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Neighborhood Tree Kills Car Dead

This afternoon, while lazing away my Sunday, I was briefly jolted out of my reverie by a loud noise. I assumed it was a nearby car wreck or, since we live near the train tracks, the normal sound of trains starting and stopping and doing other train-like things. When my wife came home not long after, I found out what actually made the sound: one of the giant, old trees in our neighborhood had fallen over, from the roots, coming to a hard stop on the car parked in the drive of the house next door. Can you guess what kind of car it used to be?

It could have been much worse. The owners of the now-totaled car were just about to leave the house and take their boat to the lake. Two more photos after the jump.

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Dallas “Does” St. Paul: The GOP Send-Off

(Pictured: delegate Donald Huffhines and Mary Catherine holding t-shirts that DC Comics might have something to say about)

So the send-off party was less party and more like a steering committee session at a Lutheran church, but there was a buzz there beyond the sugar high from some pretty darn good homemade chocolate chip cookies.

About a dozen people, including the three delegates and three alternates from the 32nd District, got together Friday afternoon at Congressman Pete Sessions’ office on Greenville Avenue across from the Arby’s in preparation for leaving for St. Paul. They weren’t just feeling beef and cheese. No, it was red meat. These people were excited. No one was talking much about McCain. They were talking about Sarah Palin. (The person that reserved that URL is JENE-YUS.)

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Hey, Adam and Eric, June Is Here

The game isn’t over, gents, but in the waning moments of the fourth quarter, SMU is losing to Rice — Rice — by a score of 20-49.

Pony up indeed.

David Johnson Quits Marketplace

What? This makes me sad. Driving home just now, I heard David Johnson’s last report for the NPR show Marketplace. “Our man in Dallas” has contributed wit and wisdom to the show for 19 years. I, for one, will miss him.

More N.O. Evacuees Headed For Dallas

The SPCA of Texas says its locations in Dallas and McKinney have stopped accepting animals. Reason: The shelters are gearing up to accommodate hundreds of “evacuees” from the Louisiana SPCA in New Orleans. Guess this Gustav may turn out to be the real thing after all.

Dallas Does Denver: A Coda

Sitting at in the parking lot at the Olive Garden in Amarillo, Texas, listening to the end of the Obama speech from Invesco Field, scarfing stale bread and bland spaghetti, Lavin checked her voicemail. It was one of the folks she’d been pestering all week. “Hey, where are you guys? I got you delegate passes to the Obama speech tonight. You’re in.”

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

OK, other than the fact that it’s underexposed. The answer: DART is apparently buying advertisements on trucks that don’t do much but drive around and clog up our streets. That’s not a very smart thing for a rapid-transit group to do. Or is it? (”Gee, if I just took a DART train, I wouldn’t be stuck behind this big truck advertising DART right now.”)

Charges Dropped on Star-Telegram Columnist Dave Lieber

You remember Dave Lieber. He’s the guy who was arrested on child abandonment charges. Absolutely ridiculous. Anyway, he learned a couple hours ago that all charges have been dropped. Good on the Watauga.

Garland Charity Nets $300+ Grand in Pick ‘Em Up Truck Sale

If you ever wondered how much one of these things costs, here’s something to chew on: The Garland-based People Against Drugs charity sold its rights to the No. 7 NASCAR truck (shown left) for more than $300 grand to another race team about a year ago, according to a spokesman at Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office. (more…)

Jerry Lewis Telethon To Be (Mercifully?) Short

What’s a Labor Day weekend without Jerry Lewis and his “kids” raising money with a painful-to-watch, never-ending TV telethon? This Monday, for the second year in a row, KXAS-TV (Channel 5) will broadcast an abridged version of the MDA extravaganza. They’ll sign on with the telethon at 5 a.m. that day, then cut away for a golf tourney at 1 p.m. before coming back for the final hour around 5. They’ve got to run the golf–network’s orders–and figure nobody watches the all-night portion anyway (Jerry actually kicks the thing off from Vegas on Sunday evening). Promised on the bill this year: comedian Bob Zany (huh?) and singer Billy Gilman (ditto). Charo’s not appearing, but you can always hope for one of Jerry’s cringe-worthy gaffes.

