The only time I laughed during the clash of the Longhorns and Red Raiders was at a shirt in the stands. It read “Tuck Fexas.” Now that spark of creativity is a natural for Panhandle folks, who claim Buddy Holly and the Flatlanders as their own. Of course, who wouldn’t be creative when the goal is to get the hell out of the flat, blustery nowhere as quick as you can? Out-of-town Texas Tech frosh are quickly clued in to the need for Chapstick and the cruel, cruel trick of keeping all of the booze stores outside the city limits. Talk about a dry town.

But that’s not what I’m writing about here. I’m interested in the new instant replay rule, which reared its ugly, dust-blown head one too many times during the game. Count 'em. Six disputed calls reconsidered. Five of them stood. The other, a touchdown run by Texas QB Colt McCoy, was inconsequential as the Horns punched it right in for a score.

Sigmund Freud, when he wasn’t talking about your attraction to your mother, called our fixation with technology the “prosthetic god,” and opined that what we think will make our lives simpler, actually mucks up the works. So it is with instant replay. Perhaps the money would be better spent training refs to make the right call the first time. Oh, wait, they did five times out of six and the sixth didn’t matter.

Plus the human element has not been removed. The disputes now are about when to call for a review or fouls missed entirely. It’s a game after all. Why should we figure machines are going the make the results clear? Next thing you know we’ll make all of our voting machines electronic. Oops. Forget I said that.

I’m interested in what you, dear readers, think on the subject. Fire away.

All you eye-glazed city staffers take note (we're looking at you, Brewster): quit hitting your refresh button and get some fresh air. Specifically, if you head over to Sixth and Lamar, you'll enter the land of Oz. Affordable housing advocates and Prop 5 proponents HousingWorks Action will be there from from 11:30am to 1pm and again from 4:30pm to 6pm in Wizard of Oz garb, letting prospective voters and befuddled drive-timers know "there's no place like home." Where else could you hope to see Mark Yznaga in pigtails and ruby slippers?

Regarding last week's edict from the Travis County Libertarian Party advising against all seven bond propositions, 7 Steps For a Better Austin spokesperson Mark Nathan had something to say. As reported in this morning's edition of In Fact Daily, Nathan opined "Extreme fiscal conservatism is one thing, but it's hard not to recoil in horror when someone suggests that flea markets and taco stands should suffice to serve as Hispanic cultural centers in Austin. That's just plain offensive." Not that that's what Wes Benedict necessarily said, however.

Read the offending passage after the jump...

Rick Perry's campaign has trotted out an unfunny anti-French radio ad attacking Chris Bell's voting record in Congress. OK, some of the audio is cute, like the "Mr. Way Too Liberal for Texas Guy" theme song, borrowed from a Bud Light commercial. But then comes the tired and predictable: "You voted to let the United Nations oversee elections in America, because no one stands up for Democracy like the French! So wear your fancy beret with pride, Congressman Bell. Liberals everywhere salute you." Oh, please. Is this the same Rick Perry who said, "words matter," when he tsk-tsked Kinky Friedman's ethnic jokes? If Perry is so bent on using stereotypes to attack Bell, seems like a Mexican sombrero would be more 2006-ish because, as the radio ad points out, Bell is soft as brie (our words) on immigration.

One man's worst World Series ever is easily among another man's Top 10 nights of his life.

I'll let LOOGY (Lefty One-Out Guy) Randy Flores sum it up: "We beat the team with the best pitching [San Diego Padres]. We beat the team with the best hitting [New York Mets]. And we beat the team with the best story [Detroit Tigers]," he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The St. Louis Cardinals are Major League Baseball's 2006 World Champions. I was there to see this become a reality – an unreal experience – and now I return to reality. I am very much looking forward to refocusing on a few other things in my life, like showing up for work and talking to people wearing colors other than red. I might also quit drinking.

I know better than to get my hopes up. I've seen Democrats snatch defeat from the jaws of victory before. But let's face it, the handwriting on the wall does indeed seem to favor the donkeys this time around. Exhibit A: Look at the current polling on Majority Watch. Of the 54 House districts that RT Strategies/Constituent Dynamics is polling, 26 of them are projected to flip from one party to the other (27, if you count the Vermont seat that Independent Bernie Sanders is giving up, although he was functionally a Democrat). Of those 26, not one of them is projected to flip D to R. They're all predicted to go from Republican to Democrat. And that's not even counting Tom DeLay's former seat in TX-22, which seems certain to flip to Democrat Nick Lampson (EDIT: Or maybe not – see my new post on this race in the "Key Texas Races" section). Now of course, several of those races are within the margin of error, so a few could stay in Republican hands. But since the Dems need 16 to take back the House, that's a pretty healthy bit of breathing room. On top of that, there are five seats that are considered dead heats at the moment – and all five are currently in Republican hands. So put another way: Of the 202 currently Democratic seats, not one is under threat. The question is not whether the Democrats will gain, it's just whether they will gain enough. Any Yella Dog has to like those odds.

Week 8, Halloween week, brings some truly scary matchups. Taylor Field in Seguin, where No. 8 Westlake tries to hold off the charging Seguin Matadors and monstrous linebacker Marcus Richardson, last week's TexasFootball.com's Player of the Week for his frighteningly complete performance (16 tackles, one sack, two forced fumbles, one fumble recovery) in Seguin's 28-20 win over Austin High? A Seguin win basically hands them the 25-5A title. Or perhaps House Park, a house of horrors tonight for either Elgin or McCallum, who come in with identical 6-1, 5-0 records, tied for the top spot in 17-4A? Up north, Cedar Park, one of two remaining unbeatens in Central Texas, tangles with 14-5A surprise Westwood (6-1, 3-1) at Round Rock ISD Stadium, and minus RB Taylor Smith to boot.

With $5 million in repairs and improvements promised within for Austin Studios, Prop. 4 would be a shot in the arm to Austin's film scene. Understandably, the local film community is psyched about the proposition, and is pulling out the stops in promoting the prop. The talented crew at 05min Productions recently created an eye-popping, retro-chic commercial endorsing Prop. 4 on behalf of I'm for 4 PAC. And unlike those infamous “Vote for 4” fortune cookies reported earlier here, it has a campaign finance disclaimer prominently attached at the end.

But a completely different problem is – the clip appears to be a copyright infringement on the film it samples. The commercial is composed of clips from the 1970 Sidney Portier film They Call Me Mister Tibbs, sequel to the Academy Award winning In the Heat of the Night. Ingeniously, 05min Productions edited scenes from the film where its characters discuss the fate of their own Prop. 4. It's an ingenious repurposing of the original film, seamlessly pulled off.

Heh. Just wanted to write that.

Headed downtown to see if I can't scrape up a couple of tickets to the cold, wet, but playable game that could clinch the World Championship for the St. Louis Cardinals over the mighty Detroit Tigers. Will be watching the game regardless in the city, somewhere, probably in various places, at some point with my dad.

As you might recall, I attended game 4 with my game 5 tickets last night. The Cards got a win - a big win - and one more, even as sloppily charmed, will keep them from having to travel back to Detroit, where it is -294 with the wind chill and snowing Chinese stars and car batteries.

I met a girl named Maggie last night who liked the way I rhythmically banged on a Busch Stadium trashcan while Adam Wainwright went about getting five outs for the win. We had a lot of fun, and everybody celebrated afterward as if the Cardinals had indeed finished the thing, including my mom, a veteran of now four World Series since 1982 ('82, 1985, 1987, and 2006; she sold her 2004 tickets to Red Sox fans).