"This is an emergency crisis we're in. The entertainment media is affecting everything on the planet in a very negative way. I'm only interested in rock 'n' roll. Rock 'n' roll is a music that represents truth. Your TV channel has taken the word "rock" and knocked the "roll" off the end. You made rock this umbrella term for everything. That's wrong. Shakira isn't rock. These country artists with fur coats aren't rock - or country. I offered a video to VH1 of my band playing in the studio and they don't want to air it because it had musicians playing in it. They want some babe walking on the beach or whatever. I got turned onto this music by watching the Beatles and the Rolling Stones actually on TV playing their guitars. It completely took me over. When you can't see musicians playing any more, I'm not interested any more." - To VH1

In June 1965, his truck caught fire due to a defective exhaust, triggering a forest fire that burnt down half of Los Padres National Forest in California. When the judge asked Cash why he did it, Cash said in his characteristically flippant style of the time, "I didn't do it, my truck did, and it's dead so you can't question it."

The fire destroyed 508 acres, burning the foliage off three mountains, and killing 49 of the refuge's 53 endangered condors. Cash was unrepentant -- "I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards."

The federal government sued him and was awarded $125,127. Johnny eventually settled the case and paid $82,000. In his autobiography, Johnny Cash said he was the only person ever sued by the government for starting a forest fire.

So, now institutions of higher education don't want to compete for academic standing? They're in a race to see who can show the most "economic diversity?" Say WHAT?

Along these same lines, college football and basketball programs should probably stop awarding merit scholarships, too. I've noticed that they tend to attract only the best athletes. I think they should strive for a higher degree of "physical diversity."

How freakin' ironic is it that this place is in a city named Clinton.

College eliminates merit scholarships

CLINTON, N.Y. - Hamilton College said Thursday it will stop offering merit scholarships to incoming students in 2008 and use the money instead to provide more need-based assistance to low-and middle-income families.

The move won praise from educators who said they hope it will inspire other colleges to follow suit.

The decision by the small liberal arts college would affect only a few dozen students. But it comes at a time when colleges have been criticized for using their resources to lure high-achieving students — many of whom don't need the money to attend college — thereby improving a school's academic standing at the expense of its economic diversity.

"This is a true act of leadership ... and hopefully it will begin to restore the system to a more sensible one," said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers.

Hamilton, a 195-year-old liberal arts college in upstate New York with about 1,800 students, has awarded a limited number of merit scholarships since 1997. On average, 15 to 20 students out of a first-year class of 470 have received merit scholarships of up to half tuition.

Approximately 5 percent of Hamilton's $21 million financial aid budget is spent on merit aid, according to Monica Inzer, dean of admission and financial aid. The new policy will reallocate about $1 million each year for additional need-based aid, she said.

Inzer said demographers predict a college student population with greater financial need in the coming decade, and colleges and universities must prepare for that reality.

Currently, more than half of all Hamilton students receive need-based financial aid. The average financial aid package (grant, work-study, loan) for those students exceeds $26,000, Inzer said. It costs $43,890 a year to attend Hamilton.

"Everyone is saying it would be great to slow this merit aid trend down, but no schools have been willing to do it," said Sandy Baum, senior policy analyst for The College Board and professor of economics at Skidmore College.

While a few schools across the country — among them George Washington and Dickinson College — have reduced the amount of merit aid they give out or the number of students who receive it, Hamilton is believed to be the first school to entirely abandon its merit scholarship program, she said.

Some highly selective schools, which have plenty of applicants to choose from, award aid only on the basis of need. But many schools spend millions on merit aid to lure more accomplished students.

My theme for 2007 is "because I can."

I've actually been living by this, but I didn't coin the phrase until I went to Guitar Center yesterday to see what the real story was about no-interest financing on a President's Day Sale, and walked out with a shiny new black sunburst Fender Jazz Bass.

I always wanted a bass to noodle around on, even before I had a guitar. So I got one. As I'm buying this thing, I'm thinking, why am I getting this? I mean, why am I REALLY getting it? Because I can.

Doesn't hurt that I don't have to pay for a year, but still. Because I can.

