communicate with antennas at toll plazas, automatically deducting money from the motorist's prepaid account.

Of the 12 states in the Northeast and Midwest that are part of the E-ZPass system, agencies in seven states provide electronic toll information in response to court orders in criminal and civil cases, including divorces, according to an Associated Press survey.

The obvious way to avoid get caught cheating is simply to not cheat in the first place, but, as the article makes obvious, it's best to cover one's tracks carefully when doing so. In fact--despite some justifiable concerns about privacy, common sense is the best way to go:

Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman from Georgia turned Libertarian and privacy rights advocate, said people who want to protect their privacy shouldn't use electronic toll systems.

"People are foolish to buy into these systems without thinking, just because they want to save 20 seconds of time going through a toll booth," he said.

But for those of us with nothing to hide, they sure area convenience, aren't they?

(It's important to point out that I "misspelled" the term "toll tag" on purpose; "TollTag" as all one word is the trademark of our local North Texas Tollway Authority, which was not profiled in the article, and their policy in this area is unknown to me. Even though it's tempting around here to use that term generically, like Thermos, Kleenex or Dumpster, I didn't want anyone from the NTTA reading this and getting the wrong idea. OK, there--the legal stuff is out of the way. 5.7% APR, all products not available in all areas, your mileage may vary.)

1-800-YOU-BLEW-MY-COVER: In a related story, a man here in Texas is suing 1-800-FLOWERS for inadvertently revealing an affair to the man's wife. He bought flowers through the service for his girlfriend and, citing the company's own policy, asked them to keep the purchase private, but the company sent a thank-you card--with a record of the name of the recipient and the "I love you" message to her--to the man's home, where the wife read it, turning what had been an amicable divorce between the two into something much less so.

A possible movie sequel for next summer: Snakes and Crocs on a Plane (and by "crocs," they don't mean the shoes).

The shape of even more jazz to come: Ft. Worth native Ornette Coleman--still going strong at age 77--gets a front-page profile in the GuideLive section of today's DMN. Among other things, the article notes that he's doing much better since he collapsed from heat exhaustion at the Bonnaroo Festival in June. There's video and audio of Ornette here.

The Heat Is On

According to tomorrow's newspaper (ahh, the wonders of the Web), it finally broke 100 degrees at DFW Airport for the first time this year, at 2:56 this afternoon. That's the sixth-latest first occurrence of the century mark since such things have been recorded.

It really has been a nice, mild, rainy summer up to this point, so I won't complain. I do feel bad for my high-schoolers, who must be cursing the fact that it waited until they started marching band practice to get really hot. But overall, the utility bills at Casa de Kev have been low this summer, and, despite having to run the car A/C almost constantly, gas is even going down at the moment (I paid $2.56 for regular unleaded earlier this afternoon), so I won't begrudge Mother Nature a little hot streak.

And besides, this would appear to be good news:

While 100-degree temperatures are common enough well into September, the slow decline of daylight that began with the summer solstice almost two months ago is beginning to have its effect.

Statistically, normal daily highs begin falling next week, marking the long drift toward autumn. Although the relief exists only on paper, [National Weather Service Meteorologist Alan] Moller said it would take another strong high-pressure ridge to trigger another string of 100-degree days.

“For the moment, we don't see anything that strong,” he said.

Being a Lileks fan, I'm a regular reader of the site buzz.mn, and it was amusing, as we approached our first triple-digit day, to read that the trees are already starting to turn in Minnesota.

A ZZ Top song come to life: Remember the old song "Arrested for Driving While Blind"? It really happened in Estonia not too long ago. Even worse--he was also drunk.

I guess every teenager is trendy now: The latest interior design craze is...an unmade bed.

Creature feature #1: A crocodile in Russia fell out of a 12th-floor window and lived.

Creature feature #2: A man and his son found a rattlesnake on their property. The man decapitated it with a shovel, and its severed head bit him anyway.

Sonic Sign Silliness Returns

In the early days of this blog, I used to make fun of the bad grammar, spelling and punctuation on the marquee sign of a local Sonic drive-in; it happened many, many different occasions. It had been a long time since I'd seen an error-filled sign, but this week, a local outlet had the following message:

IT'S BACK SPICY SOUTH
WEST SUPER SONIC BURGER
This was not the same location that had all the mistakes in the past, but the same sign did invite us to TRY A ORANGECOOL BREEZE a few years ago. (It's fun to bring back an old topic every now and then.)

Silly criminals, part 1: A would-be motorbike thief in England was caught after he left his severed finger at the scene.

Silly criminals, part 2: Meanwhile, in New Zealand, another criminal was caught after people recognized him in a YouTube video.

