Get ready!

Our first wintry-hard freeze day is coming on Thursday. Unfortunately, there will not be any sticking of the cold stuff because:

1. It will be 42 degrees outside, not cold enough for freezing
2. The day before the high temps will be in the high 70's, low 80's and the ground will be too warm to allow the ice to stick (which really sucks, because it would be awesome if school and work can be cancelled!)

But is still exciting nonetheless. In the northern counties, there is a chance for sleet/freezing rain to fall, so that is still awesome. I just need to obtain a nice, thick winter coat :)

Happy Monday!

RIP Chopsticks

Today bulldozers are demolishing a beloved Denton icon on Fry Street: Mr Chopsticks. Also set for demolition today is the old building that housed Uncommon Grounds that is on Oak St. Yesterday, they gutted the insides to prepare it for the bulldozer today. A candlelight vigil was held last night in memory of one of Denton's favorite eateries.

Click here for Debbie Denmon's report (WFAA-TV)

Click here for Raw Video from KNTU and the Denton Record Chronicle

And, as always, you can get information about the Fry Street debacle at www.savefrystreet.com

To Chopsticks : We will miss you in your original state... we, the students of the University of North Texas will be back in full force when you make your return to Fry Street.

To the Houston Investor : You are an idiot.

Fox pulls the plug on the Juice

Unfortunate for OJ, the publishers and FOX has pulled out all of the plans for the book written by Simpson which was to detail how he would have committed the murders if he had did it. It was stupid for him to write it in the first place and even stupider for a publishing company to back him on this venture. Now from what I have heard in the media for the last few days, it was the publisher who made him to do it to "realize" his guilt, but even still, this is OJ's way to say "haha, you never convicted me!"

It is unfortunate that despite all of the evidence that a California jury did not find him guilty. I know that if this would have happened in Texas, he would have already faced the fate of infamous needle in Huntsville.

The people of California failed the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Shame on you Mr Murdoch and Mr Simpson for trying to make money on this sad event in American History.

Resurgence of the Draft

A Democrat from NY, Charles Rangel thinks that it would be a good idea to stop the temptation of starting wars by reinstating the draft for men and women from the age of 18 to 42. What the heck is he thinking???

Yes, I understand that there is a need in the military because numbers are dwindling, a lot of that has to do with the fact that many are loosing their lives for an unjust and unwinnable cause, however, a draft is not the answer. Even the Department of Defense says that it does not want a draft. Why would an organization want a bunch of people in their organization if the people do not want to be there in the first place.

A draft could be very counterproductive. There may be people who would do stupid things just to get out of having to go to a warzone. Unfortunately, I do not think that a draft is a part of the answer.

It is a very honorable privilege to serve one's country, but I think that you should want to do it and not be forced to do it. Not everybody is cut out for military service.

Also, when all of this happened with the Vietnam war, there was a backlash, and there will be another one again if it is passed by the House.

Additionally, (I just keep thinking of things..) this Representative thinks that being that the House is of a Democratic majority, he thinks that he will be able to pass his bill a lot easier, but I have to break it to him now, I do not think that the Dem's are going to back him on it. There is a lot of argument about the war to begin with and I think that it would not be productive to any representative's career to agree to a draft bill. If they do that, they should kiss their job goodbye...

Been in Office 2 days and already causing waves...

Shelly Sekula Gibbs, now Congresswoman in the 22nd TX Congressional District (Tom Delay's former district) is thrusting herself into the limelight in our Nation's Capitol. On the first day, her staffers walked out and left her high and dry. Supposedly she was mistreating her staffers..

"Never has any member of Congress treated us with as much disrespect and unprofessionalism as we witnessed during those five days," said the former Chief of Staff

Before they left, they deleted some of the files on the office computers and now she is starting an investigation into why they were deleted.

