Above The Fold

Crazy Rainstorm This Afternoon

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Photo stolen from the great Texas Tribune

That's Rick Perry this morning, and he's fired up.  Hard line Republicans are in Fort Worth for some convention today, and it sounds like they are working themselves up into a frenzy.

Ted Cruz is there!  Heck, it should be called Red Meat State Gathering.  By the time we wake up tomorrow, Texas may have seceded.

That is, after they have some Mexican food:

Get Me This Cat!!! .... No! Wait! Retract! Retract! Retract!

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• Jerry Jones didn't give a single interview during last night's pre-season game? (That's what I heard. No way I was going to watch that.)
• TMZ has identified the two "ladies" in the Jerry Jones' photo. Both are strippers and one works at Cabaret in Ft. Worth.
• Another motorcycle death. This time in Arlington. Sounds like a couple of bikes were racing and smashed into the back of a vehicle.
• I think I might have been duped by photoshop when I posted that Baylor Stadium picture when it was lit up like a nightclub.
• It's the 40th anniversary of the resignation of Richard Nixon. If you have never seen the footage of him, before heading to the helicopter, going through a line and saying goodbye to every single White House employee, you should. 
• They found some bodies of the old Jonestown Massacre in Delaware. And that deadline confused me greatly when I first saw it. (Speaking of, the documentary Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple is beyond fantastic. And it's on youtube.)
• Anyone else get beaten down when they walked out of the door this morning to face 80+ temperatures with a krillion percent humidity? And that's how the day starts. 
• My office went paperless over a year ago, and we haven't had a single problem. 
• I forgot to thank whoever pointed out to me that the guy behind Breitling Energy (the company runs crazy right wing radio commercials for some reason) was the head of the very troubled CI Hosting company a few years back. 
• Funny radio commercial about the old movie Armageddon which is being shown at the Granada Theater: "And we get to ask the question: Wouldn't it have been easier to teach a bunch of astronauts to drill instead of teaching a bunch of drillers how to be astronauts?"
• I finally got to see a part of the first episode of Hard Knocks. That Falcon that married that chick from Real Housewives has to be out of his mind. She's a train wreck. 
• Speaking of commercials, those Time Warner Cable ads where former NFL coach Bill Cowher just suddenly appears are the worst. And they make no sense. (The most recent one with two lawyers of the same firm involved in a "deposition" with him drives me nuts.)
• "Mission Accomplished" comes back to haunt us again . . . 

Clever Headline

It took me a second.

Drunk Wife Makes Worst Meal Ever

There's a lot going on here. I can't believe I clicked on it. Can't believe I couldn't turn it off. And I'm still not ruling out fake.

Oh, That Good Ol' Day Justice

Remarkable: A century after the mass lynching and hanging of 42 Texans, Gainesville will finally dedicate a memorial http://t.co/8Tda7pUvNT
— Bud Kennedy (@BudKennedy) August 7, 2014

I really don't know much about this, but here's a site which has collected information and Internet posts about the hangings over the years.

Chinese Action Movie Being Filmed

Wait for it.

Is it wrong for me to think that would have been really cool in 3D?

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• Horrible and weird: Moped rider death on I-35 in Fort Worth last night. (Picture.)
• Someone caught a picture of some insane green and gold lighting being tested at the new Baylor Stadium last night. (And for Baylor fans only, take a look at this fun drill the receivers did yesterday.)
• A bunch of reporters were taking pictures of Tiger Woods empty parking slot at the PGA Tournament before he showed up yesterday. One of the funniest tweets about it read, “Hey, Wang! What's with the pictures? It's a parking lot!”  Dated but funny.
• Ann Coulter, in light of the doctor contracting Ebola on a mission trip, wrote a column asking why do Christians have to go to Africa at all when we've got enough problems in the U.S. She'll troll you, but that is at least thought provoking. 
• Had three horrible dreams last night -- and I do mean shockingly horrible. And that doesn't include one where all my teeth broke and fell out. 
• A Facebook friend posted a picture of the front page of the Bridgeport Index from 1971. One of the stories was the death of a seven year old named Robby Renner who had hit his head on the curb after a bicycle fall. I don't remember that at all, and there are a lot of Decatur names listed as relatives and pallbearers. Made me think about middle-agers who say, "We never wore bike helmets back in the day, and we did just fine."
• Had no idea I was listening to music and bells from local churches. The sound bounces around crazily around the square. 
• "WAGONER, Okla. — A public school teacher was arrested Monday after police say she showed up at school for her first day of work under the influence of alcohol and without her pants." Hey, cut her a break. Those in-service days are a beating. And pants make it that much worse. 
• Dallas is thinking about implementing "sex offender free" zones, but Channel 8 had a great interview last night with a convicted sex offender about the issue. He basically pointed out that he did his prison time and satisfied all of his parole. Now he can't get a job anywhere and Dallas is going to make it tougher to just find a place to live. His crime: At age 21, he had sex with a 16 year old.
• Had quite a few people send me the footage of "Karma, the surfboarding pig." Our pig still has trouble with non-carpeted floors. 
• Jerry Jones' son picks up gals on the Sunset Strip and takes them to the Cowboys party bus. (I saw Fox Sports' Jay Glazer in the beginning getting out and I'd love to have a roster of who else was on there.) The New York Post is a couple of days behind . . . 

