Skattershooting while wondering how a telephone works:

• Regarding the death of four people at the Fort Worth Water Garden: How has it not happened before?
• Those that died in the Water Gardens were part of a church group from a Baptist Church in Chicago. What's odd is that they were here for a drill team competition. A drill team competition?
  
• Barney (the dinosaur) drives me crazy.
  
• The Wiggles aren't far behind.
  
• Men's tennis sure has fallen a long way. ESPN Classic showed a match the other day between Jimmy Conners and John McEnroe. Good stuff. I'm not sure I could name two professional men's tennis players.
  
• White guys should never be able to say "Wazzup dawg?"
• All birthday celebrations by waitresses in a restaurant should be banned.
  
• I was watching a portion of the Reagan funeral on CSPAN when I moved the channel one position. On CPAN2 they were replaying LBJ's funeral.  Now that's good television.
  
• The Dallas Morning News is asking for the Texas Legislature to amend its procedures to allow the recording of votes. (Amazingly, there is no record kept of who votes for what). Many representatives and senators have signed on in support. Perennial showboater Sen. Jane Nelson is not one of them.
  
• The two guys in the Sonic commercials are very funny.
• I'm intimidated by the Starbuck's menu.
• Six Feet Under is back on HBO and I'm very happy about that.
  
• Two years ago Jane Boyle gets appointed by President Bush as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. Last week, she was confirmed to become a federal judge (a lifetime appointment). How'd all that happen so fast?
• Freshman Senator John Cornyn was making the media rounds the other day promoting his decision to seek an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would ban flag burning. I can't tell you the number of times I see a flag burning on my way to work.
  
• CBS Sportsline ranked the top 50 NFL players. Dallas had one of them: Roy Williams who came in at #43.
  
• I watched a documentary the other day on Jim and Tammy Fay Baker. As nutty as she is, there was a clip of her in 1981 chastising the church for not being more receptive to gays and lesbians. That was pretty far out there at the time, and the church didn't really listen.
  
• I rented the original Bonnie and Clyde the other day. Not bad. Historically inaccurate, but not bad.
• Martina Navratralova came out of singles retirement to play at Wimbledon this month. She won her first match in 46 minutes. That's quite remarkable in that she is 47 years old. That has to be the first time a match was won in less minutes than the winner's age.
  
• The media, local Fox 4 News in particular, made a big stink over this month's supreme court decision regarding the rights of a state to make it illegal for a citizen not to provide his name to the police when asked. That was the story anyway. Actually, the rule is that such failure to identify can be crime so long as the police had a reasonable suspicion to stop you in the first place.   That's a heck of a lot different than being arrested for not telling Rex Hoskins your name outside of Matties.
• I actually saw Fahrenheit 9/11 on its opening weekend.  Take it with a grain of salt, but it was incredibly entertaining. Guess what, the crowd I sat with seemed to be, how do I say this, liberal.
  
• Dodgeball was pretty funny but not that funny.
  
• Mean Girls wasn't that bad but I wouldn't make a special trip to see it.  But it looks like Lindsay Lohan will be a star.
  
• Take a drive around the loop on the southwest side of Denton. You will not believe the growth over there.
• I understand a GMC dealership, a Lexus dealership or a Nissan Dealership. But a Hummer dealership sure does seem like a risky proposition. That's kind of putting a lot of eggs in one single style of car.
  
• Kukla, Fran and Ollie was one bad show. But as a kid, I didn't have a lot of choices.
• Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are actually  fraternal, and not identical, twins.
• Newsweek isn't exactly a scholarly journal - I enjoy it - even when it has Spiderman 2 on the cover. What I don't understand is why Anna Quindlen begins her column with a sentence that includes the word "obstreperous". Heck, I think I'm a smart guy but I have no idea what that word means. (June 28, 2004 issue).
  
• Bill Clinton wrote his 957 page book in long hand.  Can you imagine?
  
• Quick: Who was the leading rusher for the Dallas Cowboys under first year coach Jimmy Johnson in 1989? That would be a guy named Paul Palmer who gained 446 yards. The third year NFL player would never carry the ball in another game again. Anywhere.
  
• Did you know that former Bridgeport High School football standout Joseph Krebs was drafted this month by the New York Yankees as a pitcher? He was the 1,149 player drafted and was taken in the 38th round.
• Do you remember when Wise County had "party lines"? You know, you pick up your telephone and your neighbor was using the line. (Hey, kids, I am not making that up).
  
• People used to make fun of me for saying we will never find Weapons of Mass Destruction. Then again, I predicted we wouldn't invade Iraq and that Martha Stewart would be found not guilty.
• UT's baseball team  loses the college world series and then refused to come out of the locker room and accept the runner's up trophy. Their coach finally "apologized" by saying "I would like to apologize for every member of the University of Texas family, and the fans of the College World Series and Cal State Fullerton for the unfortunate perception that has been created."  That sounds more like an accusation than an apology.
• Does anyone remember the Texas Blue Law?
• Not too long ago, branch banking was illegal in Texas due to a provision of the Texas Constitution. Now the Bank of America has 482 branches in Texas, Wells Fargo has 473, and JP Morgan Chase has 327 branches.
  
• Rush Limbaugh made fun of  Fahrenheit 9/11 because it had "only" the #222 largest opening weekend ever. That's ever. There have been just a few films released over the years and coming in 222nd isn't all that bad.
• Speaking of Clinton, there are a few typos in his book. For example, the last line reads "the failure of my life" while new printings already read "the failures of my my life".
  
• Reagan's funeral, according to Newsweek, cost $10 million. Nixon's, which was also a state funeral, was $300,000.
• The Texas Rangers are doing great. Just think what the season would hold if their highest paid player, Chan Ho Park, could throw a strike?
• The feds are now cracking down on methamphetamine with a new program called "Methbusters".  According to the US Attorney for Eastern District of Texas, "The drugs today are stronger, the users are younger, and the dealers are more dangerous". Weren't teenagers taking acid in the 60s? Call me when they get rid of methamphetamine.
  
• The craziest story lately is the very hot 23 year old Florida teacher who allegedly had sex with a 14 year old student (he's the one walking around campus with a smoking jacket on).  To make it even crazier, she had been married less than a year, and, if you so desire, you can take a look at all 416 pictures that were taken at her wedding.  
• Do you think this is a gamble: There is a chance that Barry Bonds might hit his 700th homer this year. One rich guy, Mike Mahan, is willing to gamble $25,000 that the home run is hit in Dodger stadium on either October 1st or 3rd. For those days, he has purchased all 3,000 seats of a particular section of the outfield in hopes of grabbing the home run ball. 
  
• ESPN has created a list of the top 25 sport movies of the last 25 years. You'll note that Rocky is not on the list. Why? It was made over 25 years ago (1976, to be exact).
  
• Monster is very good and Charlize Theron is great in it.