Are you ready for some football?

I’ve never seriously followed College Football in the past (U of M has always sucked, plus it’s hard to keep track of college players when the entire roster turns over every 3 to 4 years). However, if I’ve learned anything from Friday Night Lights, it’s that football is king in this here state, and I need to choose a team to hitch my wagon to, if only for sake of conversation around the water cooler. Therefore, I engaged in some in-depth research (read: skimmed some Wikipedia pages) to cull some important facts about potential college teams (my high school team, of course, is the Dillon Panthers; oops, I mean, the East Dillon Giraffes). Here are the candidates; any input from the masses would be greatly appreciated.

University of Texas at Austin: Pros: Players have great football names (e.g. Colt McCoy, Major Applewhite); alma mater of NFL headcases Ricky Williams and Vince Young. Cons: People look dumb when doing that “Hook ‘Em Horns” gesture; essentially the Yankees of Texas college football (oldest program (1893), winningest record (.718)); Matthew McConaughey is a huge fan.

Baylor: Pros: Nickname is the “Baylor Bears,” and I love alliteration; alumni include Mike Singletary, tough-guy player and pants-dropping coach; stadium is within driving distance (Waco). Cons: Has finished 10^th or worse in Big 12 since the conference was formed in 1996.

Texas A&M: Pros: Winners of the historic 1999 Galleryfuniture.com Bowl; Smash Williams was a walk-on. Cons: Not sure what an “Aggie” is; annual fan bonfire killed 12 students in 1999, and team hasn’t had a ranked season since; Smash Williams is (sadly) a fictional character.

Texas Tech: Pros: Holds NCAA record for most punts in a game (39!); once coached by someone named Spike Dykes; 3^rd-highest graduation rate for Division I football players; improving program ranked as high as #2 last season after years of mediocracy. Cons: Lubbock is the armpit of Texas.

Houston: Pros: Broke color barrier for Texas college football (1964); pioneers of the “run & shoot” offense (the brand of offense favored by Texans when startled in the middle of the night) Cons: Houston is sprawlier, smellier, and uglier than Dallas; 8-game bowl losing streak only recently snapped by a win in the 2008 “Armed Forces Bowl.”

Rice: Pros: Really good at having 7-6 and 6-7 seasons (so little risk of outright disappointment); small school compared to others on list (3,051 undergrads). Cons: From Wikipedia: “[The Rice Football] program has been historically mediocre”; see above for related Houston-bashing.

SMU (Southern Methodist University): Pros: “Hometown” team, as it’s the only Division I school in Dallas proper; zealous boosters (see below). Cons: From Wikipedia: “In 1987, SMU football became the first, and currently only, program in collegiate athletic history to receive the NCAA's "Death Penalty", that is, having a sports program terminated for a determined amount of time.” This “death penalty” was due to $61k in booster payments to recruits. Needless to say, quality of play has suffered since (only one winning season in 21 years, 1-11 last year).

TCU (Texas Christian University): Pros: Nickname is the “Horned Frogs”; alma mater of LaDainian Tomlinson. Cons: Plays in non-major division (Mountain West); the only guy I’ve met that went there was a douchebag.

North Texas: Pros: Nickname is “The Mean Green”; Denton has a good music scene. Cons: Really, really bad lately (3-21 in last two years).

UTEP (University of Texas at El Paso): Pros: Umm…“Paydirt Pete” is a good mascot for a team nicknamed the “Miners”? I’m reaching here. Cons: Couldn’t figure out what “UTEP” stood for until I looked it up; El Paso is about as far away as you can get from Dallas and still be in Texas (635 miles/9 hours).

P.S. Tough luck for the Vikings being unable to get Brett "The Wrangler" Favre for this seaon; looks like it will be a spirited QB controversy in training camp between “Ragin’” Sage Rosenfels, Tarvaris “Noodle-Arm” Jackson, and J.D. “J.D.” Booty.

So very hot...