Silly criminals, part 3: A woman in Wisconsin was arrested for barking at a police dog.

Everybody sing: "I wish that I had used a parking meter; then my boss would not be mad at me-e-ee." Chicago police ticketed the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile for illegal parking.

Town vs. Students, Part 2

Earlier in the year, I posted about a situation brewing in the Dallas suburb of University Park. The controversy stemmed from the city's desire to start enforcing an old ordinance prohibiting more than two unrelated people from sharing a dwelling. The big problem with that is that there are plenty of SMU students (since that's the university for which the city is named) living in condos in the city...and most of said condos are three bedrooms.

On Monday, City Council revisited the issue. There's certainly a good reason for them to modify the ordinance to fit the three-bedroom condos:

About 1,130 students list a mailing address in one of the two University Park ZIP codes, an SMU official said, though one of those ZIP codes includes part of Highland Park.

"You've got all these apartment developers wanting to build three-bedroom apartments," said Dan Sefko, a planning consultant hired by the city. "Are you going to have two people living there? Probably not."

Mr. Sefko said the ordinance is extremely difficult to enforce anyway and would be based primarily on complaints from neighbors. Mr. Sefko said that his research shows the definition varies in other cities that are home to major universities, but that his firm never recommends a definition lower than three.

But on Tuesday, the council decided to delay the vote, sending the measure back to the Planning and Zoning Commission for more work:

Mayor Blackie Holmes and other council members said they were concerned about how the change would affect residents in areas zoned for single-family housing.

"We want to be sure that we get this right and go at it the right way," Mr. Holmes said. "And we've gotten several letters – more than that – with respect to three [unrelated] individuals living under the same roof in single-family districts."

Last month, the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended a compromise measure to change the definition of family in areas zoned for multifamily uses but leave it alone in single-family neighborhoods. But city attorney Robert Dillard rejected that recommendation, arguing that it's not legally sound to have two definitions of the same word in one city.

Mr. Holmes said Tuesday that he hopes the commission recommends a new measure that would accomplish the same goal without any definition of the word family.

Ahh, they're caught up in the micro-details. So there will be another sequel to this post after the council votes again, which will likely be in two months. But my hat is off to the council for taking the students' needs into consideration instead of just automatically siding with the moneyed homeowners. Further kudos go out to them for agreeing not to enforce the ordinance until the vote, and it's my hope that, if it is upheld in that vote, that no students will be forced to move out until the fall academic term is over.

An unconventional way to gather evidence: A man in India was suspected of snatching a gold necklace and then swallowing it, so police forced him to eat 40 bananas in the hopes that he would, umm, pass on the evidence. But believe it or not, the bananas didn't do the trick; the police weren't able to retrieve their booty (so to speak) until they fed him a big meal of chicken and rice.

Cool gadget of the week: It's a printer! It's a table! No, wait...It's both!

Really cool gadget of the week: Fujitsu has come up with a 231-inch TV. It's almost 20 feet across, which means that if I started at the near end of my living room wall, it would go out the door and take up most of my (admittedly rather small) backyard. (Also, its recommended viewing distance is about five-and-a-half yards, so that would be the end of my bedroom wall as well. But that's all rendered moot by the fact that I can't afford its $531K price tag.)

Blowing out the candles: Happy birthday to James Lileks, one of my favorite writers, and proprietor of the buzz and Bleat (which, said together, sounds like a charming little country tavern).

#756? My response is: "Meh."

I'm a huge baseball fan. When Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris's record for most home runs in a season, I followed it religiously. When Barry Bonds broke that same record a few years later, I have to admit to a certain lack of unenthusiasm; the steroid allegations hadn't really come out yet, but Bonds had always come off as so completely unlikeable (and, at the time, McGwire was such a great story) that I never really warmed to him.

This summer, as Bonds came closer and closer to the remaining "unbreakable" baseball record--Hank Aaron's 755 homers in a career--I found myself unable to get very excited about it. I didn't tune into Giants games to see if another one would leave the park. At times, I found myself hoping that maybe his knees would give out, forcing his retirement when he was maybe one or two shy of Aaron's mark; that seemed like poetic justice to me. (I certainly wasn't alone in my lack of enthusiasm; read any article about the home run chase from the past few weeks, and you'll see people holding signs with asterisks on them, read about the boos mixed in with the cheers, and so on.

But it's all moot now, of course, because Bonds did break the record last night. And again, I find myself saying....meh. It's just hard to generate a lot of enthusiasm when the record was broken by someone who has a cloud of allegations hanging over his head and who has seemingly never made an effort to connect with the fans who help pay his salary.