All I have to say is, it is probably best that she was not voted in for the full term. The people of the 22nd district needs somebody who is willing to work hard for them and fight for their needs, not to be picking little fights here and there for arbitrary causes. There has been enough controversy with that district and the people of the 22nd district needs some peace and quiet.

Shelly just needs to take a chill pill. Being that she is a MD, she can just prescribe some to herself. It will be interesting to see what other sparks that she can cause in the next 6 weeks that she will be in office...

P.S. The Washington Post has called her a "Lame Duck." That is just hilarious.

P.S.S. I was reading about all of this yesterday, and I can't remember where I read it, but I read that she was upset that President Bush and VP Cheney did not come wish her well at her introduction party. In attendance was Kay Bailey Hutchinson and fellow Rep and Houstonian Ted Poe. My first thoughts were : "what makes you think that you are that special? You are only going to be there for a short time, so what does it matter?"

Clear Channel Merging and diffusing...

Today Clear Channel has been acquired by 2 investor groups. They are doing this to become a private company (not traded publicly on the NYSE). They have raised the price of the stock to "buyout" their shareholders.

We all know Clear channel from the outdoor billboards that we see on the roadways everywhere (I even saw some in the UK), radio stations, and Television stations (there is only one in Texas, San Antonio's NBC station).

As a result of this merger, they will be selling off some of their radio stations and all of their TV stations. Not to worry though, they are only selling off the stations that are outside of the Arbitron rated top 100 (which included all of the major TX radio markets).

I am really interested who will pick up the TV group. There isn't a TV company really looking to buy right now, but I am sure that somebody will pick them up.

The only thing that is a little sad is that WOAI in San Antonio is the anchor station of the Clear Channel stations, and I will wonder what will happen to it once it leaves the arms of Clear Channel...

Tesco in the US!

Sorry it has been so long since I have last written... school and life has been crazy with something always going on.. to my avid readers, I thank you for your patience... :)

So now on to business...

Tesco is coming to the US! Tesco is the major grocery chain in the United Kingdom. They are like the Kroger of the UK. While I was there, I got the privilege to shop there, and I had a great experience there. They had a great selection of foods from all over the world, really high quality produce and their private label (store brand) products were superb. They also had a great wine and alcohol section too. For the most part, they were mainly grocery stores, but some of them had general merchandise in them too, such as movies, TVs, clothes, stuff like that.

Right now, they are looking to start out on the West Coast of the US and are going to start things out by bringing over their Express style store, which is projected to compete with 7-11's. It has not been said if they will sell gas (or petrol in the UK) but I would not think that they would. A lot Tesco's sell petrol in the UK, but they have not really said anything about that.

I hope that they will be successful. I would fly out to California or the Left Coast to visit one of these stores. However, the grocery market is really competitive in the United States due to Walmart and there is no telling as to what will happen until it happens.

Tesco is the 5th largest grocery chain worldwide and they already have stores in Eastern Europe and Asia, so with that kind of experience and a base, they have a really good running chance.

New form of Voting in Denton County

Attention Denton County Voters!!

The County has updated the method of voting. They are now using the electronic voting machines. They are basically just big computer screens with a wheel and a couple of buttons on it. When you first walk into the voting site, you will be able to test it out, and if you have not used one of these machines before, then I definitely suggest that you go play with the demo first before you walk into the booth. Once you go in a sign in, you will be issued a pin number that will get you into the voting machine. From there, you will then be able to vote for your candidates using the wheel and the accept button. If you click here, you can go to the manufacturer webpage and test out a sample online version of the machine.

It is basically a very simple process and it intended to be, but you just have to be aware...

Happy Voting!

Chopsticks in its final hours

Buster Friedman, the new developer of the "New Fry Street" has just applied for a demolition permit to commence demolition on the buildings of the former Mr Chopsticks and Uncommon Grounds. It will be a sad day in Denton when this starts.

