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As always, a pleasure seeing everyone last night, as always, even if we were derailed at first by a TV crew trying to document the near-death experience of the Inwood Lounge. And any evening that starts with people handing me many CDs and ends with a medio white chocolate/creme caramel gelato can’t be all bad.
If you’re interested, the CD Mix of the Month club is still taking entries for January; get in touch with me asap if you still want in. And for those of you who got a copy of my mix last night, I’d really like to hear your thoughts — what you liked, what you didn’t. (Use the comments link.)

Irony of ironies: Remember my rant a couple of days ago about the obnoxious new denizen of the Dallas radio dial, 93.3 The Bone? Well, thanks to Google wisely deciding that this site deserves more regular checks than the station’s breast-and-babe-based site, anyone searching for “93.3 the bone” gets this site, not The Bone’s. Since it’s a new station, lots of people are searching for it: I’ve gotten almost 100 Bone-based search requests in the last couple of days.
As one of their cretinous DJs might say: no bones about it!

Quote of the day, from the (non-dallas) morning news: “Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel; the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience, his fear of life, his arid heart; and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent inhumanity, the mask of cruelty.” — James Baldwin.

Let’s say you’re organizing a Martin Luther King Day celebration. What kind of Freudian slip would it take to accidentally make a plaque that says, “Thank you James Earl Ray for keeping the dream alive“?

Dallasites, it’s survey time. A couple of us here at my employer were talking yesterday about how few young people actually read the newspaper. It’s a longstanding demographic trend — actually, it’s less of a problem at the DMN than at most other papers across the country, but it’s still a concern to those of us in the business. I also have to give a little talk to a bunch of reporters and editors here next month on appealing to younger readers (say, adults under 35).
So here’s my question: If you read the paper regularly, what do you like about it? If you don’t, why not? And what could be changed to make you want to read it?
(I know many people have traded in subscriptions for regular trips to the paper’s web site, which is understandable. But I’m primarily looking for things that would make you want to actually plop down your 50 cents or pay for a subscription.)

Dave Barry takes North Dakota (and the local press eagerly awaits).
Best thing about the visit: a city-wide potluck dinner. “People living north of DeMers Avenue should bring jello salad; those living south of DeMers should bring hotdish. Those living east of the Red River should bring bars.”

Keep an eye on this story. I have a feeling it’s going to blow up big in the next few weeks.
Today’s poll: Which Dairy Queen dish most reminds you of Dallas Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban? (An explanation.)

The revenge of Pete Maravich: it looks like my home state may be getting an NBA team again. Louisiana’s had a bit of a self-esteem problem since 1979, when the New Orleans Jazz up and moved to…Utah? The Utah Jazz, the most ludicrous moniker in all of sports?
Unfortunately, if the Hornets do move to Nawlins, we’d get stuck with George Shinn, who shows up in anybody’s top five of worst team owners (worst both in sports terms and as a human being). But at least we’d also get my favorite basketball player of all time, (the currently injured) George Lynch.

An engaging story in Sunday’s Washington Post about 12-year-old prodigy-turned-peace-activist Greg Smith. (He’s about to start work on a PhD.) A much more nuanced look at the trials and tumult of young genius than you often see, with Q&As with the writer and the kid himself.
The author remarks, with a bit of shame, that whenever she talked with Greg, she found herself searching for some flaw in his intellect, “for reasons I can only assume to be some primal survival instinct.” I know what she means; when I read his Q&A, I felt a shameful little burst of glee when I saw he misspelled “oppurtunity.”

Saw The Royal Tenenbaums last night with my friend Juliet — better than I’d expected. I only say better than expected because the reviews had been fairly lukewarm (as opposed to lukewilson). Wes Anderson is quite a stylist, although I can see why critics dinged him for keeping too much emotional distance between the characters and the audience. (That said, that was somewhat the point.) And, alas, the talents (and facial hair) of Bill Murray were essentially wasted, and Gene Hackman’s emotional turnaround stretched the film’s credibility. But still very fun. And the movie may have singlehandedly saved Futura from the ashbin of typographic history.
A question for female movie fans (or gay male movie fans, for that matter): who’s more crushworthy, Luke Wilson or his brother/co-star Owen Wilson? Luke’s certainly better looking objectively, but Owen’s got that sneaky smart thing going on. Plus, he co-writes all of Wes Anderson’s movies (Rushmore, Bottle Rocket), and we all know how sexy writers are. (I ask because Juliet expressed her pro-Owen feelings last night. Repeatedly.)
Put the finishing touches on the new CD Mix of the Month last night. It’s a good one, I think — a little more eclectic than the last one. Get in touch with me ASAP if you want in; the first trades will take place at tomorrow night’s DFWblogs happy hour.
Dallasites: today’s the last day for early voting in Saturday’s mayor’s race. The buzz I hear is that the race is going to be a lot closer than what some people think. (Of course, you’ll have to read the DMN for all the details. But you already knew that.)