It’s been hot here. So very hot. I survived the past six summers without conditioned air, but wow, you definitely need it here. It’s not the daytime temps that force my hand, either, though it’s regularly hit triple-digits the past two weeks; it’s that it never gets cool enough at night to open windows and cool off. The other night it was still 92 degrees at midnight! I’m kind of petrified to see my electricity bill for this month.

Oh yeah, and another thing: my electric company has been adding $7 surcharges on my last few bills because I haven’t been using enough electricity! Only in Texas. If this month, even after my copious air conditioning use, I still don’t meet their threshold, I’m going to call up and ask for tips on how to use more electricity. Running an empty dryer? 24-hour TV viewing? All-halogen light fixtures?

I’ll say one thing about this state: great bumper stickers on pickups. Some of my favorites: “Keep Houston Ugly”; “Keep Honking, I’m Reloading” paired with an NRA logo; and “Don’t Tread on Me” paired with “Right-Wing Extremist.”

Since I’m taking a scatter-shot approach to posting today, I want to highlight how crappy the public transportation is here. The “DART” is not only the only bus and rail system I’ve been on that posts, in addition to “no eating” and “no loud music,” signs stating “no gambling or games of chance.” Sadly, these signs have failed to dissuade DART patrons from playing both dice and dominos for cash on recent trips (though, sadly, no three-card-monte).

DART officials are constantly whining in the news about declining revenue, yet after dozens of trips I’ve yet to see anyone checking tickets on the light-rail. Instead, they seem content to refill their coffers by ticketing anyone and everyone who jaywalks across the downtown tracks, even with no trains visible for six blocks either way.

I once made the mistake of crossing against the red, and halfway across noticed two DART workers on the other side of the street pointing at me and beginning to reach for their ticket pad. Thinking quickly, I craned my neck, put on my best “where is that gosh-darn train I’m waiting for” face, and, shaking my head, turned and walked back to the sidewalk. It was Oscar-worthy, and saved me $80.

At least there are two more light-rail lines in the works by 2010, barring an all-too-possible financial collapse. It would be awesome to get to the parking-scarce Deep Ellum and Fair Park areas by train. Still, these new lines won’t solve the problem of not being able to get from the world’s sixth-busiest airport to downtown Dallas in under ninety minutes (shuttle-to-shuttle-to-train-to-light-rail. Stupid Irving NIMBYs.).

My Beef with Dallas Food

Maybe I’d been spoiled by Portland’s awesome selection of restaurants and grocery stores (you may have heard about it in one of the NY Times’ 10,000 recent articles on the subject), but I’ve so far been pretty disappointed with Dallas’s food scene. Some examples:

Soft Drinks. Yep, it’s true: I no longer live in “pop” territory. People really do call everything “coke” down here. And the ironic thing is, the most popular drink by far is Dr. goddamn Pepper. Seriously, it’s the only pop I see anyone buying or drinking, especially at restaurants. I’ve heard people attribute its Texas popularity to its roots in Waco, as well as the specific, “Texas-only” variation that uses sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. Whatever, alls I know is that it’s still the only pop that gives me heartburn when I drink it.

Also: It’s not a soft drink, but nearly every restaurant offers “sweet tea,” sometimes gratis. Since I unequivocally hate all iced teas, this doesn’t do much for me, but lots of people seem to like it. I’m told the Chick-fil-A variety is particularly choice.

Grocery Stores. Obviously, no grocery stores can touch the combined awesomeness of Portland’s Fred Meyer (my one-stop for all my grocery, beer, and jewelry needs), Grocery Outlet (cleanest, best stocked “closeout” grocery store ever) and Food Fight (vegan nachos!). I could walk to all of these and a farmers market, and besides the occasional bike to Trader Joe's, I was pretty spoiled with my selections.

So it really grinds my gears that Dallas has only one grocery store within 3 miles of my downtown apartment, and that store, Urban Market, is basically a few rows of freezer, a dozen fruits and veggies, and a beer and wine section (and all of the above are marked up about 30%). The next-closest to downtown is a Walmart “Neighborhood Market,” which is essentially just the grocery section of a Super Walmart with a green and brown exterior designed to make you forget you’re at Walmart.

