When Candy asked me whether I thought she should accept Gordon’s invitation to appear on his show, I thought it was a terrible idea. I figured he’d ask her embarrassing personal questions about her foundation wear and her romantic life. So of course I told her she should do the show. Imagine my surprise when Gordon just talked to her about the Bushes’ new house. See for yourself at the 7:40 mark.
Jim Moroney sent a letter yesterday to everyone at the DMN. To me, it reads like a preamble to more layoffs. “Looking back,” he said, “we went into 2008 with more optimism than was prudent.” Read the entire memo after the jump.
About a month ago, super helpful and tirelessly working D intern Cole Hill scored an interview with film director Darren Aronofsky and saw a screener of his latest work, The Wrestler. After the jump, Hill’s recap and review of the movie, along with some insight from its director. Check it out.
An ink-stained FrontBurnervian sends along this critique by Reason editor-in-chief Matt Welch. Key point:
As I have had the privilege to experience, there still exists these 19th century things called “editorial boards,” in which up to a dozen (though usually more like half that) wiseacres and a couple of dames sit around, listen to grandees, and between the lot of them write maybe 1,000 words a day of grave, unsigned, top-down wisdom about the State of the Union address…Suffice it to say, as one who is familiar with the numbers, you could probably print at least three Reason magazines (complete with website, blog, the whole nine yards) for the cost of one elite-newspaper opinion section, with its 14 pages a week.
Hello, Friday. A kind FrontBurnervian sent me this game over the break. It’s called Left 4k Dead. The object is to move around and stuff. The more impressive thing is that the game is less than 4 kb. It’s part of this competition. It might be a waste of time, but that’s what Friday Fun is supposed to be sometimes.
Kevin Moriarty is putting his stamp on the DTC, forming a nine-member resident acting company composed of some of the top players in the region. You can see their first performance January 21 when all nine will act in “In the Beginning,” a “dramatic exploration” of the Book of Genesis.
Bud Kennedy’s column today pressing for a research university here inadvertantly reveals why we’re so far behind in getting one. Short answer: institutional and inter-city rivalry among UTDallas, UTArlington, UT Southwestern, and UNT. Meanwhile, Houston has put all its marbles on UH. Guess who is going to win the first round.
It would be helpful if people would face facts. UNT and UTArlington exist to serve the broader need for public higher education, not to try to turn themselves into mini-MITs. The fast track for a research university here is to merge UTDallas and UTSouthwestern, perhaps including the new engineering and science school at UTArlington. You spread the manure too thin and nothing grows. All you’ve done is wasted some manure.
Meanwhile, on a brighter note, SMU forges ahead.
When not to throw around money at a flea-bag motel.
1. President Bush tells the Dallas Morning News that he’s not sure how he’ll fill his days in Dallas (and weekends in Crawford): “Being a type-A personality,” he says, “I’m confident I’ll be able to fill my days with activities.” I’ll let the commenters handle that one.
2. A Dallas law firm has paid back $200,000 (and will pay back hundreds of thousands more over the next five years) in an insurance scam that involved faking auto accidents. The owner didn’t know about the activities of, among others, legal assistant “Tommy” Tung Tran and ringleader Tuan “Andy” Nguyen. Not implicated, of course, was Long Duk Dong.
3. The Dallas Mavericks won and the Dallas Stars lost. I think that about covers what happened in the sport world yesterday.
I will be on The Gordon Keith Show with other special guest George Dunham. It airs at 12:35 am after Kimmel. Watch it with your eyes.
I’m being told that he’s taking all 11,000 square feet of the top floor of the building at the corner of Berkshire and the access road to the Tollway. Here tis:
The show starts in 10 minutes. Staff photographer Elizabeth Lavin will join us to discuss her sojourn to the Joule last night for the Bachelor/ette tryouts. Go here to listen live at 3 p.m.
Update: Here’s the archive of the 1/8/09 episode.
Pegasus News, the web site you know best as home to our own Teresa Gubbins, has been sold. Well, partially at least. The majority shareholder, Fisher Communications (aka, “the money”), has sold its stake in the site for $1.5 million. Founder Mike Orren said he couldn’t comment on the sale other than to say it’s “good for PegNews and for our staff.” Left unsaid was the fact that, hey, we’re all just trying to hold onto our effin hats here.
Don’t forget, kids. Thursdays mean FrontBurner For Your Ears, our weekly 15-minute podcast. You can listen live at 3 p.m. (and call in!), or you can check out the archive whenever you like. Feel free to suggest topics for today’s show. Adam and I were thinking about inviting Elizabeth “Spider Monkey” Lavin onto the show to discuss the scene she encountered last night at the Bachelor/ette auditions at the Joule’s nightclub, PM.
Kiplinger’s Personal Finance ranks the nation’s universities on bang for the buck. For in-state students, UTAustin is #19, Texas A&M is #36, and UTDallas is #76 in the country. You may want to take this with a grain of salt, however. For out-of-state students, SUNY Binghamton ranks #1 in the country. Have you ever been to Binghamton, New York? You don’t want to.