Author: jbenton

Peter Buck’s air rage trial has hit a snag, as the jury has been dismissed for reasons unknown. (Buck allegedly got drunk after 15 glasses of wine — well, who wouldn’t be? — and disrupted a British Airways flight in April.)
The only reason I’m linking this is because one of the four charges against him is “damaging British Airways crockery.” Is that a capital offense in the U.K.?

So I can’t read a calendar (see below). Is that a reason to vilify me? To attack my family, my good name, my heritage? To call me names like “silly nincompoop,” “cretinous ninny,” or “softheaded simpleton”? If you prick me, do I not bleed? I just (sniffle) don’t know (sob) if I can take (whimper) this abuse (howl) much longer.
Anyway. My photos are back from Japan. Horrible, every last one. All my attempts at “creative” shots for the paper are out of focus. I hope the photo desk can work some magic on them. (And if someone wants to buy me a scanner, perhaps you’ll see some of the horror yourselves in a very special episode of crabwalk.com.)
Still time to lay claim to some free CDs. I plan on bringing whatever’s unclaimed to the happy hour (whatever day it is), so get yer orders in now.
Advice columnist breaks up with husband: couple announces split in chat room. And it somehow all ends up with the happy, charming smugness of, well, a couple who shouldn’t be splitting up.

I fully expect all area bloggers to attend tonight’s tomorrow night’s dfwblogs happy hour at the Meridian Room. And I don’t want to hear that same old “I’m too busy fleeing from the Northern Alliance” excuse. (Okay, I’m a bit calendar-challenged today. Is it too late to claim a jetlag excuse?)

Got a flu shot today, for the first time ever. (I’ve always preferred leaving my health in fate’s hands.) Not so bad an experience. Although the list of the flu strains I’m being protected from (New Caledonia! Guangdong! Johannesburg! Panama!) reads like the itinerary of the world’s worst Grand Tour.

If I was Iraq — and thank heavens I’m not — I don’t think I’d pick now as the time to start launching mortars across the border into Kuwait. (A story that isn’t getting much attention today, thanks to that small matter of another plane crashing in New York.)
Let’s see: ever since 9/11, there’s been a huge debate in the administration over whether or not to make the War Against Terror a War Against Saddam and let Bush fils finish what Bush pere did not. For the moment, the Wolfowitz kill-Iraq wing seems to have lost the debate. If I’m Saddam, I’m on my best behavior right about now. But then again, I’m not a megalomaniacal dictator, so maybe I’m missing something. (Attention ex-girlfriends: it is neither the time nor place to comment on my megalomania.)
Plus, you’ve got to love any wire story with a sentence like this: “[UN spokesman] Bagga said Kuwaiti border police have also complained that 15 minutes before the mortar firing, two Iraqis ‘in khakis’ were spotted firing several rounds from a Kalashnikov in the direction of the Kuwaiti border.” Iraqis in khakis. Is Halloween already over? ‘Cause I’ve got a costume idea.

Death Cab for Cutie was quite good, I thought. Ben Gibbard, the lead singer, was much more, well, kinetic than I thought: on disc, he sounds like this fragile, sensitive soul who writes sad, gorgeous songs, but on stage, he’s a wild man, forever doing that shoulder-jerk dance geeky high school boys do when they’re rockin’ it on the dance floor. They didn’t play one of my favorites, the ultimate breakup song For What Reason, but they hit on just about all the other highlights of their back catalog. And the stuff from the new album sounded great live.
Plus, unlike certain bands I could mention, they took the responsibility of a Sunday night show seriously and were done by 12:30. They also dispensed with the most irritating rock and roll ritual, the lengthy wait for the encore. Twenty seconds of crowd yelping, and they were back out on stage to recreate the odd Bjork cover that comes on the bonus disc of the new CD. I like my bands user-friendly.
Leia and Matt, who came with, were quite tired after a long day of hamster declawing, and unfortunately they had to leave a bit early. Hope they liked ’em. If you missed the show, here’s a good downloadable Death Cab concert from April 2000. (Matt, I assume you’ve already found this page, but if you haven’t, go hog wild — lots of stuff you’d like. And here’s some more DCFC MP3s. Hey, that kinda rhymes.)

A group of us blogish types are going to see the illustrious Death Cab for Cutie tonight at the Gypsy Tea Room. Let me know if you’re interested in meeting up.

I was thinking about going to see my old local college team, the Ragin’ Cajuns of the University of Louisiana, take on UNT. Of course, I was still sound asleep this afternoon when they played, but in retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t go.
(UL used to be known as the University of Southwestern Louisiana [USL] before an unfortunate name change a couple years back to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. It’s unfortunate because no one knows what to call the school now. You can’t just call it “Louisiana” or “UL,” since there’s also a UL-Monroe. [Even though Monroe is a much weaker school than Lafayette.] “UL-Lafayette” is a mouthful; just try saying “ULL” five times fast. The best solution I’ve heard is “ULaLa,” pronounced “ooh-la-la.”)
And remember, free CDs available a few posts down. Four already taken — grab the rest before they’re all gone.

Wow, my body is more on Japan time than I thought. I couldn’t sleep until 6:30 a.m. this morning. (I spent the time doing some coding — geek! — and checking my server stats — ego-driven geek!) I thought after the very fine birthday party for Mark last night I’d be ready for bed. Or at least after he and I were forced to down birthday shots. But no — and as a result, I’m just waking up now. (I’m a slacker extraordinaire.)
In unrelated news, I had a story in the Religion section of the paper today. I didn’t even know it was running today until someone mentioned they liked it. I wrote that story back in August, but terrorist-related religious issues have been filling the section’s space since then, so my little piece on a religious TV show kept getting pushed back.

Just because you’re listening to Prince late at night doesn’t mean you should actually look at the lyric sheet. “Let’s look for the purple banana ’til they put us in the truck”? Huh?