Friday Foodie Fun: Omnivore’s Hundred

I challenge Gordon Keith to beat me on this. Ever heard of the Omnivore’s Hundred? You have now. Go, all of you. Take it. I. dare. you.

Friday Fun: Fantastic Contraption

Happy Friday, one and all. Today’s Friday Fun game is called Fantastic Contraption. I haven’t delved (dolve?) into it too much, but I hear it’s quite addicting. Mostly I hear that because it’s from www.addictinggames.com. It’s sort of a puzzle-type game that takes some figuring out. But I think it will serve its purpose as a time-wasting diversion on the Friday of a holiday weekend. Get to work.

Leading Off (8/29/08)

1. The Cowboys won their last pre-season game. But they lost receiver Sam Hurd for an indeterminate period of time. At this point, I think Jerry has to follow the plan Tim and I came up with: sign Usain Bolt. He’s a free agent, right?

2. Two city employees were hurt when a crane fell on a pump station near the Trinity River. That’s the third crane accident in the last few months. Fourth, if you count the speeding ticket I got in HP yesterday when I didn’t realize I was in a school zone.

3. That part of the southern end of the Tollway that’s been really confusing for months is now less so.

North Dallas Does Denver: Live Blog From a Couch

Since Eric won’t cover the convention, I will. Here’s a summary of Obama’s speech: “Change, change, changey, changerson-change, ch-ch-change. PF Change! And Eight Is Enough.”

Seriously. He made a reference to the sitcom.

Oy.

Briefing: They Killed Quick for THIS?

The DMN’s Briefing launched this week. I’ve avoided it till now. Zac just sat down on my couch and read aloud to me the work of one of the circular’s columnists, Tyra Damm. Here’s what she fired up today. This is a parody, right? It has to be. Because there’s no way the DMN brass thinks that throwing this stuff in the yards of non-subscribers is going to do anything other than turn people off of reading the paper.

Unless, again, it’s a parody. In which case, it’s pretty brilliant. Sign me up.

PacmanAdam Jones Officially an NFL Player Again

The cornerback and minor Hard Knocks storyline received the official word today. Where? At Hooters, of course.

Who Does Writer John McAlley Think He Is?

I’d like to know, because I’d like to get to know writer John McAlley. Catching up with this month’s GQ at lunchtime, I happened to enjoy a story about said writer’s dalliance with Peter Frampton’s ex-girlfriend 30 years ago this Labor Day. The story — not online, near as I can tell — involved a good bit of rock history; some enjoyable McAlley personal history; and a great NSFW quote about why the 10-years-older, drug-n-booze party girl ex-girlfriend would go for a teetotal, self-identified record-store-clerk nerd like McAlley. It was a great read. Then I get to the bio:

John McAlley has written for Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Spin. He lives in Dallas and is currently a contributing editor at NPR.org.

Hunh. I ask Tim and Zac if they’ve heard of John McAlley. No and no. Then, just Internet browsing, minding my own, I see McAlley has the current cover story on Spin. It’s a profile of Beck that gets some Idolator analysis. McAlley’s suddenly everywhere, and he came from seemingly nowhere. (”Seemingly” to me, at least.) Please, sir, come forward so I may buy you a beer or two and hear the even juicier bits that didn’t make it to print.

