Pardon the BloggEruption

D-Day, or Drive-Day

Something of an interesting day today. I will be heading to Austin to help staff the NAQT High School Championship Tournament. Potentially the last quizbowl appearance I ever make, barring any masters/freelance play I might take up. I'll be out of town until Sunday night.

The drive from Houston to Austin is perhaps the most enjoyable three-hour car trip you can take in the South. From Houston you take IH-10 to Columbus, then get Texas-71 to IH-35 just outside of the Austin city limits. Hill Country all the way, best observed between March and June. Wildflowers bloom all along the roadways, along the rolling hills, among all the cattle. Stunningly beautiful. The road is contoured nicely with the rolling mounds we call hills in Texas, with lots of gentle curves, turns, and dips. Actually, most all highways in Texas are done in that way. I'll give Arkansas credit for doing the same.

This is in stark contrast to what you see a lot of the time in the midwest and east, where keeping the roads straight and flat seems to be put at a premium, with the only exceptions being when you have to go up a hill. Take IH-70, for example. Start just outside of DC and go west -- the only interesting part of the drive is the route from Breezewood, PA to just beyond Wheeling, WV. After that, take some Vivarin, because it's straight and flat and boring as hell until you get to the Mountain time zone. (Western highways are an animal unto themselves.)

Back to the Houston-Austin route ... about halfway through the trip you encounter the site of one of the most interesting scandals in recent Texas history. La Grange. Sound familiar? ZZ Top wrote a song commemorating the strange goings on in "the shack outside La Grange" ... the Chicken Ranch and model for the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Houston's own Marvin Zindler was responsible for the takedown of the ranch, the fame from which he parlayed into doing the weekly "Rat and Roach Report" on Houston restaurants.

Zindler used to be fairly entertaining doing the "Rat and Roach Report," as he would spice it up by saying things like "improper temp-a-toors" and yelling "SLIME IN THE ICE MACHINE!" This last tagline became so famous locally that a second "Slime Report" followed the "Rat and Roach," only that now Zindler's cry of "SLIME IN THE ICE MACHINE!" was gone, replaced by some god-awful song of the same name by a local band and the occasional group yell by some elementary school class. Marvin, we miss the old days. We miss your white suits and blue sunglasses. We miss your hard-hitting assistance to people who got screwed by the Pawn shop. Oh well, at least we still have "Good golf, good tennis ... or WHATEVER makes you happy. MARVIN ZINDLER, EYEWITNESS NEWS!!" followed by the pained expression on Dave Ward's face as he says, "Thank you, Marvin." It's so obvious Ward hates him, which makes me wonder if Ward was a regular at the Chicken Ranch ... hmmm ....

At any rate, I get to spend four days amongst quizbowlers ranging from 14 to 40. Average age of the players? I'll guess 17. Average age of the staff? I'll guess 25. UT has a nice campus, and Austin is a very nice city, but I'm still very glad I didn't go there. That's for another day though. I need to pack.

Adios, Amigos.