You have to go two more exits up US-75 before you get to the usual suspects: Kroger, Albertsons, Tom Thumb, and a local Whole Foods-esque store called Central Market.

The silver lining, though, is that I’m but a 10-minute walk from an awesomely huge (and everyday, year-round!) Farmers Market. Seriously, this thing is big. I’ve already been burned by some crappy tomatoes, and by at least two stands that looked independent but weren’t, but there have definitely been more hits than misses. I’m this close to being one of those guys who brings a pocket notebook to keep score.

Food Carts. Portland, San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, New York. All of these cities, and many more, have a huge food cart presence, which is great for both quick, cheap lunches and late-night drunk food (I miss you, Fat Kitty Falafel and Potato Champion!). You might even run into someone mildly famous.

So naturally you’d expect Dallas, a city of 1.3 million, to have streets lined with carts. But how many have I seen in four months here? One, and it’s a fucking hot dog cart. And it’s not like there’s not a market for it; at lunchtime there’s lines out the door everywhere, even at the sit-down Quizno’s. What the fuck. Which brings me to…

Restaurants. With all the bally-ho over the supposedly great Tex-Mex food in Dallas, as well as the fact that people here eat out all the time, I’ve been let down by my experiences so far. And not just because lard and/or chicken broth is in everything here, so when I forget to ask my digestive system goes apeshit. Everything’s overpriced, over-salted, ultra greasy, and covered in cheese and bacon whenever possible. I now understand why I’ve been having a hard time finding size S shirts when clothing shopping.

Possibly inflammatory sidenote: Besides the tourists at the JFK assassination site, you almost never see Asians in Dallas. Consequently/Coincidently (whichever makes me seem less racist), there’s only a handful of Asian restaurants here (unless you count P.F. Chang’s), and they aren’t all that great. I am dying for a Thai dish that doesn’t taste like it has a quart of maple syrup in it. Seriously, it’s that bad.

Bonus sidenote: There has been one exception to this restaurant disappointment: Pasand Indian Cuisine in Irving. Their lunch buffet is outstanding, though it’s probably not healthy to eat that much Naan.

Notes from the Underground

I’ve never lived and/or worked in downtown Minneapolis, but I nonetheless have always loved its skyway system, even as a kid. It’s great being able to get from point A to point B without having to go outside more than you have to in subzero weather, and I suspect this goes double if you’re a business-y person in business-y attire and can’t get slush on your business-y pant legs. Also, it at least always seemed to me that there’s a pretty decent mixture of food courts, little shops, and other aesthetic touches that make it seem like a system.

Toronto has an underground tunnel system that's similar, only it’s underground. If anything, it’s even better because, in addition to the dozens of Tim Hortons, there are entire multi-story malls underneath the downtown. The drawback to being underground is the lack of above-ground structures to give you some kind of orientation, but I remember a pretty good map system that incorporated an overlay of the streets above.

So, when I moved to, and began working in, downtown Dallas, I was excited to find out there was a tunnel system under downtown that people used to keep cool in the 100-degree, 90-percent-humidity summers (already 90- and 90- today, yuck!). Yet it turns out that I’d romanticized the whole thing. Don’t get me wrong, the tunnels (eventually) served their purpose; I figured out how to get from my apartment to work (0.8 miles) with only about 50 feet of outside-ness. It’s just that the tunnels are completely unappealing.

It’s not bad enough that about 75% of the tunnels recall the unmarked beige doors in the back catacombs of a shopping mall, or the grey unpainted stucco of a bomb shelter. And I can handle the fact that there is little-to-no signage as to where you are and where to head (trial and error has so far led to dead ends at locked doors, hotel lobbies, and at least broken escalator with a scary-looking hole). I just can’t believe that, for all the room for tunnel storefronts, developed and undeveloped, the only businesses seem to be a sad-looking gym, a sadder-looking, over-priced convenience store, two Starbucks (“the crappy one” and “the good one”), and about two dozen Quiznos.