This applies retroactively to my new Nintendo. I bought an NES in 1988 with $107 that took me like 47 years to accumulate. I was never a big time video game player, but I had my moments. I never had a ton of games, because I always had to buy them myself or wait for Christmas or something. I picked up rocks in our backyard for $5/5 gallon bucket, until I had $50 for Super Mario Bros 3. I remember my mom calling over to Toys R Us in Waco, and they only had 7 copies, so they held one back for me.

So I decided over Christmas that I would get a Wii. The new controllers and the ability to download old games on the cheap were the selling points. I figured I'd go pick one up.

Then I realized you can't find them anywhere. I realized the only way to get one was to be an 11 year old kid with nothing better to do than try and get one.

So I got determined. I ended up sitting outside Best Buy for 3 hours one morning, to get one, then driving around every Target, Circuit City and Best Buy within 20 miles to get all the controllers.

Why? Because I can.

I just feel sick for the dude.

Y'all don't all be talking bad about Tony, it would've been the Falcons or Panthers playing the Seahawks if not for him.

I just want to say, if you're not THE Jimmy Johnson (the former Cowboys' coach), you shouldn't be named Jimmy Johnson.

There is a NASCAR driver named Jimmie Johnson, and he needs to go by Jim. Or James, or something.

If you're not Jimmy Johnson, don't call yourself Jimmy Johnson. It's just not right.

You probably didn't know that November 20th is Mexican Revolution Day. I do, thanks to every hotel in the valley being booked up last night.

No matter who you like to vote for, see "Breaking News" below for an explanation of what's wrong with America!

Y'all dig it at /radio.

Fosho.

Did you know you apply it directly to the forehead?

Just wanted to go ahead and roll that one out there for the greater public good.

1. The news just told me that it's now been 50 years since the movie Giant was made. You know, Giant? The big Texas movie about oil and stuff? James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, etc, etc... anyway, the only reason this is important to me is because Giant is the only old movie that I like. Period. I first saw it in high school, and you know, I didn't even fall asleep during it.

2. My parents visited this weekend, so my mom made me watch Grey's Anatomy on Thursday night. Ugh. I've come to realize that there are some things that I flat out don't care about on TV, especially if they're fiction - Lawyers, Doctors, and Crime. I don't understand why people like to watch people solve make believe crimes, or fight make believe court cases, or run around being horny and sleeping around while tending to ER patients.

On the aforementioned hit show the other night, there were 5 separate characters who were unfaithful to their wives/husbands/girlfriends/boyfriends in the first 32 minutes - and this is an hour show! I just don't give a crap about hospitals, or courtrooms, or make believe crimes. Especially if it's full of a bunch of adults acting like 7th graders. Do you want to go to the ER and risk that all the doctors there are just trying to get each other in bed? Myself, I'd much rather they focus on making sure I don't die or whatever.

Anyway, the Doctor Show/Lawyer Show/Crime Show triumvirate is all over TV. Not a shred of it appeals to me. My thinking is, if somebody did something bad, I hope you find 'em and lock 'em up. If somebody got hurt and came to the hospital, I hope you fix them up and they don't die. If you gotta go to court, I hope you win. If you're the good guys. Whatever! I'm just not interested. Stop all that jibba jabba and show me some Mr. T.

3. I carted around 3544 lbs worth of cement mix this weekend. 44 bags. Not only am I sick of lifting them, but I can seriously say that if I didn't have a truck, my life would just cease. You can't get anything done if you don't have a truck - you gotta pay people to do everything for you. Get a truck.

4. #3 refers to pouring a footing for a new fence. My dad did most of it but actually had enough faith in Mark and me to let us pour the last part while he was welding some stuff. I don't usually get to do this stuff because my dad is the expert. I'm usually reduced to a supporting role. I'm like the guy on the Cowboys who barely made the team and only gets to cover punts. You only see him when he has ADD and runs past the punt returner instead of hitting him. Or he lets the ball roll into the end zone. Anyway, on the concrete pouring, amazingly, we did okay. Much like we said in our Amazing Race video entry - we get things done.

Most of you are probably aware that the Dallas Cowboys have employed Brad Sham as their radio broadcaster for a long time. I don't remember who came before him.

There's also a Dallas Cowboys postgame show that comes on channel 11 at 11:30 every Sunday, hosted by Sham.