I'm not alone in this feeling; Mark Kriegel of FoxSports.com is feeling the same way::

If you didn't know better, it might have been a perfect moment. The pitcher, Mike Bacsik, issued his gallant challenge with a fastball on a full count. Bacsik's father, a former big league pitcher himself, had told him to go after Barry Bonds. Don't worry about giving up the big one, he told his son.

Bacsik gave up the big one, of course. Bonds would recall his own father's advice: "Load your back leg." By now, the swing is familiar: a violent swivel of the hips and torso, bat meets ball, redirecting its path in a grand parabola. Ferocious physics. Then, the ecstatic moment, as Bonds raised his arms in triumph. He knew. Everybody knew.

[...]Now Bonds took the microphone. He thanked his teammates. He thanked his family.

"My dad," he said.

There was a clearly audible voice from the San Francisco crowd: "We love you Barry."

Bonds was already done, though. He had begun to choke up at the mention of his father. He was holding back tears.

It took him only 22 major league seasons to demonstrate his humanity.

"My dad taught me everything I know," Bonds would say later.

Fathers and sons and baseball. I wanted to cry.

But I couldn't.

I want to believe in Barry Bonds. But I can't. I don't think I'm alone, either.

It seems more prudent to save your tears for the looming indictment.

Is that too cynical? Only time will tell. I know there are a lot of people with me in the "meh" crowd--assuming they're still paying attention to baseball at all.

I've posted before about how I believe that baseball exemplifies a lot of things that are good about America, and I haven't stopped believing that. I'm just waiting for the steroid era to pass, for its protagonists to retire, and I hope that when it's over, people will still believe. I wish it had been caught sooner; Kriegel does too:

Of course, Major League Baseball didn't catch on to the steroid scam until it was too late. By then Mark McGwire was out of the game, and the home run totals were hopelessly tainted. Shame on Bud Selig. He should have seen it coming.

The evidence that Barry Bonds did steroids, among other illicit substances, is overwhelming. Steroids are illegal. Steroids are cheating. And unlike so many others, Bonds — the best player of this tainted era — didn't need drugs to be great. Still, great as he is, he's human. If you could trade places with him, you might have done steroids. Baseball players weren't the only ones, of course. All the sports got big. It got to the point where even those skinny little bike riders couldn't be trusted.

What, you believe in the Tour de France?

The problem is, getting big has a price. It compromises your faith.

Now Barry Bonds has broken the most famous record in sports. It should be the perfect story: a tale of fathers and sons and baseball. It should bring a tear to your eye.

You want to believe, but you can't. Welcome to the new world.

Is it asking too much for our would-be heroes to hold themselves to a higher standard in how they conduct themselves, both on and off the field? I still say yes.

Hank Aaron wasn't there last night, as had been expected, but he did send a video message of congratulations. It ended with this sentence: "My hope today, as it was on that April evening in 1974, is that the achievement of this record will inspire others to chase their own dreams." And may the next guy be someone whom all of America can rally around once again.

Heh. Indeed: Happy six-year "blogiversary" to Instapundit. Here's his first weeks' worth of posts.

What's Next, Saxophone Hero? I'm Game...

The video game Guitar Hero has become quite popular over the past few years, so it was bound to spawn both imitators and spoofs. Here's the best spoof so far, from a recent Onion article: Sousaphone Hero:

Despite a catchy 1890s soundtrack and realistic-feeling game play, Sousaphone Hero, the third installment of Activision's massively popular Guitar Hero video game franchise, sold a mere 52 copies in the United States in its opening week, the company reported Monday.

"In the wake of Guitar Hero's success, we thought the public was more than ready for additional popular American musical genres in a simulated-performance format, but people don't seem to be responding to marches as well as we had hoped," said Activision spokeswoman Melissa Hendleman, whose company spent an estimated $25 million developing the game for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii consoles.

Sousaphone Hero offers two dozen public-domain marches, including 1893's "The Liberty Bell," 1896's "Stars and Stripes Forever," and 1897's "Entry of the Gladiators." The bulky sousaphone-shaped controller coils around the body, and players wear white spat-like foot coverings fitted with sensors that monitor synchronized marching steps. As with the fret buttons on Guitar Hero's guitar peripheral, the sousaphone controller's three valves are color-coded to match on-screen notes the player must hit.

Read the whole thing, which is equally hilarious, especially the picture of the guy using the "new wireless controller."

And if that doesn't tickle your fancy, there's always Accordion Hero, whose website makes it almost look real.

But this one is real: In a new Japanese video game called ICED!, players can assume the role of an illegal immigrant who runs afoul of the U.S. system.

When this lady said "Not tonight, honey, I have a headache," she wasn't kidding: A woman got a pencil stuck in her head in a childhood accident, and it stayed there for 55 years.