Besides the afternoon I used to first explore them, I’ve used the tunnels four times to get to work on rainy days. It is the fucking worst way to start a work day. It’s smelly, everything’s gray, weird side tunnels that I notice and want to check out, but never lead to anything cool. I will probably start walking outside even during rainy days.

And the thing is, there’s tons of space there for something really cool. A mini-golf course, maybe, or a bowling alley. Maybe a bar or something. At least put some color down there, so I don’t feel like I’m walking through the world’s largest parking garage.

This has nothing to do with swine flu.

Sorry for the lag between posts; between Trailblazer playoff games, multiple trips to the vet, a date (!?!), and other miscellaneous excuses, I haven’t been able to get in the groove with this thing. I’m sure the advent of triple-digit temps will change this pretty quickly (I actually turned on my A/C last weekend, when even alcohol couldn’t get me to fall asleep in 98% humidity).

One thing’s for sure: it’s not lack of topics that’s keeping me from posting. Dallas-Ft. Worth (or “DFW,” which makes at least a little more sense than the Portland nickname “PDX”) is chock-full of weird social mores and strange quirks.

An example: I’m perfectly fine with the holding of doors for females, either following or coming the opposite way. I’ve even been known to open a car door or two in my time (though my motives there sometimes go beyond chivalry). But one custom I immediately noticed (and have since confirmed) is that of letting women on and off of elevators first. And it’s not just “tie goes to the vagina”; this applies even if they’re standing behind you! This results in scenarios where it’s me and a female coworker both getting off of a crowded elevator at the same time, but I first need to squeeze even further to the side to let her off. Ignorance of this rule can result in anything from polite throat-clearing to a terse “exCUSE you!” I wish I were joking. In my opinion, this custom should only be observed if accompanied by an operator tipping his cap and saying “ma’am.”

Another thing: Panhandlers are much more aggressive here than pretty much anywhere else I’ve been. Not “aggressive” in the sense of persistence; I’ve had a Portland street person follow me for over a dozen blocks asking for money or cigs. And not “aggressive” in the sense of violent; that honor goes to San Francisco street people, many of whom have a strange violent energy lurking just below the surface (I’ve witnessed multiple grapples and even a roundhouse kick applied by S.F. homeless on civilians, and that excludes the many, many bus stop bumfights). No, I mean “aggressive” as in being forward to the point of not asking for money (e.g. “spare change?”), but demanding money (e.g. “give me five dollars/lunch money/your bus ticket”).

Last week, I was on a run through a neighborhood just north of downtown. Since I still don’t know the street layout very well, I kept running into deadends when trying to get to the other side of the 366 freeway. During one of these attempts, I tried cutting through an obviously low-income apartment complex (Sidenote: I’m pretty sure the name of the complex was “Mexican Apartments”). I went about 300 feet back into the property before I saw that I couldn’t get around the chainlink to go under the highway.

As I turned around to go back, a raggedy, possibly homeless guy started walking toward me and said something to me. Being too naïve and trusting for my own good, I took out my iPod headphones. The conversation went something like this:

Guy: “Give me a dollar.”

Me: “I’m on a run, man. Don’t have my wallet, sorry.”

Guy: “Okay, can I have your iPod?”

Me: (Laughs, believing a demand this forward is obviously a joke.)

Guy: “No, seriously.”

Me: (Again, not the most street-smart person) “Sorry, I like it too much.” (Jogs off).

-Scene-

Believe it or don’t, it took me about five minutes to realize that the incident may have actually crossed the line from panhandling into attempted robbery, especially considering it took place in a fenced-in deadend of a poor apartment complex at dusk. Or maybe dude was just having a laugh, and I’m blowing it out of proportion.

Next time: As promised, something about the tunnels. And maybe a rant about how there are only two used record stores in a city of 1.3 million, and one of them really sucks.

These are the brakes!

At the risk of turning this blog into a rant-fest, I just wanted to share a recent crazy experience I had with a local brake repair shop.