Many UNT students can remember their first visit to Chopsticks. Mine was my first semester with my roommate and our Maple friends. We walked over there and I feasted on Beef Fried Rice. We sat in the "outer section" that looked like it used to be a garage or something like that.. Good times..

The Save Fry Street organization (where I am getting this information from) wants to know when demolition actually starts. Contact them at 214-437-2948 and contact Dawn Cobb at the Denton Record Chronicle at 940-566-6879 or by email at dcobb@dentonrc.com

Be sure to stop by Fry Street to get your last glimpses before the whole district is changed forever.

Leave your comments about your favorite Chopsticks/Uncommon Grounds memories...

SMU and Playboy?

Playboy is currently going around to all of the conference USA schools a clicking photos to create a "Girls of Conference USA" montage in the magazine. Yesterday, they stopped at SMU in Dallas. For those of you who don't know, SMU stands for Southern Methodist University. It is a private university tucked into the heart of University Park neighborhood of Dallas.

Playboy put an ad in the student newspaper calling for ladies to meet up at a hotel across the street from the campus to pose for shots to possibly be placed in the magazine. The University itself is not associated with this at all.

With that said, I think that it is a conflict of interest. They are a religious school and they are required to be held to a higher regard and posing for a magazine like Playboy definitely conflicts with morals. With our culture surrounded with sex as it is, I do not think that students of a religious institution should participate in an activity that promotes sex. The Bible says that we should not have sex before marriage and I think that we should uphold that, especially those who represent a religion, ie: members of the church and students who attend religious institutions such as SMU.

Baylor agrees with this argument and has promised to expel students who participate in these photo sessions. Baylor, a private University in Waco, is affiliated with the Baptist denomination. Their student handbook says, "expression that is inappropriate in the setting of Baylor University and in opposition to the Christian ideals which it strives to uphold." Playboy was going to be at Baylor in 2002 when Playboy was going to do a montage of the "Women of the Big 12."

Let me know what you think...

Loving the cold weather? Thank the Child!

In the past few weeks, the citizens of North Texas (and the South Central Plains) has been experiencing cooler than usual weather conditions. I think that this is the earliest that I have had to crack out the sweaters from my closet in quite a while. Also, we have received more rain in the past month than we have in a looong time.

This is all thanks to a weather phenonmenon El Nino (translated into english as "The Child" and refers to when Christ was born). El Nino is a major warming of the equatorial waters in the Pacific Ocean. El Nino events usually occur every 3 to 7 years, and are characterized by shifts in "normal" weather patterns. The last time that we had an "El Nino year" was 1997-1998.

Researchers are still learning about El Nino. NOAA has put bouys in the waters in the Pacific to gather more data and watch the temperatures to be able to predict this major weather event.

When it comes to linking both La Nina and El Nino (La Nina is the exact opposite of El Nino where the waters are cold in the Pacific and brings a wamer than normal winter to Texans) the jury is still out. Researchers have not totally "figured out" global warming, but it may be possible to link these in the future.

All of this probably doesn't mean a lot to many of you and are totally bored by now, but it is something interesting to know and you can impress all of your friends by explaining why it is colder sooner than usual.. FUN!

Go Vote!

It is now time to take action. Early voting in the State of Texas has started. It is important to take this time to go vote to let your voice be heard. The key position being fought for this season is the coveted Governor for the Great State of Texas. You have read about them, heard about them, watched the debate that they participated in, and now it is time to take action and let your voice be heard. Below are links for the blogs that I wrote about each candidate, read over them and check out their website to refresh your memory and then go vote:

Perry : http://dlm0078.blogspot.com/2006/09/part-4-of-4-gov-rick-perry.html
Kinky: http://dlm0078.blogspot.com/2006/09/part-3-of-4-kinky-friedman.html
Strayhorn: http://dlm0078.blogspot.com/2006/09/gubernatorial-election-part-2-of-4.html
Bell: http://dlm0078.blogspot.com/2006/09/blog-special-gubernatorial-candidates.html

For voting locations, google your specific county and then look for their Elections page. If you are in Denton County, their website is : http://elections.dentoncounty.com/go.asp?Dept=82&Link=894

This page gives dates, times, and locations of polling places. This week, you can go to the Carroll Building (right off of the Square) between 8 and 5pm to vote Monday - Friday, and you can also go 7am-7pm on this Saturday and 1-6pm on Sunday. It is located at the corner of Carroll and Mulberry.