This Is A Little Bizarre

I think it is strange that a former Tarrant County judge can be beaten to death in his law office in Lubbock and it doesn't even get a blip on the local news. (Unless, of course, I missed it.)

I was also very surprised to learn he practiced for a brief while in Wise County.  Maybe he did transactional law and never came to the courthouse.

It's Time To Lower The Texas Flag to Half Staff

Marilyn Burns, who played Sally Hardesty in 1974’s hit horror movie ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre,’ has died . She was 65 years old.

Never has an actress screamed more than in the ending scenes of that movie.

We Demand a Brett Shipp Investigation!

food truck craze hits Bridgeport TX but this owner HAS move his operation every 3 hrs. Why, at 5 @wfaachannel8 pic.twitter.com/cflh0tPUJM
— Todd Unger (@ToddWFAA8) August 6, 2014

Super Model Throwing Out The First Pitch

She admitted she was pretty liquored up.

From Paradise, Texas

Link.

Above The Fold - Bonus Edition

Maybe I'm getting old, but that's just weird. 

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• Had a buddy tell me yesterday there's a ride at Six Flags which still has the-pretty-much-banned-from-TV Speedy Gonzales character. He also told me that little kids today have no idea who the Looney Tunes characters are. 
• For what seems to be about a year now, I've heard recorded bells and then music coming from the Wise County courthouse bell tower at the top of the hour. I'm pretty sure they sneak in a hymn every now and then. 
• Those old flat wooden ice cream spoons were the equivalent of nails on a chalk board to me. 
• "Deep seated" and not "deep seeded"?
• I was reading an article about how executions are depicted in the movies and learned about The Execution of Mary Stuart which was made in 1895, is 18 seconds long, produced by Thomas Edison and is shocking. Yeah, I know it's not real but that grainy footage gives it a creepy feel. 
• Rick Perry has been going around saying illegal aliens have caused 3,000 homicides in Texas in the last six years. That has to be a lie.
• That tobacco/smoke shop that burned in Jeterville a couple of years back is still a mass of charred rubble with no effort having been made to clean it up. 
• A 13 year old from Rhome is listed in the Update's obits today. Did  I miss a story on this?
• Sen. John Cornyn has matured over the years.
• It happens incredibly rarely, but I'll have brief moments of paranoia -- just a complete irrational fear about a subject. I can't imagine suffering from that on a routine basis.  
• ESPN and, I think, every local TV station refused to report the Jerry Jones "story" about the photos yesterday. 
• I mentioned a Greenville, Texas lawyer was arrested for murder a week or so ago, but amazingly the city will not release the arrest warrant affidavit to the media and is stalling by seeking an attorney general's opinion on the issue. That's ridiculous. That's clearly subject to an open records  request. 
• I completely forgot about Hard Knocks last night. 
• I watched some of Teen Jeopardy over the weekend. In some respects, it can be harder than the adult version when they fire off some category which is right in a teen's wheelhouse. 

Above The Fold

Kid Goes Full Throttle On Mickey Mouse

24 second video.

I don't know where that deep seeded anger came from, but that little fellow has a lot of rage inside him. Maybe because Mickey Mouse and all those old Disney characters were pretty spare, and the kid realized it at an early age. Looney Tunes was the way to go, and this kid intends to let Mickey know that.

Uh, Oh. Mrs. Jones Is Not Going To Be Pleased.

Link. 

