Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• The "Best Maid Pickle Team" will be in Alvord today at the grand opening of some grocery store. I wonder if they had to be on some minor league pickle team before they hit the big time?   
• If I accomplish nothing else today, I just made you feel better about your job. 
• Baylor announced a major donation towards its plan for a new footballl stadium yesterday - a stadium that looks fantastic. (Facebook link.) But I hope they realize that the partial roof might make for an irritating field of half bright/half shade for TV viewers. That drove me nuts about Texas Stadium games. 
• That would-be Paradise model was on 105.3 The Fan's morning show yesterday.  I really don't have an opinion about her performance, but that show in general sounds like a beating. (Oh, that link contains a link to pics.)
• There was a story yesterday that the theft of boxes of Tide had become a nationwide problem. The basic consensus of why the detergent was the target of thieves was that it is a good black market commodity.  That is, it's fairly expensive for its size, universally recognizable, and would be desired by every household.  That's why convenience store thefts often include cartons of cigarettes. They aren't being stolen to smoke, they are being stolen to sell.
• Wrong way driver caused a collision on 114 in Irving last night. That led to a limo bus hitting an
  emergency vehicle (but it wasn't a police car.) Edit: There was a wrong way crash in Fort Worth, too.
• Mrs. LL's niece is staying with us for the week. Yesterday, Mrs. LL kept mumbling, "And it's only Tuesday."
• Encyclopaedia Britannica announced yesterday that it would discontinue its print version. I'm stunned it still existed.
• Rick Santorum won both Mississippi and Alabama last night but Mitt Romney was just a few points behind. I bet his "I'm learning to say ya'll" and "I've learning about grits" comments were just goofy enough to cost him the wins with the Southern Man.
• But it doesn't seem to matter. Those in the know seem to think there is no way that Santorum can catch Romney in delegates so all the hubbub is over nothing. 
• Mrs. LL tried to attack the meddling neighbor cats last night with a water hose but came back in the house with a case of Slumped Shoulders. One of the neighbors prevented the attack by simply being outside when she didn't expect him to be.  
• I'm really liking my Manhunt book about the search for John Wilkes Booth. I always thought Dr. Mudd, who set Booth's broken leg, was pretty much just doing what doctors do. Wrong. (Read that in a Dwight Shrute voice, by the way.) He was a huge Confederate sympathizer and had met with Booth the year before in connection with a plan to kidnap Lincoln.
• Just as I wrote that, Drudge put up a story of John Wilkes Booth bobblehead dolls (complete with him holding a handgun) have been pulled from the Gettysburg National Military Park visitor’s center bookstore. Idiocracy.
• Some guy named Kevin Rich brought out a "better" video of the American Airlines flight attendant who went nuts last Friday, and he appeared on various local news outlets last night to promote (?) it. I don't understand that. This isn't that big of a story to start with, and why does he want to jump on the pile?
• I hear birds chirping in the middle of the night. Not a dream. Real birds.
• We've got a record turnout and record prizes in the Liberally Lean Pick "Em Tourney, and I'm still soliciting more.  (Someone pledged a necklace yesterday but I've got to confirm it's worth more than $50 -- Hey, I'm running a first class operation here!) You have about 24 hours to sign up.
• Once again, those sponsors are:
-Wise Garden Center has pledged a $100 and $50 gift certificate for in-house purchases.

-Bloomoon Pet Resort in Chico has pledged and delivered a $50 Visa Gift Card

-Wise Liquors in Bridgeport has pledged a liter of Crown Royal for the last place finisher. (I'm guessing they are serious but am beginning to have my doubts.) Edit: Confirmed. And its 1.75 liters.

-A signed Lebron James jersey with a certificate of authenticity donated by attorney Paul Belew

- Edit: $100 Silpada Designs Gift Certificate pledged by April Cowling  

-A $100 Visa Gift Card has been pledged and delivered by Chris Miller's Farmer's Insurance Agency in Bridgeport.