This is an important time in Texas politics. There are some changes that could stand to be made and the only way that WE can do anything about it is to take this time to vote.

When you go to vote, you can take your Voter Registration Card or just your Drivers License. It is that simple.

Remember, we have people out there fighting for this right to vote and we should respect them by practicing this right.

Diane Sawyer is CRAZY!!

I don't know why they chose to do it, but ABC decided to send Diane Sawyer, from Good Morning America, to North Korea. She did her first broadcast from there this morning and will do reports for GMA and World News Tonight at 530pm. She is one of 300 foreigners in a country of 23 million. When she got off of the plane, she had to give up her cellphone, BlackBerry and any other device that can be used to communicate with the outside world. They were issued North Korean cellphones, but I am sure that they are bugged. This is one of the few times that a Western journalist has been allowed into the country.

This all comes at a bad time because over the weekend, the UN has issued sanctions on North Korea and today, Kim Jong Il has considered these sanctions placed by the UN are an act of war. I would not want to be there during all of this.

You can watch her reports on ABC from 7-9am (on Ch 8 here in the Metroplex) and at 530pm on World News Tonight. She is also keeping a blog and will be posting reports online.. check out the GMA website here. Good luck to you Mrs. Sawyer... you will need it..

Picture credits: GMA website.. behind Sawyer is a statue to Kim Jong Il's father...

SWA is now free to move about the country from Dallas LUV

This is an exciting event for my friends over at Southwest Airlines. President Bush has signed off on the repeal of the Wright Ammendment and also they received the nod from the FAA, which now allows them to start selling thru-tickets for flights from Dallas Love Field to destinations outside of the 9 Wright states. Starting this Thursday, October 19th, they will add 25 destinations from Love Field (with an introductory fare of $99 with a 14-day advance purchase) that will be a single stop, thru flight. Some of these cities will include:

Phoenix, Baltimore/Washington DC, Las Vegas, Chicago Midway, Los Angeles International (LAX), Orlando..

They will also be using their codeshare with ATA Airlines to have flights from Love Field to NY LaGuardia, Maui and Honolulu, HI.

100 new destinations will be added over all. Schedules have to be adjusted and modified to allow for all of this expansion at Love Field.

Also, Rapid Rewards members (their Flyer Miles Program) will receive double credit for any travel that either begins or ends at LUV.

The SWA PR representative also said that they will be working with the City of Dallas to refurbish the Airport and add new amenities.

He also said that SWA has enought planes to take on the load right now, but they will be looking to add 8% more planes (35 total) to their fleet to accomodate this new addition pending customer demand.

They are stressing that they are the leaders in low prices in the airline industry and that when a customer is considering flying anywhere, they should choose the Leaders in low fares opposed to those who follow the industry in low fares (this was in direct reference to American Airlines).

They will have more information on their website and will start sales to these new destinations on Thursday, so you will be able to see what schedules are available then. Their web address is: www.southwest.com Check them out!

Congrats SWA!!

SWA News confence live...

SWA is announcing their new schedules from Love Field.. you can watch live on www.wfaa.com and get more info.. I will bring more after the news confrence...

Beware Fellow Native Houstonians....

