A little more on The Ticket's Greg Williams

A few days ago, we posted a link to Richie Whitt's Unfair Park blog entry giving some details about his convo with The Ticket's MIA Greg "The Hammer" Williams. Richie has since written a longer piece regarding Williams.

Looks like Greggo wound up on the wrong side of a cocaine problem (is there a right side?), has been, or is still, in rehab, and plans to return to the afternoon-drive airwaves sometime next week.

The question raised by all this is: How welcome will he be, both by his co-workers and his audience. No one has been harder on drug-using athletes than Williams, and the resulting apparent hypocrisy could be overwhelming. Many accused The Ticket of turning hypocritical in the wake of Carter Albrecht's tragic death - there was no trifecta talk after that event. I'll definitely cut Rhyner and company slack on that one - Albrecht's death was a horrible, close-to-home tragedy which may or may not have been the result of outside chemical influences. Williams' "do as I say, not as I do" actions may be harder to swallow.

The upshot, for me at least, is The Hardline has not missed a beat without Williams. More Corby Davidson, more Wilonsky, guests dropping in, most notably the under-rated Kevin Scott and good old Richie Whitt himself, has more than made up for Williams, who was was in noticeable decline prior to his sudden Oct 12 mid-show departure. Always prone to the mis-speak and random goofball comment, Williams was, in the months leading up to his disappearing act, often guilty of tuning out the show around him, making inane and irrelevant comments, and being clearly out-of-sorts. If that's the Greggo who's coming back next week, um, buddy, don't bother...

Oh, yeah. There's a football game tomorrow...

My God, I have been HORRIBLE about football postings this year. I'm ashamed and apologetic, especially to those of you who made a mint last year, betting the exact opposite of my picks. Remember me in your will...

Well, it's never too late, especially when you write a blog no one reads. So, let's talk Cowboys-Jets for a moment, shall we?

The Cowboys are favored by a stunning 14 points over the lowly Jets. As I've mentioned before, point spreads over 10 in the NFL give me a serious case of the heebie-jeebies. I wouldn't touch this game as a gambler with Medieval jousting lance. However, with that said, the Cowboys should, SHOULD, kill 'em.

Some reasons the Cowboys might not kill 'em:

• With all apologies to Wade Phillips' 3-4 genius, this defense is not that good. The Redskins, with a friggin SEC QB not named Manning, exposed this thing for what it is. And what it is is a suspect group that struggles to mount a consistent pass rush and has big holes when the safeties are asked to cover.
• Special teams are, in a word, scary. These guys give up some big returns almost every game, and the Jets, for all their patheticness, can return kicks. I can easily see 14 points coming off special teams mistakes.
• Running game. What running game? JJones and MBIII looked to have a little something last year, when they each had a specific role. The suspect JJT, writing in the DMN this morning, made a good point when he put forth the hypothesis that these guys are being mis-used when they alternate series, which has been the case more often than not this year. Romo the Jedi Knight and the suddenly-prolific TO Owens have been producing enough, more than enough, to cover for the near-absence of a coherent running game, but you'd think this weakness would jump up and bite Dallas eventually.

Even with all that, I'm still thinking Cowboys, and perhaps a laugher.

And, for a BIG change, the early game is not a time-waste. Detroit is not as silly as usual, and I still am not sold on Green Bay. I think this is a decent game. I'm going to go against my heart and pull for the Packers, but mostly because I want to see them come into the Partially Domed Rathole on 114 next week with the big record, setting up a major stop-down for everyone in the DFW Metroplex of Love.

And the late game? Well, Time Warner and the NFL Network are still miles apart, so I'll have to settle for highlights on ESPN. I hate that these organizations can't get their you-know-what together, and I'm getting the short end of the stick shoved up my wazoo as a result. But that's another post for another day.

Go (insert your team here)!

Thanksgiving musings

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite of the big hollerdays (my favorite minor one - Patriot's Day, also known as Marathon Day in the old college haunt of Boston), and it's worth a few moments to tell all seven of you why.

As Jews, we don't do the Christmas or Easter thing, so Thanksgiving has always been the big family holiday for us. We've never had much in the way of tradition around the day, just that we try to get as many family members as possible under a single roof, which is a good enough tradition for me. The more the better. I sincerely hope we can gather more each year, both family and friends.

The best Thanksgivings for me have occurred in two places: Our house and my uncle and aunt's house back in the day.

