Yet Another St. Patrick’s Day Update

This one might be the last one today, as we blogger types are only working a half day. (How’s that different from any other day, you wonder? You’re funny, with your wondering.) Have fun. Be careful.

Avanti Owner Rumored To Be Dead

Several people have e-mailed me to say they’ve heard that Jack Ekhtiar, owner of three Avanti restaurants in Dallas, died last night from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Update: A distraught employee at the McKinney Ave. location just confirmed the rumor. No details. Developing.

Five Hundred Horsepower Comes To Blum

The execs at Aston Martin acknowledge that, what with the slumping economy, showing up at work these days in a $265,000 sports car might not be the savviest PR move, especially if you’re the company CEO. But that didn’t keep a bunch of journalists from all over the country–including the Chicago Sun-Times‘ Dan Jedlicka (left), who’s literally written more newspaper auto reviews than anyone–from turning out in Dallas this weekend to test-drive the beautiful new Aston Martin DBS (a.k.a. the “James Bond car”) all over North and Central Texas. Jump for the details. (more…)

Passenger Sues Over One-Man Mile-High Incident

That poor lady on an American Airlines flight who awoke to find a fellow passenger acting out a Divinyls single next to her is suing AMR. The warped part of my brain that assures my afterlife ticket will be express southbound can’t help but idly wonder if the AMR lawyers might use the Peter Griffin defense: “In a way, he was complimenting you.”

Re: Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Here’s another morning pick-me-up, courtesy of former D contributing editor Tom Stephenson (as seen Saturday morning). (And happy birthday, Wick.)

Leading Off

1. I’m sure there will be at least another story or two like this one and this one over the next week, since some people are still on spring break.  So everyone be careful out there. If you need a ride, e-mail Tim. He always has his iPhone.

2. Those stranded Chinese acrobats? Still here.

3. UTA is making its first trip to the Big Dance. But I probably wouldn’t pick them in the office pool if I were you.

(The rest of my SXSW roundup will be along later today.)

In Today’s Economic Update, Please Buy Yourself a Hat, and Hold the Eff On to It

Because the sky is fallin’, brutha. At least it is if you’re a certain Dallas-area money manager. A hat-shopping FBvian sends along this quote from today’s WSJ article about the Bear Stearns garage sale:

“Among the [Bear Stearns] stakeholders: James Barrow, a Dallas money manager who runs the firm Barrow, Hanley, Mewhinney & Strauss Inc., is the single biggest investor, with a 9.95 percent stake, according to recent regulatory filings.”

To which we can only say: murmur.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

A little morning pick-me-up here.