TNT's 'Dallas' gets second season

TNT announced today that it will give Dallas a second, 15-episode season to air in 2013. It's good news for the city of Dallas where the show's first season was shot. The original Dallas from way back when was mostly shot in Los Angeles, so it's a major Texas win for a Texas icon. Janis Burklund of the Dallas Film Commission confirms on Facebook that it will continue to lens in the Metroplex.

What's most interesting in TV Guide's report is that Dallas is the most viewed new series this summer on basic cable. I credit it all to the return of J.R. Ewing and the rest of the original cast. Larry Hagman steals every scene they give him.

Pizza for Casey

Yesterday was my brother Casey's birthday. He died in a train accident in India on Halloween. I bought this pizza in his honor: black olives and fresh garlic on whole wheat from Conan's Pizza in Austin, Texas. It was exactly as Casey would have ordered it in the days when I moved home to study creative writing in grad school. He and I would stay up late eating pizza and watching access television. I realize it's the last period where he and I spent a lot of time together. I ordered the pizza uncut as Casey would have (a vegetarian doesn't cotton to meat-covered knives), but right before opening the box I said out loud, "it would really be appropriate if they'd forgotten and cut it." Of course, they had.

Take a look at the Dear Photograph I created in Casey's honor right after his death. It has since traveled around the world, and I think he'd get a kick out of that.