The Eastside's Scoot Inn and Attack Formation's Ben Webster hosted the fourth annual July Fourth Beer Bob (this year benefiting the Crack Pipes' Billy Steve Korpi) with live music, a beer-bobbing competition, and free jambalaya from Gene's Poboys. Here's the haps on beer bobbing: 1) Inflate a children's pool; 2) fill said pool with water, as much ice as possible, and 12-ounce cans of Pabst; 3) then contestants cross their arms behind their backs and commence to remove as many cans of beer from the pool with their mouth as possible in one minute. And, by the way, contestants get to keep the beers they remove from the pool during competition. Enough reason to join in right there.

The bobbing was fierce and contestants such as the Riverboat Gamblers' Mike Wiebe and Those Peabodys' Clarke Wilson braved the icy cold, sorta-sanitary water for bragging rights until next year's throwdown. While all performed admirably, none could keep pace with the relentless bobbing skills of Andy Brown who left no doubt that he was king of the beer-bobbing pool. Special recognition to runner-ups Stephen Ceresia and Clarke Wilson who walked away with arms full of delicious beer.

Troy Patton looked great Friday night in his AAA debut with the Round Rock Express allowing only four hits and one earned run over seven innings as the Express defeated Omaha 3-1. Patton picked up the W. The 21-year-old is the youngest player currently on the Express' roster and looks to be a solid candidate for a late-season call-up to Minute Maid. Straight out of Tomball High, he was a ninth-round pick for the Astros in 2004 and posted a nifty 2.99 ERA with the Corpus Christi Hooks before his Fourth-of-July call-up to Round Rock. Maybe '07 will be remembered as the year Patton and Hunter Pence broke through to the Show en route to lengthy and successful careers with the Astros. Maybe not. Jason "Turnin'" Lane went 0-3 Friday night and is batting .265 since being demoted to AAA.

More good news for water lovers: The Lower Colorado River Authority has announced that Lake Marble Falls is scheduled to re-open for recreational boating Sunday Morning.

For those of you keeping track, here's highlights of what will be open and what's closed on the river system as of 8am Sunday:

Open: Lake Marble Falls (provisionally), Inks Lake, Lake Buchanan and Lake LBJ, plus Barton Springs Pool.

Closed: Lake Travis, Lake Austin, Town Lake, and the Colorado River below Longhorn Dam, plus Bob Wentz at Windy Point, Cypress Creek, Hippie Hollow, Pace Bend, Turkey Bend, Shaffer Bend, Grelle, Gloster Bend, and Muleshoe Bend and Narrows.

However, the LCRA remind any boat users, water skiers or swimmers to be aware of debris, pollution, and raised bacteria levels.

There's a Nixon back in the news, and it's not just because (alleged) presidential hopeful Fred Thompson was leaking Watergate inquiry secrets to Tricky Dicky.

No, former Republican Carthage Sen. Drew Nixon has been indicted by a Panola County grand jury for the serious crime of abuse of office. His offense? Trying to manipulate an election. However, there's no DeLay-style plan for a thousand-year statewide Republican majority here. Nixon was caught trying to rig the ballot for the Panola County Fresh Water Supply District No. 1. While serving as the board's accountant and self-appointed election officer, he came up with the ingenious technique of telling potential challengers to the incumbents that they weren't allowed to file their paperwork. Which, after recent GOP attempts to manipulate the democratic process on a grand scale, seems a little amateur night.

Of course, Austinites may recall Nixon better for his little run in with the law back in 1997. That's when he got busted for trying to get some late-night action off an undercover cop on South Congress and carrying a gun in his car. That got him 60 days in the slammer out of a six-month sentence, but this time he could be looking at a $4,000 fine and up to a year of jail time.

Remember the confirmation from the Pentagon (those polyhedral geniuses in charge of keeping our fatherland secure), admitting to actually developing ideas for a gay bomb? We recently blogged about it.

In a strange Kubrickian turn, the truth continues to be stranger than any fiction, as a now work of fiction is in the works about this perplexing truth.

Yup. Gay Bomb, the movie. Courtesy of the strokey folks behind GayTanamo.

(Any straying from the direct clicks above must be considered not safe for work.)

Word.
Word up.

Here's one for the Infowarriors and "truthers" in the comments section to wrap their heads around (please, Louis; don't feed them any more!): In the Pink tips us to the fact that KXAN found federal homeland security plans for a border-crossing station … in their Dumpster.

First conspiracy theory tying in Jim Spencer's weather-controlling machine gets a free T-shirt.

OK, so we're a little late in reporting it (we had to digest!), but Joey Chestnut unseated six-time winner Kobayashi Wednesday during the annual Nathan's Famous Hot-Dog-Eating Championship on Coney Island, finishing with 66 hot dogs to Kobayashi's 63, and earning the title of world's fastest eater. Sixty-six hot dogs is also a new world record. We've followed the 23-year-old Chestnut since his visit to Austin to compete in this year's French-Fry-Eating Championship at Bikini's, and we've gotta say we're proud of the little hole-stuffer. Congratulations Mr. Chestnut for bringing the trophy back home where it belongs. You've served your country well.

Despite some early distractions, the 2007 legislative session was declared fairly healthy for the Travis County Healthcare District, lobbyist Marsha Jones told the district’s board of managers last Thursday night. Overall, funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program is up, as well as hospital reimbursement rates for Medicaid. Most significant to the district, however, was the district’s local legislation, Senate Bill 1107, which did a number of things: addressed retirement benefits for district employees, authorized regional affiliations and entities, and authorized the collection of revenue anticipation notes, among other things. The board of managers has been especially interested in creating some type of regional health-care insurance product, so the cost burden of the growing uninsured population, particularly those who take advantage of Brackenridge Hospital’s trauma services, can be shared with surrounding counties.

Finally, some good news from the Lower Colorado River Authority on the floods.

Lake LBJ and Inks Lake will reopen for recreational use at 8am on Saturday morning. That makes three big bodies of water open this weekend (Lake Buchanan stayed open throughout).

Lake Travis remains closed, partially because it's still so high (even the flood pools are 20 feet deep), fast, and debris-filled and partially because the wake from speeding boats could damage submerged homes and docks. The city of Austin is also keeping Lake Austin, Town Lake, and the Colorado River below Longhorn Dam closed until the floodgates on Mansfield and Tom Miller dams close. Bad news there: The LCRA says they may be keeping them open for several weeks and may have to open more with no or little warning.

On the newly opened lakes, the LCRA does warn boaters and water-skiers to keep an eye out for any potential floating debris and reminds swimmers that the bacteria levels in the water are way elevated. So no speeding and no drinking the lake water.