Author: jbenton

Those interested in achieving a higher state of Joshism may wish to tune into TXCN tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m., where I’ll be talking about my story in tomorrow’s paper.
What’s it about, you ask? Standardized testing. It’s springtime in Texas. All I ever write about in spring is standardized testing.
Warning: It’s an in-studio appearance (as opposed to my usual remote shots), so you’ll even get to see me from the shoulders down. Which means I really should do laundry tonight.
Warning: It’s at 7:30 a.m., significantly earlier than I am normally awake. So I may doze off mid-interview, or at least have significant bags under me peepers.

For those interested, football went well Saturday. Two touchdowns scored by yours truly. I am an offensive juggernaut, truly.
Of course, you can read that last sentence in two ways.
No game this weekend, but we’ll bring it back the following weekend.

My De La Post yesterday made me break out my older rap CDs. So here’s a 13-years-too-late recommendation for the oft-overlooked classic A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing by Black Sheep. (The followup was crap — there’s only one good Black Sheep album.) It’s got that laid-back Native Tongues feel (more Tribe than De La), but enough playful sexism to avoid the light-in-the-loafers tag some slapped on their musical peers. “Flavor of the Month”? “The Choice is Yours”? “To Whom It May Concern”? Stone cold classics, I say.
And — I never thought I’d say this about a rap record — some good skits, too.

I’ll be on TXCN this afternoon and evening — starting (probably) sometime in the 4:00 hour and repeating until the end of time. Or tomorrow morning, whichever comes first. I’ll be talking about my story from yesterday’s front page.
If you live in Texas and aren’t sure if you get TXCN from your cable operator, here are the various channels to check.

Props to my employer for devoting the better of a page in today’s paper to a fond tribute to De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising, released 15 years ago. (I’m already on record [track 15] as being a 1989-era Native Tongues fan.)
In solidarity with the DMN, today is De-La-in-the-CD-player day. Prince Paul needs a haircut, indeed.

Here’s my story from today’s front page, on Texas’ new school ratings system. (There’s more detail in some graphics that aren’t online — if you’re really interested, track down a paper version of the, er, paper.)

Watch Microsoft swear. Favorite self-criticism of one’s programming skillz: “The magnitude of this hack compares favorably with that of the national debt.”

Are you a Dallas-area male itching to play some football?
(Two-hand touch football, to be specific.)
My occasional Saturday morning football game is starting up again. Very informal — no structure. Just a pickup game between whomever shows up on any given Saturday, usually 8-12 people. And if you’re the kind of guy who was always the last one picked for teams when you were a kid — don’t worry. Most of us were that guy. (Well, some of us. Others were second-to-last.)
If you’re interested in more info (first game is this weekend), lemme know.

New London School Explosion, 1937. (As crass as it may seem, that’d be a good band name.)
This has been sort of a crass stretch on crabwalk.com, hasn’t it? Apologies.

Oh my. At first, I thought this was about some crime from South Africa’s apartheid past. Unfortunately, it’s not.