A little background: My trusty Toyota Corolla had run like a top since I bought it in 2002, needing only oil changes and the occasional alignment. Part of the reason is that I don’t really drive that much; I’ve averaged about 4,000 miles each of the last four years, and that includes several out-of-state road trips. However, in the last 12 months, I passed 90,000 miles, and repairs have been catching up with me. Last summer the starter went out. Then the steering wheel started shaking at high speeds, a quirk that a realignment and tire rotation helped but never cured. In January, a big one: my power steering system failed, including the pump and rotary valve, and during the harrowing drive to the nearest shop my car overheated. Still paying off the good people at American Express for that one. At the time, my car was inspected and I was told everything looked good except for “some brake wear” that might need to be addressed “down the road.”

Upon arriving in Dallas (towing the car on a trailer, not driving), I noticed a metallic squealing whenever I braked. Drawing upon my vast knowledge of auto maintenance, I quickly realized I needed new brake-thingies.

One of the worst parts about moving to a new place is that you need to find all new “guys” for things: car guy, hair guy/gal, weed guy, etc. Instead, I picked a shop that sounded like what I needed: “Just Brakes.” They even advertised a $99.88 special on brake shoes and pads. I scheduled an 8:30 am appointment so I could get it in first thing Saturday and not spend all day in the waiting room.

My first warning sign should have been when I arrived just after their opening, with an appointment, and was told they were already running a couple hours behind. They told me they’d call me around 11, so I took the bus back home instead of waiting there.

At 2:30, I got a call telling me that my brake system had a number of things wrong with it. The guy sounded like he was reading from a script, and while some repairs at least sounded legit (“worn pads,” “bent calipers”), others sounded dubious at best (“dirt and grime”, “corrosion on metal works”). The damage was going to be $650, and the best I could talk him down to was $350. Alas, “company policy” prevented him from just performing the work covered under the special. I called his bluff, and told him to put the car back together and write down the litany of problems so I could get a second opinion.

When I got back to the shop an hour later, my right front tire was completely flat. When I asked the mechanic “what the hell happened?,” he told me that it was fine when they put it on and that “slow leaks happen” and that there was no reason for me to “cuss him out.” It took the “let me see a manager routine” for him to fill up my tire with air.

A week later, my tire was still fine. I have no clue whether the tire was flat due to retribution or incompetence, but I’m sure as hell glad I didn’t let them work on my car. I ended up getting work done for $200 at a more reputable shop after asking around. And, as it turns out, the internet is full of similar anecdotes to mine, with customers either paying upwards of $900 for unnecessary or incompetent brake jobs, or having their cars sabotaged via superglued lugnuts, brake pads installed backwards, cars held overnight, and the like.

Today’s takeaway lesson: don’t trust anyone.

Mo Money, Mo Problems

I'm sitting here at, from what I can tell, the only non-Starbucks coffeeshop in downtown Dallas. It’s no Stumptown or anything, but at least they have free wifi and are playing not-good-but-not-crappy-music.

You could probably consider this splurging, the way I’ve been living over the past month. It’s kind of been the perfect storm of expenses since I made my move, despite the fact that I’m making more than I ever have before. The Chase credit card I used to float my moving expenses decided to double my APR due to the “volatile credit markets” (as a U.S. citizen, don’t I own part of Chase now?). All but one of the jobs I worked at last year elected to label me an “independent contractor” rather than an employee, meaning that I owe Uncle Sam an extra $1,000 next week (and had I moved in December, I could have written off my moving expenses). My car insurance literally doubled because I’m living in Texas, even after raising my deductibles (Justification: Texas has the highest percentage of uninsured drivers). The return of state sales tax is an 8.5% pain in my ass. And I no longer qualify for the “economic hardship” scaled student loan payments. I could go on, but hey, we all have problems.

Since the problems of Wall Street are trickling down to Main Street (and especially since I now live on Main Street) I’ve had to limit my exploration of what Dallas has to offer for the thrifty gentleman. No Mesquite Rodeo, no Leonard Cohen, Morrissey, or Flight of the Conchords shows, no Texas Rangers home openers. And by the time I can afford such things, I’ll be at the mercy of Summer and her 100-degree temperatures (it was already 89 on Thursday!), and won’t want to do anything anyway.