Thanksgivings in our house, esp since we moved to the palace in Frisco a couple of years ago, are great, and I hope to have it here more often than not. It's difficult with some wrinkles in the extended family which have come up recently, and I certainly don't mind going elsewhere for Thanksgiving dinner. But I really like having a lot of family at our place. It was one of the big reasons I wanted to build this joint in the first place. Having the kids running around upstairs, and good, interesting conversation in every room, lots of wine bottles opened, TONS of food filling the kitchen, both ovens going, it's all great. I especially like it when the weather is Thanksgiving-ish - cold, even grey, never a given in Texas. It makes the house seem warmer. Love it!

The very best Thanksgivings, however, were at my uncle and aunt's huge old house in Western Massachusetts. The house was perfect for large gatherings - I have no idea how big that place was in terms of square feet, but, trust me, it was gi-normous. Getting there was a bit of a challenge, so we always stayed for the long weekend, which was part of the greatness. It was always cold, snow was a player several times, and it felt very, very American, and I mean everything good about being American. I always thought, and still think, that's what Thanksgiving ought to be. I hope we establish that sort of feeling at our house when we host the meal.

Other things I like about Thanksgiving - football (of course); lots to drink; lots of laughs; a meal I actually like to eat (NEVER happens during Jewish holiday - I hate most Jewish food); lots of activity in the house; lots of sports talk, politics talk, kid talk, guy talk; no work worries for a few days; the start of the Holiday Season (which I like even if we don't do Christmas); the change in the weather.

Thanksgiving is, nearly without fail, my favorite day of the year. I look forward to it every year, and some of my best memories are from Thanksgivings past.

I hope you and your family have a Thanksgiving to enjoy, even savor. I hope you enjoy your time with your loved ones.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Daily YouTube: Unusual soccer skills

While we're on the subject of elephants who play sports, here's a mighty grey pachyderm putting on a skills clinic.

My Introduction

Just a quick post to introduce myself and get my feet wet in the CIT world. Indeed, I am the Curmudgeon's younger brother -- I don't even know what nomenclature this would classify me as -- perhaps "Disgruntled 40-year-old" or maybe just "Stinky". Regardless, here I am.



I am, as I said, 40. My hair is both graying and falling out at the same time I seem to be rapidly losing weight (probably due to the stress of my new job -- more on that in a minute). But this is neither hair nor there (wha-ha-ha).



Politically, I lean to the left -- sometimes really left. Dennis Kucinich, although unelectable because he actually makes sense and speaks from his heart, is my mouthpiece. I supported Carol Mosely Braun in the last election.



My reading habits reflect the dichotomy that tends to seep into many aspects of my life-- I am an avid reader of both Poetry and Comic Books. My favorite poets are Russell Edson, Charles Simic, Stephen Dobyns, and of course, above all, for sweeping majesty and that tightening testicle raw emotion, my lover, my friend, my holy trinity wrapped up in a great gray beard, dear departed Walt Whitman.



My taste in comics runs from typical superhero fare from Marvel comics and the less known Image comics (especially my and my son's favorite Invincible and my personal favorite, The Walking Dead) To a new facination with horror comics. I am no fan of DC comics, as they tend to talk down to their audience and their continuity has become confusing and preposterous.

I have much to say about the state of education today, having been a High School English teacher for 9 years and now a Charter School Administrator (at Sierra Montessori Academy), but I will save all this for a later post, when I have more time and feel more confident in what I have to say (no matter how puerile or wonky).

Just wanted to say hello.

So, "hello"

I'll be back soon. Have a Happy Slaughter of the Mal-Treated Turkeys Day!

First big cold front of the season

Here in beautiful, nearly-crime-free Frisco TX, we're experiencing our first big "norther" of the season.

For those of you not from Texas, a "norther" is a massive cold front blowing down from the wilds of western Canada, virtually unimpeded by trees, hills, or manmade structures between the tundra and the DFW Metroplex of Love. Think about it - what's between us and the Great White North? Bismark ND? Omaha? OK City? Not much.

The sky turns the color of a battleship, the wind turns in the blink of an eye from warm southerly to biting northerly, and the mercury drops like Lindsay Lohan's knickers. It's rather dramatic.

When I woke up this morning, the temp down the street (courtesy of wunderground.com) was a balmy 68 or so. Now, at 10:30 Central, it's 54 and dropping fast.

It's late November, and it's about time.