I watch this every week. Always have. Well, except for the dark days of 1998 - 2002 where I was without local Dallas/Fort Worth channels.

The last two weeks, Brad Sham has talked about players "getting props."

Uhhhh...

...why is it that goldfish will eat themselves to death?

I mean, really. They must be the stupidest of the stupid, even more stupid than yippy dogs that bark at nothing and lick the toes of flip-flop wearing visitors.

Every living thing knows when it's full... except a goldfish.

Nick at Nite used to be the Ultimate.

They had a nice balance of Cosby Show, Cheers, Coach and Family Ties. At one point, Coach replaced all of Family Ties and it was the triple-C classic lineup of Cosby, Cheers and Coach.

I survived the onslaught of Wings, followed by the Who's The Boss attacks.

I came through relatively unscathed. In the interim, Roseanne appeared. Coach and Cheers were replaced by Fresh Prince.

That's okay. I can roll with that.

A few months ago, A Different World showed up on the scene. I was thinking this would be a good addition. After all, it was a Cosby spinoff and I used to watch it a lot when I was a kid. Anyway, it turned out to be a turd. A big, patronizing turd parade of early 90's "issues" that look vain and out of place on a sitcom.

Anyway, in spite of this, I can still get with A Different World because of D'Wayne, Ron, Oak and Mr. Gaines. Especially Mr. Gaines. That man should have his own talk show.

It's been tough, but I've stuck with Nick at Nite through good times and bad.

Now, they're showing Designing Women.

Designing Women.

I don't know if I'ma make it through this one.

It occurs to me that the point of blogs for most people is to show the world how smrt they think they are.

smrt. I don't know where that comes from. Do y'all? smrt. It's like, smart, but not so smart.

I think I'm going to use smrt as the word to describe people who are more interested in looking smart and feeling smart than actually being smart. I hereby declare myself the final arbiter of who is smrt and who isn't smrt.

That's another question. If you're not smrt, does that make you dumb, or are you actually smart? Like me, I'm not smrt, but I'm smart. A smrt person can be dumb, but most smrt people aren't dumb. I think.

Anyway...... Lots of people use blogs for showing off smrtness. You know, like this:

- a list of hippie books I read recently that talk about stupid crap like making toilets not flush very much water.
- a photo journal of my trip to Europe in college where I went to every museum in the universe and took pictures of places & things that I fell asleep watching movies about when I was in high school.
- a sampling of my favorite recipes with crap in them like goat cheese, or balsamic something, or organic wheat germ tofu meatless barbecue sandwiches.
- a story about some weird behavior by a professor, the likes of which would never be tolerated in any normal social or professional setting, but like me, this professor is extremely smrt, so he gets a pass.
- short poems, demonstrating my high levels of sensitivity and how attuned to the suffering of the world i am. written by me, because i'm smrt.
- rants about the unteachable ignorance of people who couldn't possibly understand how I see the world, as I am a prisoner of my own smrtness.

Hey, smrt people - stop it!

I love Sunday NFL Countdown. It's one of the highlights of my life.

10 - 15 years ago, when it was NFL Gameday, I loved NFL Gameday.

It's awesome. That's all I really have to say.

Well, now that the website is finally redone, I got around to editing the poor effort that we put in on July 14 - yes, nine weeks ago - and we got together last night to kick off the second year of Texas Select.

Hop over to /radio to hear it.

It wasn't our best, but even our less-than-best is better than nothing, right?

In other news... It really disturbs me that Pink is singing a theme song for NBC's Sunday Night NFL broadcast. I can't handle it. It's weird. I didn't like her before, and I really don't like her now. Her name is Pink.

In other other news... Weinberger's has about 6 new sandwiches on the menu. That's fine livin'.

All you nerds out there are going to hate this one. I'm sorry, but it has to be said.

Firefox sucks. It's dumb.

I have been working to get my blog ported over to my new site (as may be evident)... what I've learned is that Firefox doesn't understand the concepts of padding or vertical alignment. I did find a workaround for the padding issue, though.