Dallas has a new DJ on 106.1 KISS-FM. Drum roll please...... It is Atom Smasher! YAY! (sarcasm). I was scrolling through the stations one day last week, and I heard a familiar voice on KISS. He was hitting on a girl on air, looking at her info on Myspace and then trying to get her to be his "friend" on Myspace. He has made the move north to the Metroplex after being canned from the Morning Show at 104.1 KRBE. Check out McGuff for the details... Basically, Cumulus, the company that owns KRBE was done with Atom and Maria and wanted to participate in the DJ switcheroo by replacing them with former KHMX DJ's Roula and Ryan who were replaced by former KRBE DJ Sam Malone. I know, it doesn't make much since does it? Rather confusing yes, but I guess that the radio market is really fluid... It happens.. I just thought that I would share this if there were any Atom fans out there...

Cold War Part II?

If you haven't heard what has been going on in North Korea, then you apparently have been hiding under a rock (which still won't do you any good if there is nuclear war). On Monday (Sunday night our time), Kim Jong Il tested his nuclear warheads underground in North Korea. They were not that powerful, only causing an earthquake that registered a 3.6 on the Richter scale and it was only estimated to have the power of 550 tons of TNT.

Upon hearing of it, almost every country has criticized North Korea and Il for performing these tests. President Bush is trying to work with the UN Security Council to create sanctions on North Korea because of these tests. Ironically, fellow Communist state China is condemning these acts. However, they are just worried about the fallout of people who will immigrate to China for safety if North Korea does end up going to war.

After hearing of all of this, I am reminded of the Cold War when the United States was in an arms race with the Soviet Union. Images of children practicing air raid drills in schools popped into my head. Is this something that the people of my generation will have to deal with? It may. Will World War III break out because of all of this, amidst the Battle on Terror? It may.

The more that I think about it, the scarier it gets because there is nothing that we can do to protect ourselves from a nuclear attack. There really isn't. We can dig a hole in the ground and surround ourselves with concrete, until the area clears, but is it even reasonable to put people in the ground like that and have them survive like that? I know that I would go stir crazy after a day or two. I go stir crazy sitting in an office building for 8 hours a day.

If World War III occurs, will there be mass callups like there was with the preceding global wars? Will the nation actually stand behind the President if we were actually to go to war with North Korea?

These are all questions that we will possibly facing if anything else major develops with this situation. It may not be soon, but it also may not be that far away. It will just depend on how Kim Jong Il pushes the issue of nuclear testing and he resists the controls that will be placed on him for his actions.

In this instance, can we look upon history for help? I am not sure. We can see what happens when 2 countries compromise (with the help of a change in government), but with this situation, I don't think so.

We put the D in D-DFW!

Yesterday, WFAA CH-8 was in town doing live reports from the Square. It is a part of their "covering our community" attempt to ensure that they do not leave out all of the important communities that make up their audience. I wish that I could have gone down there to watch them go live, it would have been cool, but I had other things going on..

While they were here, they interviewed the new Mayor of Denton, Perry McNeil. He was recently elected in May. He told WFAA that the City of Denton has experienced a great period of growth in the last 20 years; 70K people in 1980 to 108K now in 2006.

The City of Denton is also growing in other ways too with a new hospital (Presby Denton), a new retail shopping center on Loop 288 and a new development at US 380 and IH-35. In addition, there have been a lot of new neighborhoods sprouting up across the area which will keep people in our area.

One thing that we are having a problem with is traffic and mobility. This past may, the DCTA (Denton County Transit Authority) of which the City of Denton is a member, has started a bus line that departs from various points in the city (primarily UNT and a stop at Cinemark) that makes stops in Lewisville, Carrollton and has 8 stops in Downtown Dallas. The city is also working on a new train line that will be apart of the DCTA system and will give us with a light rail system that will also connect us with the DART system in Dallas County and with the TRE, which connects Dallas with Fort Worth. The City also has its own bus line, which hopefully will become more popular as we try to reduce the amount of gas being used. It should be noted that the DCTA buses the new biofuel that is made in the City of Denton with the trash produced by the citizens along with the grease from our local favorite restaurants.

