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Why Posting Is Light on FrontBurner

I’ve seen the question asked in comments, and it has been posed to me directly via e-mail: why is posting so light? First, you realize this is all free, right? Okay. Well, the other thing is, we are moving. So in addition to doing our jobs this week, we are packing up crap and tossing crap and stealing unwanted crap from each other. In short: it takes time, time we might have otherwise spent blogging.

Tomorrow, we will have a giveaway, your chance to win a small sampling of our crap (some of which is actually desirable). Hang in there.

Dallas Just Lost Its Public Access TV

I think most people would say they’d rather have police protection than public-access TV, but here’s one of the first casualties of the budget-trimming process. Dallas iMedia Network has suspended operations. Full release after the jump.

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2009 Neiman Marcus Christmas Book Delivers

Yep, Neiman Marcus is hurting, and they know we’re hurting too. So in this year’s Christmas book, all today’s headlines are saying, they’re offering plenty more affordable options.

Don’t worry, though, if you need a $25,000 cupcake car, they’re there for you also.

If I had $200K to spare, maybe this. But John Lithgow?

How I Helped Destroy a Beautiful Park; Or, An ACL Festival Trip Report

I wasn’t planning on going to this year’s ACL Festival. In fact, I’ve never gone. Apart from SXSW, I’m not a big festival guy. But, as has happened on occasion, Caryn Ganz from RollingStone.com convinced me cover it for her. (I owe her for this, so I have a hard time saying no.) And so, the “not a big festival guy” will end up attending three music festivals in the same city — I’m set for Fun Fun Fun Fest in November — in just over six months. You can find my coverage here, here, and here. After the jump, a couple of photos (not of bands — you can find plenty of others that would be better than faraway iPhone shots), and some bits and pieces that didn’t make it in.

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Washingtonian Magazine Borrows a Page out of Our Playbook

What you see here is the October cover of Washingtonian magazine. Is it just me? Does it remind you of our infamous September 2007 cover, the one that got us kicked out of Sprouts, the one that was among our all-time bestsellers? As someone who has “borrowed” a cover concept before from another city magazine, I will say that we are flattered. But two things to keep in mind: 1) People in North Texas have strong feelings about Southlake. There are people who hate it. And there are people who love it. (I would put Southlakers into this latter category.) In contrast to Southlake, I’d wager that there are very few people in the greater Washington, D.C., area who have strong feelings about “this school.” And 2), in my experience, it’s better to have the kids looking at the camera rather than paperwork. Helpfully,

Leading Off (10/6/09)

1. Former Mav Brandon Bass scored seven of his 13 points in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter to help lead the Orlando Magic to victory as the Dallas Mavericks kicked off their preseason schedule against the defending Eastern Conference champs. Related: My yelling at the TV is already in mid-season form.

2. In news that’s important to people other than my fellow MFFLs, Dallas County received its first shipment of H1N1 vaccine. The 700 doses can be administered to anyone between the ages of 2 to 49, with the exception of pregnant women, and people with diabetes or asthma. Maybe next time, they’ll come up with a vaccine that Tim Rogers can actually qualify for. In any way.

3. No good way to segue into this: Accused terrorist Hosam Maher Husein Smadi apparently shot a 7-minute video that he believed would be delivered to Osama Bin Laden. The Rotten Tomatoes page for that video will continue looking like this:

Why not send all these muslim religious in USA, Canada, Mexico, South American and Carribean island back to Middle East where they belong. Enough is ENOUGH!. Muslim goals to take over the world…just like Nazi Germany. You see everywhere all over the world now?