Edit: Deadspin has the story behind the photos. We got some full fledged CRAZY going on. And it ain't Jones. 

Jet Ski Accident In Front Of A "Hey, Now"

There's something not quite right about this. I'm not calling it fake, but my skepticism guard is on red alert.

Kate Upton Just Killing It With A Smile

Just Saving A Gal From A Potential Dog Attack

A lot of courage. A lot of dogs with ADHD.

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• The Pulp Fiction "pig talk" speech has been going through my head a lot lately. And the Family Pig now makes huge holes in the flower bed in order to make it a pig bed.
• I always try to live with low expectations. Thank goodness.
• I got in a silly Twitter fight on Friday night. A DPS lawyer mentioned it to me yesterday at a hearing yesterday since apparently she watched it go down. I had to use the phrase, "I'm very embarrased." But apparently she was highly entertained. 
• James Brady died yesterday. About a year after his death he was shot, when I was still young but old enough to know better, I told an insensitive joke to my brother about him. I don't think I'll ever forget the disgust in my brother's face. I don't think I've ever told an insensitive joke since. [Ok, ok. I screwed that up originally.]
• Someone made a great point yesterday in the comments about whether the restaurant "Pole Position" (formally Ricky Bobby's) would be sued by the 1980s video game manufacturer. I actually thought the same thing during my jog yesterday. (Note: I mentioned the name change yesterday and today there's a story about it in the Star-Telegram.)
• We actually had two motorcycle deaths over the weekend. 
• The "immigration crisis" has run it's course. It's time for a new crisis.
• I listen to stuff while I jog that makes me happy. I'll be smiling so broadly that people smile back when I meet them because they know exactly that what is going into my ears must be really funny. Or they think I'm crazy.
• I could listen to Jerry Jones talk all day long. It is so insane. 
• I was at a Subway restaurant yesterday and there was some salesman at a table talking to a young couple. She was pregnant and the guy was really putting the sales pitch on strong, but I couldn't hear what he was trying to sell them. I so wanted to just pull up a chair to see if they were about to get ripped off. 
• There seems to be a more than 50% chance that both Tony Romo and Tiger Woods are done.
• Deadspin.com went after over-rated columnist Peter King yesterday.  I think the BagofNothing guy is a big fan. I went on a rant about King last year.

And Another - Texas

It it takes Texas to rally 2014 in over the record breaking year of 2013, so be it.

Story.

Full Throttle Kid

Two moments: (1) "I didn't make this kid pass out", and (2) "I think the parents should do some reflecting on their parenting before they get mad at me."

I hate the kid. I love the kid.

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• I was a little surprised that the doctor with Ebola would be transported back to the U.S. I was more surprised to see that he walked out of the back of an ambulance. 
• On a recent episode Real Sports, there was a suggestion that Qatar would handle the heat of the World Cup games by having drowns support a giant flying tarp to block the sun on various stadiums. I don't know if it is true, but that's a great idea. 
• Motorcycle death. (You know, there aren't as many reported as in the past years.)
• There aren't two-a-days any longer?
• The Ricky Bobby's restaurant in north Fort Worth which I successfully predicted would be sued because of copyright infringement has changed its name to Pole Position. 
• I found the greatest little piece of Paradise (not the town) by a creek not far from my house yesterday.
• Larry David's TV wife married Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.?
• I'm worried about the The Family Pig's weight and size. I'm not sure that's a pot bellied pig. 
• I had the best time on Saturday night cracking the door open and letting The Family Cat, Family Dog and Family Pig come and go as they please while I laid on the trampoline and looked at the stars. 
• I took the Jung Typology Test over weekend. I'm not sure I understood the results, but the questions were fascinating. 
• Israel continues its random bombings and killing children. If your surrounded by people who "want to kill you", I'm not sure that the way to win friends and influence people. 
• I switched to a metal blade for my weedeater a couple of years ago. It may say a lot about me, but that may be the best decision I've made over the last two years. 
• Honestly, I don't even know who basketball player Paul George is but his leg break over the weekend is the talk of sports. I didn't watch it. I never will.(I still haven't seen Joe Theismann's injury.)
• Happy Birthday to Barack Hussein Obama II.
• I reached out to an old friend over the weekend. Probably freaked him out. 
• ESPNU has been running the "greatest" college football games of last year. Man, I knew about Aggie/Duke and Auburn/Georgia but had never seen them. Great stuff, indeed.