Looks like the rumors are true; we’re gittin’ us a racetrack. And not one of them hillbilly NASCAR ones, neither … a classy, Euro-pean one, funded in part by local rich dude (former owner of the San Antonio Spurs and Minnesota Vikings, and UT biz school namesake) Red McCombs.

Am I the only one that finds this strange?

Just had to post this as a follow-up to yesterday’s story about recliner sales.

MSNBC.com reports that a man driving a motorized Laz-E-Boy was charged with a DWI after crashing into a parked car. He drank “eight or nine” beers and then headed home in his souped-up recliner, which police said was “powered by a converted lawnmower and had a stereo and cup holders.”

We slouch closer and closer to the dystopias described in Idiocracy and Wall-E.  All this guy needs is a toilet and maybe a retractable roof feature, and he’ll never have to use those weird fleshy appendages attaches to his pelvis again.

According to the Atlanta JC (can’t find the full name of the publication and can’t be bothered to spend more than a minute looking for it), sales of recliners has increased during these tough economic times.

In addition to an aging, widening population and the increasing popularity of giant televisions, analysts believe that the recession itself is partly responsible for the rise in recliner sales (emphasis mine):

Sales of reclining chairs are getting a lift from the growing popularity of high-tech TVs, home theater equipment and video games, as well as an aging population that is less active. Even the recession, which forced many Americans to cancel vacation plans, seemed to have help sales of the comfy lounge chairs.

I realize that Americans are vacationing at home rather than Disneyland these days, but part of me giggles at the idea that some Americans might be celebrating their unemployment by treating themselves to a Laz-E Boy.

From here:

A Saudi woman filed for divorce after discovering by chance that her husband gave her name “Guantanamo” on his mobile phone, reports newspaper al-Watan.

The newspaper said the woman, aged 30 and living in the city of Jeddah, saw this after her husband left the phone at home.

The furious wife filed for divorce, arguing that by assigning such a nickname, the husband saw her as a tyrannical person and she could no longer continue to live with him after 17 years of marriage.

I don’t know; she sounds pretty reasonable to me!

Also, I’m not a math expert or anything, but 30 years old minus 17 years of marriage equals holy shit!

So much stupid today, I’m not sure where to start. Hmmm, ok.

The gays and the marriage.

So this group made this commercial.  It looked like a remake of the made-for-tv movie The Langoliers, and it sounded like a whole mess o’ crazy. See for yourself:

I’m sorry, what? Legalizing gay marriage results in my rights being taken away exactly how?  Like, my right to criticize people for being gay somehow disappears once a law is made? No way! My right to be a bigot can’t be infringed upon by the likes of a godless “law”. The government can’t make me like those people.

I understand that people have religious reasons for opposing gay marriage. Seriously, I do. I think that any religious institution that opposes gay marriage ought not perform gay marriage ceremonies.  I just don’t get this ad.

Also, I love how the people are coming together “in love” for the express purpose of restricting the actions of others.

Also, I love how the male actors in the commercial appear to be in the closet themselves.

Let’s see…what’s next.  Oh, yes:

Asians need to stop with all the funny-sounding names.

So, Texas is embroiled in a big debate over whether to require photo id in order to vote. I don’t have strong feelings about this issue (though I tend to want to err on the side that allows the most democratic participation to occur). I do, however, wonder a lot about this (emphasis mine):

A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification legislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with.”

The comments caused the Texas Democratic Party on Wednesday to demand an apology from state Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell. But a spokesman for Brown said her comments were only an attempt to overcome problems with identifying Asian names for voting purposes.

The exchange occurred late Tuesday as the House Elections Committee heard testimony from Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.

Ko told the committee that people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting and other forms of identification because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is used on their driver’s license on school registrations.

Brown suggested that Asian-Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible.

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Later, Brown said that her comment wasn’t intended to be racially insensitive; it’s just that Asian names are so hard to pronounce and ambiguously spelled, making ID verification difficult.

Check it out yourself. It gets good after about the 3-minute mark.

And finally, on the crazy front: for a mere $220 per night, you can spend the night in Saddam Hussein’s bed.