I put telemarketers just above pedophiles and directly below the guy from Limp Bizkit on my list of hopeful dates for Mike Tyson at the next Cell Block 4 Sadie Hawkins dance. I'm well aware that anonymously pitching insurance and cheap long distance is the only thing standing between this nation's hardcore unemployable masses and the welfare line, but when it comes to eating an uninterrupted meal at home or sleeping late on Saturday, I really don't care. If the best job you can get is listening to me bark insults at you as I slam the phone down, might be time to consider a trip back to high school, Cletus.

I cheered the creation of the Federal Do Not Call List and absolutely applaud the U.S. Congress for expeditiously passing legislation to put the two publicity-hungry jag-off judges that tried to stall the List in their place. Hey, I'm from Texas, home of the Magnificent Vanishing Democrats and a governor with TV-evangelist hair who calls self-serving special sessions more often than he breaks wind. When Government finally steps up and does something in my best interest, I'm eternally thankful.

I'm a huge fan of the First Amendment -- it's what allows me to publicly refer to Federal Judges as "jag-offs" -- but to argue that some crackhead peddling timeshares has a Constitutional right to interrupt my family's quality time is an insult to us all.

Now if I can just find a way to convince the spammers I won't need Viagra for another couple years...

Yep, my self-imposed exile from ranting about the Texas format lasted about 28 hours. If I don't unleash some of this vitriol here, it'll likely well up at an inopportune moment, and I'll wind up shouting obscenities at passing nuns like a Tourette's patient after a double espresso.

Now the rumor is that compliance with The Incredible Shrinking Format is optional while the Powers that Be mull over the hell they hath wrought. The tale being told is that those empowered with the decision-making on this boondoggle were likely regular ol' Windows users who cross-pollenated font size with pitch and didn't realize they were mandating a double-digit haircut to We the People.

I've heard the process of law-making compared to herding cats, making sausage and, my personal favorite, a monkey -- ahem, humping a football. In light of the current state of affairs, I couldn't agree more.

Can we inmates please run the asylum again? As of this moment, I am officially offering to serve on whatever committee it is that could have prevented this. I don't want a title. I don't want a check. I just want to be in a position to supply this process with that which it seems to be lacking most... valid information.

In order to keep from becoming a complete “Negative Nelly,” as Ned Flanders would say, dwelling nonstop on crooked Statehouse legislators and chunks of my income being lopped off by whimsical rule changes, I thought it best to lighten the mood and discuss my favorite invention of the 21st century, TiVo!

Ask any current TiVo user about the service, and they’ll likely launch into an evangelical rant at a pitch previously seen only in snake handlers when discussing their "own personal Jesus." Hypothetical offers of sacrificing body appendages before parting with their TiVo are also quite common. Trust me, none of this is hyperbole.

With five people and seven TVs in our home, I still have to break up fights over the big screen because it’s the only one with TiVo. When I was eight, I got by with three networks and no remote control. Now my kids whine when they can’t skip commercials or watch Lizzie McGuire on demand.

Of course, I’m just as spoiled now as they are. I will intentionally not sit down to watch The Simpsons when it starts. Rather, I’ll join it about 15 minutes late, which affords me the opportunity to blast through the ads as I watch the entire show and catch back up to real time about 20 minutes later. And I no longer have to wait for John Madden to decide what instant replays to run; I am in control now!

If you’re currently on DirecTV, I highly recommend going with the all-in-one tuner/TiVo combo. If you’re stuck living the lie of “digital” cable or never upgraded from basic or, God forbid, rabbit ears, you can purchase a self-contained TiVo box that can be added to any television.

Let’s take a quick poll. How many of you Texas CSRs out there knew that there were substantive changes to the Uniform Format Manual effective July 15th, 2003? Yeah, me neither.

The most oppressive change in the revised UFM? The option of using 9 pitch printing is now verboten; only 10 pitch is allowed. Let’s see what this amounts to for the working reporter: It adds an additional seven characters per line in what equates to a de facto 10% pay cut to every court reporter in Texas. With the stroke of a pen, a committee of rulemongers in Austin made a dime out of every dollar evaporate into thin air. In the face of stagnant rates for the last 20 years and every attorney taking ten depos a year wanting a special deal, was it really necessary to strike one more blow to our revenue stream?