One thing that I thought was cool was that McNeil wants to add an additional "D" to "DFW." He said that if we continue on our current rate of growth, we will be the 3rd largest city in the Metroplex. We are no longer a bedroom community, as there are more companies that are opening for business in Denton and more people are living here and also working here too.

I think that it is a great time to be in the City of Denton because we are getting to watch this "small town" grow into a great city. The City Council should be applauded for their great planning with this transition. They are making great strides to make sure that we have the infastructure to be able to handle the influx of new people and new services that are being provided to the community.

For more info on the City of Denton, you can go to their website at www.cityofdenton.com and for the WFAA bustour, go to www.wfaa.com/bustour. Today they are in Lewisville and will be in Southlake tomorrow..

Record Breaking 7 OT's!!

This weekend, the Mean Green played Florida International at Fouts Field. It was our Homecoming and it was a great day. The weather was beautiful! The game started out great, we got a safety in first few minutes and a touchdown not soon after. We got another and FIU finally caught up. At the end of the game, it was 21-21. In the final minutes of the fame, FIU got to the endzone and initially, the ref's called a touchdown for FIU, but the guy went out at the 1 yard line. They reviewed the play, and the ref corrected his mistake. So we went into over time and I thought that it was kinda cool because I have never been to a game where we had to go into over time. I did not really know how it all played out, so it was interesting to see. After the 4th OT period, I was annoyed. They both kept kicking field goals and missing them. It was crazy. In the last OT period, FIU almost got it in, but thank the big guy upstairs, our kicker finally made it in winning the game and ending the never ending game (it lasted 4 and 1/2 hours!). Afterwards, I marched with the Talons over to the Clock Tower where we counted down the bathing of the clock tower in green light. We sang the Fight Song and the Alma Mater. It was a good time. I am glad that we won.. It would have been really sad if we would have lost our Homecoming Game.. You just don't do it..

Friday's Debate

Last Friday, Belo hosted a debate with all of the Gubernatorial candidates. It was moderated and led by anchors from Belo stations from Houston, DFW, San Antonio and Austin, and a reporter from the Dallas Morning News. It was a good debate. If you weren't really sure about which candidate, I feel that it pretty much solidified how you felt about your candidates. At least, that is what happened with me. I was wavering on either Bell or Strayhorn. I think that I am going to settle with Mr. Bell. I was really pleased with his performance.

If you watched it, you saw how Kinky pretty much avoided a lot of questions and seemed unprepared. One of the things that I remember from his rants was that he wanted to declare Martial Law in the counties that surround the border. That is just crazy, and although may help with the immigration problem, what will happen with the citizens of that area? I know that if I were living in that area and Martial Law was instituted, I would freak out. Those riles should only apply in a time of war with another country, and although this is kinda true, I think that it is a little too radical of a move.

I really enjoyed the period where they asked the candidates Jeopardy style questions like : When was the battle at the Alamo, How much is a semester of tuition at UT, How long do unemployment benefits last, etc. It was great to see the response. I did not like however how certain candidates took this 15 seconds to throw more rhetoric at us. That was not the purpose of that time and they wre just looking for the answer, nothing else.

I also enjoyed the direct questioning of Gov. Perry about TTC (Trans-Texas Corridor). I don't think that he has ever been asked directly about it and forced to answer. Sarah Lucero from San Antonio asked him why voters did not get to vote on it, and he said that we did. I don't buy that answer and it was probably hidden in some other parts of legislation. Strayhorn said that voters only voted on the discussion (or something like that) and that it was not for the corridor itself (I didn't understand what Strayhorn was talking about).

But like I said, it was good to see where the candidates stood and see how the reacted to questions from reporters and from voters. It is jsut too bad that there will not be any more debates so we can try to get a better feel for our candidates. I guess we will just have to rely on the print media to take care of that.

For more details on the candidates, please click on the month of September and read the blogs about each candidated and their stances on hot topics.. To watch the debate, click here