This has resulted in me being even more of a homebody than usual, especially during weeknights. Lots of reading (almost done with my inventory of David Foster Wallace), Wii (Okami is the longest single-player game I’ve played: 45 hours and counting), and Netflix (Let the Right One In: Hot. Synecdoche, New York: Not).

At least my hermit existence has led to one worthwhile pursuit.

(By the way, I hadn't realized who drastically David Foster Wallace, and Infinite Jest in particular, has changed my writing style. I now want to add footnotes asides to everything I write, and even footnotes on those footnotes. An eloquent tribute to Wallace and his footnotes can be found here.)

Preface

Hello, Blogosphere! Or, should I say, “Howdy!” Okay, no one has actually used that phrase to me yet, other than at the western apparel where I stopped to ask directions my first weekend in town.

Yes, I’ve moved to Dallas, with little warning: I’d applied for the job last July, interviewed in October, and just got the job offer in mid-January. HR even admitted on the phone that the acceptance papers had “been sitting on out desk for a few weeks, with the holidays and all.” “By the way,” they added, “can you start on February 2^nd?”

All that aside, it was too good of a job to turn down, especially considering the lame quality of the part-time jobs I had been stringing together. It was tough leaving Portland for Dallas (quite literally, too: stay tuned for an entry on my Uhaul misadventures!), but getting any full-time job in environmental law is damn near impossible right now, much less one with this kind of potential for advancement/relocation down the road.

(Sidenote: employees at my job technically aren’t supposed to post things electronically about the specific goings-on in the position, so just to be on the safe side I plan to be vague about what I'm working on. I'll still drop the occasional anecdote, but just so you know. If you don't know where I'm working, please email or call me and I’ll give you the skinny).

Matt Ryan has inspired me to start a blog chronicling my adjustment to, and misadventures in, the Dallas-Forth Worth "metroplex." I really don’t know how interesting it will be, but I’ll try to post at least a couple times a week. I might also go on unrelated tangents from time to time if something is really grinding my gears.

Today’s topic: Dallas TV stations.

Since I’ve survived without cable for the past few years (and since my first months' paychecks have been pretty much exclusively going towards rent and moving expenses), I’ve been using my federally-subsidized digital cable box to pick up local channels. And man, do I get a lot of them. There’s dozens of Jesus-channels, Spanish-channels, and at least three Spanish-language Jesus-channels (including a music-video-only channel). There’s not only PBS, but specialty PBS’s showing nothing but cooking shows, nature shows, travel shows, and kids shows. There’s a station that shows nothing but the 2006 Winter Olympics.

My favorite is channel 68, which doesn’t appear show anything past about 1977. So far I’ve watched the original Mission: Impossible, The Twilight Zone, Hogan’s Heroes, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Local TV, and its commercials, are also a great way to get a real sense of “local flavor.” There are Buddy Garrity-types selling cars, and other commercials with down-home flavor. There's also a great commercial with a fake Obama "bailing out" customers with a great deal at the local Hyundai dealer. It's also comforting to know that, whereever I move, there is always a mattress dealer that, if they can't beat a competitor's price on a mattress model "then the mattress is FREEEEEEEEEE!!!" If you stop and think about it, this is the dumbest guarentee ever.

Also, you know how in the “northern states,” it seems like “Friends” and “Scrubs” reruns are on all the time? Replace those with “George Lopez” and “King of the Hill.” Seriously.

So, while Dallas free TV is great when you just want something on the background, I'm just glad that my internet is now hooked up so I can catch up with “The Office,” “30 Rock,” “24,” and “BSG.”

(Sidenote: Time Warner Cable are assholes. I may have to do a separate post on this.)

(Also: I really need a better term than “northern states” to describe everywhere else where I have lived. Who lived in the north, Mason or Dixon?)