Texas has spoken, and it has said “I want a mashup of mis-matched fonts, photographic wallpaper, and crayon for my new license plate.”

Personally, I was pulling for “Traditional Texas”.

I’m not sure why I even have opinions on license plates, but I have some rather strong feelings about our current plate.

On the one hand, I like it as a graphic representation of the state in cross-section, from the rugged terrain of the west to the oil fields of East Texas. However, since the Columbia crash, I can’t look at it without seeing it as a snapshot of the shuttle right before it broke apart. Maybe that was the same thinking that caused whoever was in charge to slap an American flag on the shuttle a few years ago, turning a nice piece of iconography into a complete cartoon. Ooh, that flag bugs me way too much!

Oh well, maybe by the time I’m ready for a new car, they’ll have brought back a true classic …

The inaugural meeting of the This American Life Brunch Club is in the works. (Imagine a book club, but instead we discuss an episode of TAL.) I’ll have an Evite out by the end of the day. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in — and you live in the Austin area — leave a comment and I’ll include you.

You may have noticed a new page in the sidebar that links to stats about Oscar picks. It takes a while to load…which I’ll try to fix.