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This player may just be taking the game a little too seriously.

A Chilean striker was shot by a player on the opposing team after he scored a last-minute winning goal.

The 90th minute goal gave amateur club Bandera de Chile victory over rivals La Gonzalina in a bitterly disputed match.

The referee had already had to suspend the game during the second-half after rival fans brawled on the pitch.

But he decided to restart play and Bandera’s top striker, El Rulo, scored just before the final whistle.

An opposition player immediately pulled a revolver out of his shorts and fired three times at the celebrating striker.

Talk about a tough game…

I’ve been keeping an eye on the new Aquatic and Recreation Center that the City of Keller has been building.  It’s visible from the path where I take the dog each afternoon.  It was funded through a half-cent sales tax, but will also have user fees for “guest passes” as they call them.  They’re selling yearly passes at a discounted rate right now, but I’m not sure if it’s worth it for me.  The regular price for an adult resident of Keller will be $305/year and they’re offering it for $275 right now.

I called the Parks and Recreation department to try to find out some additional information.  They still haven’t decided on everything, but they think the hours will be approximately 5:30am-10:00pm on weekdays with day passes ranging from $6.00 to $8.00.  Right now, I don’t see myself using it enough to justify the yearly package (it’d be $25.42/month at the regular price), given that I’ve been walking two miles a day with the dog.  I guess they’re aiming the yearly passes at people who would otherwise have joined a health club and are looking for one close to home.

Scientists are just now showing that there is merit in “sleeping on it” when it comes to problem solving.

From Coleridge’s epic Kubla Khan to Mendeleyev’s periodic table of elements, it’s long been believed that sleep can help fuel artistic creativity and scientific insight.

A recent experiment designed by German neurologists at the University of Lubeck now provides scientific proof for the phenomenon.

For their study, the researchers recruited 66 students to do a memory task. The students were taught two simple rules to help them convert a string of eight digits into a new order.

By following the two rules, the calculation took seven steps.

But there was a third way to solve the problem almost instantly, which the students weren’t taught.

The human guinea pigs were trained, then tested and after eight hours, retested. During the eight-hour period, half the group slept, while the other half were awake.

During retesting, sleep was found to have worked wonders. Sixty per cent of those who slept discovered the secret rule, compared to 22 per cent among those who stayed awake.

I suppose most of us had already arrived at this conclusion empirically, but science has to take a more methodical approach.

I decided that I would chance flying to the NRA Annual Meeting.  It’s faster and it’s less expensive overall.  I don’t know how the security will be, though, as that’s the big unknown.  I’ve heard a lot of conflicting things about the TSA.

In an effort to be better informed, I checked out the TSA’s website and came across the list of prohibited items.  They also include some items that are permitted, just for clarification.  I was slightly amused by the following item, though:

I guess someone got their butt chewed for not allowing the robot through the checkpoint, which led to this entry.  It’s a perfect example of the problem with government droid personality types.  They have to have every damn thing spelled out to them and freeze up when demanded to think for themselves.

Or perhaps they will come and build it is more appropriate.

IKEA, the world’s leading home furnishings retailer, today announced it plans to build a store in Frisco, TX as its first store and restaurant destination in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and its second store in the state. (IKEA Houston opened in 1992 and will move in August into a new building twice the size.) Pending city approval, construction of the proposed IKEA Frisco could start as early as Spring 2004, with an anticipated opening date of Summer 2005.

Bordered by the Dallas North Tollway on the west and Texas State Highway 121 on the south, the 25-acre site will include a 310,000 square foot IKEA store at-grade with 1,400 parking spaces. Located in the very successful ‘Frisco Bridges’ shopping district, this store will blend local design features with the unique architectural design for which IKEA stores are known worldwide.

I guess I’ll finally get to see what all the fuss is about.  I know my sister seems to like them, especially because they have some space saving designs (she bought two of these loft beds for the girls and put desks under them so they could take better advantage of the existing space in their room).

I’d heard of Myth Busters on Discovery before, but I hadn’t watched them until their “Explosive Decompression” episode.  Not only did they disprove the myth that a handgun could explosively decompress an airliner, they had a lot of fun doing it.  And after tonight’s episode I’m hooked.  They examined the “frozen chicken” myth by building a chicken cannon (!) and firing frozen and thawed chickens at aircraft windshields.

I got an email forwarded to me with the story of a driver who got caught up in a new law which I had never heard of.  SB 193 became law on September 1, 2003.  It requires drivers to either move over to the next lane or slow down to a speed that is 20MPH under the posted limit when an emergency vehicle is on the side of the road with lights activated.  On multilane roads I’d always moved over when possible just to avoid getting too close to the cop standing on the side of the road.  However, I can see this law causing some pileups when someone in a 70MPH zone slows down to 50 and gets rear-ended.

This made me curious as to what else the busy little beavers were up to in Austin when they weren’t throwing tantrums and running off to other states.  I found this page that lists all of the bills signed by the governor during the 78th legislative session (including all of the special sessions, which is why there are some duplicate bill numbers).  There were 1625 bills signed during the last session.  Let’s say that again: One thousand, six hundred and twenty five. 