With this latest change, the Texas format is looking amazingly similar to the federal officials' format. Well, guess what. Freelance reporters in Texas don’t have government healthcare and pensions and we don’t draw a salary. I pay my own insurance and the only money that goes in my IRA is what I put there, SO HOW ABOUT YOU FREAKIN’ BEANCOUNTERS QUIT JACKING WITH MY LIVELIHOOD!!!

Well, in a week that has seen the passing of Johnny Cash, Warren Zevon and the sanctity of the Texas Constitution, my first thought was to curl up in fetal position and mope through to next Monday. That was until I had the pleasure of attending two outstanding seminars at the Bay Area Court Reporters conference this weekend.

The first presentation was by Vivien Spitz, a court reporter at the 1946 Nuremberg trial of the Nazi doctors. This is one remarkable woman with an unparalleled story of setting off at age 21 to Germany for the purpose of taking the testimony of men who are arguably the most evil bastards on the planet (of course, save and except Rep. Joe "Quid Pro Quo" Nixon).

The second speech was by Judy Jackson, a blind court reporting student in her 160s from Lubbock, Texas, who showed us the myriad added equipment and, most of all, positive outlook a blind person must possess to become a working reporter. I listened to her story, thought of all the whining I did while in school, and I truly felt ashamed.

As we Texans begin a new reign of oppression under Governor Goodhair and the insurance lobby, let’s all keep the bellyaching to a minimum and, rather, find a way to persevere and weather this fiasco, much as these two ladies have their whole lives. The uninformed and misguided cattle have cast their votes, it was a close fight, and now we must all live with the dire consequences.

Okay. We all know, Mr. Plaintiff, that you don't have to buy a copy of the deposition and you can "get it under the Rules." What I want is a law that prohibits lawyers from actually telling me that they're going to do that and I won't get one red cent for the pleasure of having spent my day with him and his client. I used to expect at least dinner and a movie before some jackwad would even try that kind of activity.

Well, so much for taking depos in Rio de Janeiro. After a couple weeks of fruitlessly trying to snag any type of visa, I’ve officially given up. For you see, turns out it’s illegal to take depositions in Brazil, and I look too much like Ned Beatty to do time in a South American (or Arkansas for that matter) prison.

The humorous part of this saga is the multiple adaptations to my story I'd concoct to fit their narrow definitions of visas. When I found out that “deposition” was a dirty word, I came back and tried “interview,” then “meeting.” Trouble was it was the same guy sitting behind the bulletproof glass at the consulate each time I showed up, and since the list of 300-pound court reporters trying to sneak into Rio is understandably a fairly short one, he wasn’t buying any of it.

I’ve always been fascinated by the Christ the Redeemer (a/k/a “Really Big Jesus”) monument overlooking Rio and was quite looking forward to seeing it up close. Guess I’ll have to check that box further down the road.

As much as I’d like to have this blog as my own personal bully pulpit, the great woman behind this great man has insisted on equal time. Add my lovely and charming wife’s musings to my already near-toxic sarcasm and I’m just as baffled as you are as to how we’re going to fend off the libel allegations.

All you anti-Prop 12 folks, GO VOTE NOW!!! Forget September 13th. I did early voting this morning and was done in three minutes. You know how court reporters’ lives are. Something will come up to keep you from voting on the 13th. DO IT NOW!!!!

Want to be disgusted by the Prop 12 proponents even more than you already are? Have you seen the recent articles about physicians telling their more gullible patients that we won’t have doctors in Texas if Prop 12 doesn’t pass? How about a constitutional amendment prohibiting caregivers from terrorizing patients?

Boy, glad I got a little R&R last weekend in Austin at Mark Mueller’s annual party. For those that don’t know Mark, he’s a wildly successful attorney and truly cool dude (six-plus feet tall with a ponytail down to the small of his back) who throws a huge fiesta every year at the Austin Music Hall. This year he hired Dwight Yoakum to play for us. In past years it’s been Lyle Lovett, Patti LaBelle and B.B. King. This year we had the added bonus of hearing a leather-fringed Gerry Spence speak on the trend towards the Fascism/Corporationism of America. Gotta respect a man that has the stones to stand up and draw parallels between the U.S. in 2003 and Nazi Germany in the ‘40s.

The intervening week has been nuts, though, everything a two-day rush, realtime over the Net, video, rough ASCII with a backrub, and, oh, can you get us lunch too? Pile on top of that the request that I take a deposition in Rio de Janeiro in the coming weeks and the seemingly endless stream of red tape the Brazilian government can generate, and it’s no wonder I spent yesterday comatose on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn watching DVDs.