"Natural Selection Speed Date II: Sugar Mamas & Boy Toys."

It's a speed-dating event bringing together 20 "sugar mamas" and 20 "boy toys"

The Sugar Mamas must be over 35, earn at least $500,000 a year or have a minimum of $4 million in liquid assets, entrusted assets or divorce settlement.

The Boy Toys must have, well, you know.

5,000 guys applied.

No, I'm not making this up -- here is the official website.

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

You left the lights on!

The Marfa Lights are one of the few unexplainable phenomenon that I have actually seen. You have to look due south, not at that shaded balloon on the map.

I knew a fellow whose family owned a ranch a little farther west than Marfa -- everything between US90 and the Rio Grande. I asked him if the land was valuable, he said "only if we had invented Pet Rocks."

Ranches in West Texas are measured by 'sections' rather than acres -- a section is one square mile or 640 acres.

Besides the Lights, Marfa's other claim to fame is that the movie Giant was filmed nearby -- you can still see the framework for the front of Benedict ranch house -- on the opposite side of US90 from the Marfa Lights observation area. Liz Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean stayed at a hotel in Marfa during the filming.

Now, this part gets tricky: James Dean's character in the movie, Jett Rink, was based in part of Texas oil tycoon Glenn Herbert McCarthy who built the Shamrock Hotel in Houston. The fictional Emperador Hotel in the movie is based on the Shamrock Hotel. The play and movie "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean" -- which revived Cher's career -- takes place in the fictional Texas town of McCarthy . You didn't think I was going to be able to tie this all together did you!

ps. Brewster County (see map), population about 9,000, is larger in size than three states: Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island -- and larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined.

The End Is Coming, Part 276

When Rooty and I went to lunch, it was 61 and very windy.

When we got home, it was 31 and snowing, horizontally.

It's time for this nuttiness again.

Sometimes Texas is just in the way

In the original scheme, Interstate 10, 20, 30, 40, 70, 80, and 90, were intended to be the major west to east Interstate Highways. Of those seven, four (10, 20, 30, 40) cross parts of Texas. Of those four, two end in Texas -- 20 and 30. Two other of the main-route seven (70 and 80) cross parts of the former Republic of Texas.

Also in the original scheme, routes ending in "5" were the major south to north routes, such as 35 and 55. Of those routes, one (45) is entirely in Texas (Dallas to Galveston).

The Texas Highway Department designed the Interstate Highway shield and the Interstate system uses the Texas system of "Loops" (635) and "Spurs" (370).

Enough aleady

There used to b a few traffic cameras in th St. Louis area, you could easily click on the one you wanted on their home page -- Gateway Guide.

It has always been annoying, I think, that the GatewayGuide homepage does not show the Illinois traffic cameras. You have click on a link near the bottom of the page.

As MODOT has added cameras, GatewayGuide has added icons. There is no MouseOver info, you just have to guess. The first image below shows just the MODOT camera icons, what you see on the GatewayGuide homepage. The second image shows what you actually see when you go to the homepage: the icons for cameras, incidents, emergency closures, scheduled closures, and special events. The third image shows the IDOT cameras.

The stupidest person 2007

I didn't get a chance to tell you about this.

The week before Christmas, Rooty and I were headed east on Hwy 100 in Franklin County in Missouri (Bet you could see that last part coming!).

The highway is two lanes where we were at, with left-turn lanes at the traffic signals. We had just gone through a green light when I saw a fire engine with lights and sirens in my rear view mirror. I pulled over onto the paved shoulder, as did the car behind me, and the car behind that car. There were cars in the left-turn lane, cars waiting to turn south away from the westbound lane. So, the firetruck had a clear lane between we three cars on the shoulder and the cars in the left-turn lane. Then...

Then a car turned from the side street right in front of the fire ruck. Wait, it gets worse...

When that car ("the Idiot") got even with the car behind me, it stopped, dead, completely blocking the lane the rest of us had cleared for th firetruck. The firetruck honked its horn, producing a sound that neither "honk" nor "horn" adequately describes.

With the firetruck on its bumper producing that incredible sound, the car just sat there.

So I hit the gas and drove on the shoulder until I reached the next intersection. The guy behind me followed me on the shoulder. The third car on our shoulder backed up. The firetruck drove out on the shoulder and around that idiot in the eastbound lane. Wait, it gets worse...

After it got around the Idiot, the firetruck swerved back into the through traffic lane -- with the car that had blocked its path right behind it. That idiot then tailgated the firetruck right past the car behind me, and me. The highway widens to four lanes on the other side of the next intersection. The firetruck turned left onto another highway. But, and this is my favorite part, the car that was behind me got within inches of the rear bumper of the Idiot, and stay there. When last I saw them, they were turning in tandem into a Wal*Mart parking lot.

I like to imagine what words were said.

I'm stupid even in my dreams.

Last night I dreamed that someone stole my car. In my dream, I drove around and drove around but I never did find it.

We now know the speed of stupid

(AP) A man who hid hunting knives in his pants to try to steal them from a western Michigan store tripped while fleeing and stabbed himself in the abdomen, police say.

Full Story, from the AP

We still way too much time at, you know

Why is it called a "drive-thru" window? It's not a big hole that a car would fit through. You drive up to it. Food comes through it. Then you drive past it. At no time is there a vehicle in actual motion through the wall of the quick service establishment.