How does a citizen have any hope of keeping up with all of these damn laws?  This seems to be the typical way that our legislature operates.  They pass a bunch of bills and we only find out about them when we get in trouble for violating the new laws.

I hereby propose a new amendment to the Texas constitution:

At the end of each legislative session a summary of all bills signed by the Governor as well as the full text of each will be distributed to each registered voter in the state by the Secretary of State.  No bill may become effective until at least 90 days after the Secretary of State has made notification as required by this provision.

As I mentioned earlier I’m considering going to the NRA’s Annual Meeting in Pittsburg, PA.  Of particular interest are the different laws governing carry of a firearm (specifically a handgun) along the way.  According to Mapquest, the most direct route will take me through Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio before reaching Pennsylvania.

• Arkansas has reciprocity with Texas, which is good.  But they have a couple of interesting restrictions:
  • A restaurant has to seat at least 50 people and derive 40% or less of its revenue from alcoholic beverage sales
  • You can’t carry in “the passenger terminal of any airport”, which might be interpreted to read you can’t carry even in the unsecured area.  Texas law is more clear on this point, banning carry in the secured area of the airport (although it’s possible that Arkansas law addresses the definition of the “passenger terminal” in a section I haven’t seen).
  • You can’t carry at a demonstration or parade (if a permit is required for the parade/demonstration).
  • Any licensee entering a private home shall notify the occupants that he is carrying a concealed handgun.
• Tennessee recognizes Texas CHLs but bans carry “on the grounds of any public park, playground, civic center or other building facility, area or property owned, used or operated by any municipal, county or state government, or instrumentality thereof, for recreational purposes.”  Bummer.  Texas has a preemption statute that bars cities from prohibiting carry on city property, including parks.
• Kentucky recognizes Texas CHLs and allows for carry without a permit in the glove compartment and even prohibits groups from denying the right to carry in the glove compartment.  “No person or organization, public or private, shall prohibit a person from keeping a firearm or ammunition, or both, or other deadly weapon in a glove compartment of a vehicle in accordance with the provisions of this subsection. Any attempt by a person or organization, public or private, to violate the provisions of this subsection may be the subject of an action for appropriate relief or for damages in a Circuit Court or District Court of competent jurisdiction.”  That would come in handy around here, where some private entities (*cough* Grapevine Mills *cough*) want to ban guns even in the parking lot.
• Ohio is a mess.  I’ll deal with it below.
• Pennsylvania doesn’t recognize Texas CHLs, but it has a fairly painless process to get a PA CCW license if you already have one from another state.  You fill out a form and send a copy of your drivers license, current carry license, and a check (which varies based on which county you apply through; $20.00 in Centre County).  PA is a shall-issue state so as long as your background is OK, they’ll issue a license within 45 days.  I particularly liked question 38 on the form: Are you an habitual drunkard?  Definitely not PC.

The situation in Ohio is pretty much hopeless, though, given my research.  While the law was just signed, it may take up to five months before the applications are even available.  Further, the state’s AG has to negotiate reciprocity with other states that have similar requirements.  So while Texas may be eligible for reciprocity with Ohio, it’ll probably be a long time before it’s done.  In the meantime, it appears that any firearms have to be unloaded and in a locked case or carried in the trunk (it appears it can also be carried in plain sight if unloaded, but that might invite too much attention).

But given what I’ve been reading of the law, the CCW law they just got has a huge stinking problem.  Specifically, you can’t carry on or about your person in a “motor vehicle”, even if you have a permit, unless the handgun is “in plain sight on the person’s person or it is securely encased by being stored in a closed, locked glove compartment or in a case that is in plain sight and that is locked.”  Why does this provision sound like it was added by some GFW police chief somewhere?  What’s the damn point of having a concealed handgun if you have to expose it everytime you get into a car (or worse, lock it up)?

I was toying with the idea of going to the NRA’s Annual Meeting in Pittsburg this year.  I found that a nonstop roundtrip ticket on American can be had for $236.70.  I was surprised to find it that cheap.  I was considering driving, but according to MapQuest it’s a 2506 mile roundtrip.  Considering that my Avalanche gets 17MPG on the highway, that’s 147.4 gallons of gas.  At an average cost of $1.60/gallon (I can get 89 octane for $1.49 or so here, but I expect it to be higher out east), that would be $235.00 in gas alone.  Flying would also get me there in about 3.5 hours versus 20 hours driving. 

Of course, the intangible benefits of the freedom of your own vehicle and seeing the country are harder to figure into a calculation.  There’s also the hassle factor of having to be scrutinized by the TSA.  You can’t put a price in time or money on dignity.  Further, I’d be more secure on my own (I wonder how long it takes to turnaround an out-of-state application for a carry permit in PA; there are a few sherrifs there that will issue them without a lot of hassle).

For the past three days I’ve noticed F-16s flying over the area on my daily dog walks.  It makes me wonder if this is part of some routine exercise or if it’s somehow related to air security.  We aren’t that far from DFW airport here, so I suppose it’s possible.