Dig it...

vertical-align: middle;

Okay, what would you say that means? Even if you don't know anything about creating web sites, you can probably guess. And yeah, "dumb" Microsoft gets it. Cool, hip, hot stuff nerd know-it-alls using Firefox have to miss out on the novel concept of vertical alignment in CSS.

Firefox, you're stupid! You owe me lots of my life back.

On the other hand.. enjoy my new site. One of these days I'll have more here than just my blog and the radio show. The radio show segments download WAY faster now that they're not hosted on a computer under my desk, though.

Not really.. but I wish that these four words could be stricken from ALL food advertisements and marketing:

chipotle
ciabatta
bistro
vinaigrette

Thank you, and have a great day.

Late last week, I came home and there were two boxes on my doorstep. I thought to myself, "what did I order?" That's a problem, ya know? Really. You should be able to remember what you order.

Then I remembered that I was expecting a duffel bag from IBM. Okay, that's one, but it didn't explain #2.

I got them into the house and opened them up, and one was the duffel bag, and the second was some random office supplies that couldn't have been worth more than $25 or $30 in total. Definitely not mine. At that time I realized that there were two addresses on this box.

One sticker had my address on it, with very little else. The other was a real, true UPS sticker with barcode and everything, addressed to The Law Office of Jorge D. Somebody in Denton, TX.

So, somewhere along the way, they accidentally stuck that other sticker on there and it got bundled with the other box rather than going to the law office of my boy Jorge. I figured I'd wait until I was running errands, and take it over to the UPS Store so they could send it on it's merry way.

Think about it - the delivery person never looked at the real UPS sticker with tracking code and all, because the OTHER box had one on there with my address. He/she had to have scanned that one to mark it delivered, and just assumed it was a two-box delivery. So somewhere in a UPS computer, Jorge's order was in the twilight zone.

I figured I'd help Jorge out. So I went to the UPS store just a few minutes ago. I walk in, and a teenage kid comes walking up. He didn't say "hi" or "how may I help you," he just gave me the silent "what-up" head-nod.

The exchange is as follows:

Rhylan: This package got mistakenly delivered to me. See, here's my name and address, but here's the real sticker, and it should've gone to that guy.
UPS Store Kid: Hmmm, okay. [thinking...]
Rhylan: So, I wanted to drop it off so it could get where it was supposed to go.
UPS Store Kid: [turns and picks up phone...] Actually, you're going to need to call UPS.

Okay - let's take a breather here and assess the situation. He's getting the phone for me so that I can call UPS. I didn't go there for phone guidance. I didn't go down to hang around for 30 minutes, either.

Rhylan: How about you call them, since you work for them?
Lady in Back Making Copies: [laughs....]
Rhylan: [starts to back away from the counter...] I don't have time to deal with it. It's not mine.
UPS Store Kid: Wait. I can't take this from you.
Rhylan: Sure you can. It's not mine!

At this point, the UPS Store Kid makes a mad face and starts dialing the phone as I walk out of the store. The copy-making lady kept laughing and said, "You should've just kept the package!" I said, "I thought I was doing something good. Next time I'll just open it up and take the free stuff!" Which, to be honest, I'll never do. Partly because I don't want to take stuff that isn't mine, but primarily because I don't want crap I didn't order. Really. I don't want crap cluttering up my life, free or otherwise.

I just don't get delivery services. It's like, just because something magically gets put on your doorstep, it's yours now and forever. Maybe the next door neighbor should have her dog poop on my doorstep, then come over and say, "it sure is hard to walk into your house without stepping in that poop of yours. You might want to clean that up." Or, maybe the trash dudes should just start dragging my trash bags back up from the curb, onto my doorstep, so that I have to deal with them. Or, maybe.. just maybe... at the end of the work day, the guy driving the Acme Drywall Co. truck should drop off all his workers on my doorstep. Then, when the feds come to bust him for employing illegals, he can say they're mine.

And this kid... what was he thinking? Did he really think there was any circumstance upon which I would leave the UPS Store with that box in my hand? It wasn't mine. I didn't want it. I got tired of looking at it in my house. UPS was the last person who had it who was supposed to have it in their possession. They lost it. I wanted to return it to the people who lost it. Did he think that I intended to come to the UPS Store so that I could call UPS? I could've done that from my couch.

Anyway, I hope Jorge gets his office supplies.