The Irascible Texan
Things that make me go, "What the f--k?"

Report on this evening's news: Some national organization has listed the nation's "11 Most Endangered Places," a list of historic sites that are about to get bulldozed over in the name of progress. No. 1 on the list: A hyper-affluent neighborhood in my fair city, in which homeowners have developed a nasty habit of knocking down $750,000 homes so they can build $1,750,000 homes. To which I say: So? I like really old houses as much as anybody. I owned one once. But I have to think the people in this organization could find 11 things more worthy of my attention than what rich people are doing with their own land.

Headline: "Arafat headquarters attacked." Question: If the Israelis hate this guy so much, why don't they stop shooting at his house and just shoot him?

We've made our position on luxury sport-utility vehicles pretty clear. That said, now it's getting stupid: the Next Big Thing in SUVs is being presented by ... Porsche. Does the world really need a Porsche SUV? Like I'm going to go 155 mph off-road with three kids and two weeks' worth of groceries and a dog and two bikes on top? Yeesh.

The Lakers played like absolute steaming crap tonight and still essentially won going away. Too bad for NBC. Looks like four and out.

Holy shit, I'm mad now. My Internet service provider, MSN, which only provides me with ONE e-mail address through my account -- "but you can set up as many Hotmail addresses as you want," they promised -- now is pulling this crap. An extra $19.95 a year for a basic e-mail function? Microsoft is hurting for money? I could see it, perhaps, if my Internet service provider was Two Guys and a Rack Server, and they needed to raise more money to buy another Xbox or something. And, yes, I'm cheap (see the top of the page for proof; I'm too cheap to "get rid of this ad" for a measly $12), but I'm not looking for a free ride; I'm already paying for MSN and its one puny e-mail address. Looks like we'll be seeing how long Netscape can hold out before it feels the need to start charging.

OK, I'm done now. Thanks for playing along.