Dallas Does Denver: Singing a Protest Song

It was a simple question. “What are the protests like?” The caller from Dallas, a freelance photographer who sometimes shoots for D Magazine, had herself been working on obtaining an off-the-books press pass for the convention. Surprisingly, yesterday she was told that her contact had scammed one photography pass for Obama’s Invesco Field speech tonight. She wasn’t interested in shooting that, though, for the same reason we weren’t interested in attending: like with a rock concert, stadium shows are decidedly less interesting than those held at more intimate venues. (And the pass, sadly, was not transferable to me or Lavin.) So, she said, she was only interested in paying for a last-minute flight and coming here if the reports of dozens of violent protests were true and, as important, would produce dramatic images. I was sipping a triple-shot iced vanilla latte in the 16th Street Market area on a patio on a picturesque day. I looked around. There was one anti-abortion protestor, sitting on the curb, taking a break from yelling at disinterested passersby. I took another sip. “I dunno,” I said. “Maybe it’ll get crazy later. But I wouldn’t count on it.”

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Mark Cuban Is a Blogosphere Commenter

Not on this blog. Heavens no. But over on TechCrunch50, where it was announced bloggepreneur (Not a word? It is now.) Jason Calacanis would interview Cuban one-on-one at the upcoming TechCrunch50 conference. Comments to said announcement require registering for an RSS feed. Fortunately, Michael Arrington found the good stuff. A commenter/videoblogger named Loren Feldman said Cuban was not tech smart but Internet lucky. Cuban, at about 2:30 AM local time, sarcastically agreed. Well played, sir.

Good Samaritan Brothers Save Woman In Lake

I just have to mention this since I know the brothers that saved the woman from drowning in White Rock Lake yesterday. We have been to their house many times this summer to hang at their pool, but that usually involves floating around on rafts while we sip cocktails. I never knew they were such a good swimmers. Way to go Nick and Tad Weatherford!

Hollywood Goes to Perry’s

Lights, camera, and action.

Never Let Reality (Television) Get in the Way of Football…

OK, so, a while ago, I reported that some folks were trying to get Jason Witten (left) and some of the other Dallas Cowboys to tape a reality cooking show to raise money for charity. Turns out that organizers had trouble coralling Witten, Tony Romo, etc., to make it happen (some lame excuse about football practice or something). The fruits of what came to be will be televised at noon this Saturday (hint: a different Tony will be on the show). I’m not sure if it will be as exciting as watching Romo trying to mince garlic.

“Bring Me The Head of Chris Matthews”: A Dallas Democrat in Denver

Not to rain on Eric’s parade, but here’s an on-the-street interview with Dallas gal Janelle Ellis at the convention in Denver. Ellis is known for working on the women’s peace movement, her love of Hillary Clinton and Ann Richards, and now for her cry to “bring me the head of Chris Matthews … that hissing viper.” (It all starts unraveling around the 4:12 mark.) Oh, and she’s making a documentary.

(Matthews photo via MediaBistro)

Restaurant 101: Drinking Age Debate

How old were you when you took your first drink? Was it a few swings of Boone’s Farm in the back seat of a car with some other underage friends or a half a glass of wine at a fine restaurant with your parents? Me? Guilty to the former. You?

This morning Miss Amy takes a scholarly approach and discusses the pros and cons of the drinking age debate. I’m sober and ready. Let’s go.

Leading Off (8/28/08): Shiny, Happy Edition

1. According to Jane McGarry’s anecdotal evidence, people are meeting each other online and some even end up getting married! (If you haven’t kept up with Jane’s reportage from the tech beat, here are her thoughts on MySpace, crazy eBay auctions, cellphones, and, um, makeup tips.)

2. Oncor is giving power customers a one-time credit of $12.58. The refund will show up on September electric bills. Woo-hoo! I’m totally going to turn on a lamp for a minute! Maybe two minutes! I don’t know, feeling sort of crazy. Party at the Crain house, aka Fort Awesome.

3. The seniors committee of the Pro Football Hall of Fame is giving the late, great Cowboys receiver “Bullet” Bob Hayes a rare second chance to be enshrined in the Hall. In his honor, I’m totally going to turn on another lamp! That’s right. You can’t stop me. The party rages on.