Provencal Out At Modern Luxury Dallas

Terri Provencal, group publisher of mags like Modern Luxury Dallas and Dallas Brides, says she’s resigning her position to form a media consulting group and will take as one of her first clients … Modern Luxury. That’s according to a news release from Modern Luxury Media LLC, which publishes the local titles and a bunch of other pubs in 13 major metros. Provencal, who couldn’t be immediately reached, had been with Modern Luxury for five years, according to the release. It added that no successor had been announced.

Rod Dreher Writes About His Dog’s Penis

If you’re familiar with the conservative DMN editorial columnist, this will shock you as it did me. The title of his post: “A Dog and His Boner.” Shocked, I tell you!

Friday Afternoon Random Question: Thanks For Nothing

After last week’s blog-killing debacle, and since I will (somewhat randomly) be in Padre next Friday, I’m going with a timely, less open-ended question. What is your worst Thanksgiving memory? Turkey-cooking disaster, gut-punch Cowboys loss, drunken uncle mayhem, road-trip catastrophe, etc.

Mine? Probably would be the first year I came home from UT. It took four hours to get from campus to just outside of Round Rock, which, under normal conditions, might have taken maybe 20 minutes at most. Total time, door-to-door, from Jester Hall to my parents’ house in West (about 100 miles away): almost eight hours. Guh. Kind of set the tone for the rest of the trip.

Paste Dubs Denton “Best Music Scene” 2008

The music magazine name checks all of the talent in little D. And if you have a beef with the anonymous commenter on Paste’s site who argues that Denton is indeed the best but the cited list is crap, you are not alone. The Observer’s Pete Freedman makes some good points in Paste’s defense.

Wouldn’t Mark Cuban Be Wise To Just Shut Up?

Professor Bainbridge on whether Cuban should continue mounting his defense publicly on his blog.

Sleeper Hit: Dinner in the Wild

OK, let’s be real. Museums are great, but I don’t expect much from museum parties. Last night, the Museum of Nature and Science board of trustees hosted the annual “Dinner in the Wild” fundraiser event at, of all random places, the Automobile Building at Fair Park. The place was packed (photo on jump, H/T to C.S.), with the likes of Lyda Hill, Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones, event chairs John Sughrue and his lovely wife Marlene Fogarty, Joe Harberg, Erin Mathews, and Tom Leppert. (more…)

Recession Watch: Oil Under $50 Not Good For Texas

The price at the pump may be good for your wallet. But high oil and gas prices kept Texas afloat as the economy declined during the last nine months. Brett Clanton of the Houston Chronicle looks at the future for Texas and sees a lot of hurt.

The Best Sandwiches in Dallas According to Me

Those who know me know of my fondness for sandwiches. It’s my favorite food group. I have, over the years, developed a roster of regular sandwiches at local sandwich places that I rotate almost weekly. Here, then, is that roster, in rough order of frequency:

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Jordan Carlos, Stephen Colbert’s “Black Friend,” Now on Mayne Street

You may remember Jordan Carlos from his stint on The Colbert Report as Stephen Colbert’s “black friend.” You may also remember the Greenhill grad from Q&As such as this one with our own Nancy Nichols. Now you can see him as production assistant Jordan Henry on ESPN.com’s new series of web shorts, Mayne Street, the Worldwide Leader’s latest attempt to make erstwhile SportsCenter anchor Kenny Mayne into its very own comedy star. Is Mayne Street funny? Kinda. Sometimes. Carlos can, and probably should, do better. Below, the Jordan Henry job satisfaction interview.

Need a Good “Doc-In-The-Box” in Oak Lawn

A loyal FrontBurnervian just called with a semi-emergency–his 90-year old mother fell and has a gash on her leg that needs to be cleaned. Anyone know a good spot?

Which D Magazine Cover Do You Prefer?

For the December issue of the “print product,” our cover story is “Best Restaurants.” What you see here are the three cover treatments we considered. If you’re a subscriber, you already know which one we chose. Either way, I’d be curious to hear which cover makes your magazine pants go crazy. On the left, you see the Chocolate Seduction cake from Breadwinners. In the middle, a sloppy joe from Cowboy Chow. And on the right, chef Julian Barsotti, from Nonna. Do tell: which cover most makes you want to reach out and pick it up? Which cover do you dig the most? Mmm … cake Sloppy joe, slop-sloppy joe Chef Julian Barsotti

LFT, R.I.P.

The good news: they’re having a sale at LFT. The bad news: it’s a going-out-of-business sale.

Kenny Marchant: Earmark Status Quo “Unacceptable”

In an email message to donors yesterday, Congressman Marchant proudly announced that the GOP Conference created “a 10 member earmark reform panel with the responsibility of completing a report that makes recommendations to House Republicans on how to reform the process of requesting earmarks.” He then goes on to talk about what a problem earmarks have become:

The status quo was simply unacceptable, particularly with large budget deficits and the economic issues facing our country. In the upcoming 111^th Congress, I look forward to continuing my track record as a champion of fiscal responsibility and restraint.

His track record, of course, includes $5,200,000 in earmarks tacked on to the Defense appropriations bill. But in Congressional Republicanese, that’s fiscal responsibility and restraint. I mean, he didn’t tack on $10 million or $20 million, right? The full email after the break: (more…)

Friday Fun: Zilch

Happy Friday, one and all. Today’s game is called Zilch, and it’s awesome. The dice game is similar to Yahtzee, in that you roll dice and score points (ones are better than fives, but both are good—so are three of a kind and more), except there’s a greed-punishing difference. Score more than 300 points in a turn, and you can bank them as you play against the computer in a race to 10,000. If you keep rolling for in a single turn and don’t roll anything point-worthy, you get zilched. It makes more sense when you play it. So go play it.

Leading Off (11/21/08): My Teen Daughter Edition

1. DISD board members vote amid boos to extend their terms from three to four years. “Daddy, why are you always linking to bad DISD stuff? Why don’t you post good news? Like how I got an 82 on my test–and it wasn’t even multiple choice!”

2. Twilight advance ticket sales surpass Harry Potter films. “OMG, Daddy, you don’t even understand. This movie is going to be huge. Every person in my school wants to see it. Even the guys. Of course, there are a lot of gay guys at my school. But still.”

3. Arlington police raid and shut down the strip club Chicas Locas. “Gross. Daddy, you’ve never been to a strip club, right? … Daddy?”