Double Bonus YouTube: Thai pitching prospect

Lifted shamelessly from Geeding's blog (still a must-read). This one combines my son's love of elephants with my love of a decent pitching prospect.

Marriage humor

Bonus YouTube: Referee humor

Where we, once again, pose the question: Why is watching a dude get hit in the gresticles funny?

Top 5 Cowboy Thanksgiving memories

On the DMN Cowboy blog today: The top 5 most memorable moments (some good, some not so good) from Thanksgivings past.

My favorite was Jason Garrett's triumph over hte Packers back in the glory days, which came in at #3.

Louisiana humor

Two tourists were traveling through Louisiana. As they approached Natchitoches, they started arguing about the pronunciation of the town's name. They argued back and forth until they stopped for lunch. As they stood at the counter, one tourist asked the blonde employee, ''Before we order could you settle an argument for us? Would you please pronounce where we are very slowly.''

The blonde leaned over and said ''Burrrrrrr Gurrrrrr Kingggg.''

Daily YouTube: All the Cowboy QBs

Every QB who has ever thrown a regular season pass for Your Heroes.

That stretch from Aikman to Romo is pretty spare...

Labor Armageddon in France?

French civil servants of many different stripes are currently on strike, protesting (relatively) new President Nicolas Sarkozy's efforts to drag the French economy out of the 1960s and into present-day Western Europe.

Sarkozy was elected on a platform of reducing the incredibly inefficient socialist labor bureaucracy and making French business competitive on the global playing field. The French workers, conditioned by decades of socialist labor union coddling, are not too terribly thrilled with the idea of having to actually work for a living, and are letting Sarkozy know it.

I expect Sarkozy to stand his ground. He was elected to get control of this thing, to reduce unemployment from the stratospheric current numbers, to increase efficiency, and to generally make French goods attractive on the world market, which they currently are not. He had to have expected a showdown with the local commies was coming sooner rather than later, and has to have a plan for it.

This is no more than round one in what promises to be a long battle, one Sarkozy has to win if France is ever going to be relevant again.

The Amazon Kindle

This one blew right past me over the past few days: Amazon is just about to release it's own e-book reader, the Amazon Kindle.

For $400, you can purchase the Kindle device, which sounds like it has some very cool features. It has wireless connectivity to the Amazon Kindle store (via FREE Sprint EVDO), where you can purchase books for about $10 a pop, subscribe to magazines and newspapers, and purchase content from many mainstream blogs. All of your content gets downloaded directly to the Kindle via wireless (amazingly, FREE - stoke of genius on Amazon's part), with most books downloading in a minute or less.

The CNET review sounds encouraging, more or less. Their take is that content is too expensive and there aren't enough options for where to buy it, which sorta sounds like the original iTunes argument.

I stumbled across the Kindle while browsing Amazon for some maps and books (the wife and I are headed to NYC for a little Holiday Season fun - look for some travel blogging in the not-too-distant future) and had to stop down to read all about it. I am so ready for a real e-book reader, with wireless access and a good ergonomic design. It sounds like the Kindle is pretty darn close. Definitely worth watching.

UPDATE: The Kindle is the cover story in this week's Newsweek, which just hit the old mailbox today.

UPDATE UPDATE: Oh dear. The other side of the coin. Mark Pilgrim gives a litany of reasons why the Kindle is a steaming pile of Amazon hypocrisy and a soon-to-be disaster. Cory Doctorow chimes in with a few additional points as well.

The Turkey Cannon

Not as much fun as it sounds, the Turkey Cannon allows you to cook a turkey on your grill in fairly short order, while keeping the interior from drying out.

Interesting concept, probably a good one, but if you're going to put the word "Cannon" in the name of your product, there needs to be some launching of some sort involved.

Traffic, taxes, and tolls: Alliteration can be fun

As a resident of exurban Dallas, and one who's job takes him all over the metro area on a regular basis, I've developed some hot sports opinions regarding the transportation grid in our fair burg.

I'll sum those opinions up in a single word for you: INADEQUATE.

Roadwork in the Dallas/Ft Worth Metroplex of Love is omnipresent. If we aren't building a High Five, then we're extending a North Dallas Tollway or slogging through expansion of a State Highway 121 or widening an Interstate 35. If I had any brains at all, I'd chuck this consulting thing and buy a motor grader and a back-hoe or two and go into road construction.

It's everywhere.

