Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• The shooting spree (and the back story) of the ex-Utah Trooper on a Dallas freeway borders on the bizarre. But the cop-gone-bad stories always seem to have a mitigating sentence in them. In this case, "Smith's abuse of alcohol and prescription medications started after an on-duty traffic accident."
• I journeyed to Northeast Mall yesterday --- not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. 
• Well, the traffic was horrific.
• That R.J. Gators restaurant was basically empty at dinner time. Not-a-good sign.
• Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas originally had lyrics that included "Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last / Next year we may all be living in the past" and "Faithful friends who were dear to us / Will be near to us no more" 
• Tonight we get to Santa's sleigh on the local weather radar which, proportionally, would make it about 200 miles wide. As a kid, I expected to see a flashing dot on the radar.
• I'm working a half day today. But, somehow, I managed to have a UPS package delivered to the office today. If I'm sitting here by myself all afternoon long waiting for it, I'll be in pre-Christmas depression. Come on, Brown. Do it for me. (It arrived in Denton at 2:06 a.m. this morning).
• TCU defeated a previously undefeated Boise State last night. But I stopped down when they interviewed the Boise State cheerleader who was famously proposed to after Boise State defeated Oklahoma two years ago. That girl was dumb as a box of rocks. 
• Everyone is now calling it the Poin-ZET-EE-AH Bowl. 
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button looks like it might be pretty good. (And I just heard a heck of a good review of Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson in Marley & Me -- that's surprising.)
• I always intentionally delay getting in the "Christmas spirit" so as not to experience overkill. And then I look up at the last minute and realize I missed it. 
• A Fort Worth judge ordering a person to post a billboard message as part of his sentence is silly and smells of publicity seeking. 
• I really am in a good mood. 
• I feel fat again today. (And, yeah, I know that breaks a "man rule" but everything I'm wearing feels tight all of a sudden. 
• "The New York Yankees flexed their financial muscles -- again -- Tuesday, stunning the baseball world by snagging first baseman [and former Texas Ranger] Mark Teixeira with an eight-year, $180-million deal."  Funny photoshopped pic of him here. 
• WBAP's Hal Jay and Steve Lamb (the sports guy) asked each other this morning how much of Teixeira's contract was guaranteed. Amazingly (or not), neither one of them knew the answer. As in all major league baseball contracts, the answer is, "all of it."
• I got the nicest email from a web producer over at Fox 4 who wanted to be my Facebook friend. She referred to the "boob-centric photos you post thrice daily." Maam, this is a hard hitting news site I'm running here.