But I've noticed a huge disparity in the projects that get started and, more importantly, that get completed. Toll roads like the aforementioned North Dallas Tollway, which was completed on schedule and is now a WONDERFUL part of my daily commuting life regardless of where I'm headed (and which probably tacks an extra $20 grand onto the value of my house), get started and completed on schedule. Publicly funded projects like the also-aforementioned I-35 south of Dallas seem to drag on for YEARS, with no end in sight.

State Highway 121 thru Denton and Collin counties is another great example. Publicly funded for years and years, the project to make a real highway out of what was essentially a country road has dragged on and on, making the road virtually impassable since the late 90s and probably irrevocably destroying an aging bedroom community called The Colony. Here lately, though, ownership of the road and the project has transferred to the North Texas Tollway Authority and there is hope that 121 will become a viable alternative route across the northern part of the area before I'm too old to drive it.

What has prompted this post is an opinion piece in the Metro section of today's DMN. In it, Duane Green rails a bit about the concept of double taxation, which has become the rallying cry of the anti-toll road contingent in these parts. Green points out that he's paying taxes to build roads in the form of a $0.20-per-gallon gasoline tax, so why should he have to pay a toll to a private company for the privilege of driving their toll road in addition.

It's a legitimate point.

To be fair, Green also points out that this tax has not increased since 1991. His solution is to raise the tax (he suggests raising it a nickel a gallon) in an effort to make state funds more available to complete the projects underway and to start new ones.

Seems reasonable, right?

I'm not so sure.

Here's the fiscal conservative in me coming out (I used to call it the "fiscal Republican" in me, but GWB has pretty much killed that sentiment, but that's another post for another day), but I just don't have faith that the state government can manage these projects as effectively as a private enterprise.

The NTTA, love 'em or hate 'em (and I LOVE them), gets stuff done. Why? Because there's a profit motive for them to do so, of course. My take: Dude, if you can build the roads, I'm happy as heck to pay my Toll Tag bill every month.

I trust NTTA to manage their people, projects, and cash a lot more than I trust Rick (Gov. Good Hair) Perry and his minions. And who takes over after Perry takes up residence at the Naval Observatory in a few years? Hell, this state almost elected Clayton Williams governor a few years back. Does he, or someone like him, need to be running around with responsibility for my $0.25 a gallon? No effing way!

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I fundamentally think more roads and more internal combustion engines driving more miles are not sustainable solutions to the problem. We ultimately need to break the paradigm, for any of about 2 million reasons. However, electric vehicles aren't getting here quickly enough, and I have a major problem with people who insist light rail and busses are practical in our sprawling Metroplex of Love. They're not now and never will be.

Here's the upshot to me: We have a real need for improved transportation in this area. Roads are it, for the foreseeable future. How do we most expeditiously build those roads? Answer: We don't let the nincompoops in Austin manage it. We let the wonders of free enterprise do it for us.

Good question

There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?

-Dick Cavett

Bonus YouTube: Ride along on a high-speed police chase

Ft Worth police recently chased a 24-year-old loser from near Hulen Mall in Ft Worth over to sunny Oak Cliff - that's about 40 miles for those of you keeping score at home. At the end of it, Jose Garcia (the above-mentioned loser) does a total give-up. Looks like he's familiar with the "face down on the pavement with your hands behind your head" instructions from the Boys in Blue.

The thing that grabs me about this chase is how often innocent civilians are placed in harms way. The cops have Garcia illuminated with the Night Sun helicopter. Should they just back off and let the helicopter keep up with him, or is it too easy for him to elude it? I dunno, but this would have scared the crap out of me if I were cruising down Marsalis Ave that evening.

Daily YouTube: D-3 football highlight of the century

Division III football powerhouse (?) Milsaps defeats Trinity on the most ridiculous play ever in the history of ever. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Farmer humor

A farm boy accidentally overturned his wagonload of corn. The farmer who lived nearby heard the noise and yelled over to the boy, "Hey Willis, forget your troubles. Come in and visit with us. I'll help you get the wagon up later."

"That's mighty nice of you," Willis answered, "but I don't think Pa would like me to."

"Aw come on boy," the farmer insisted.

"Well okay," the boy finally agreed, and added, "but Pa won't like it."

After a hearty dinner, Willis thanked his host. "I feel a lot better now, but I know Pa is going to be real upset."

"Don't be foolish!" the neighbor said with a smile. "By the way, where is he?"

"Under the wagon."