Cowboys hype virtual venue

Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: April 5, 2008

The rivalry between the Washing-ton Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys lives on, regardless of how good each team may be at the moment.
The Redskins have a big stadium in suburban Maryland just outside Washington, so the Cowboys, being Texans and all, have a big case of stadium envy and are building a bigger one.
The new Texas Stadium for the Dallas Cowboys is a whopper.
Visit the stadium Web site and you can redefine both gargantuan and Texas taxpayer price tag.
If the Cowboys were truly America’s team, Texans would not be alone shouldering their contribution of $350 million plus a bunch of expensive new roads.
The project’s $1 billion cost does invite corporate participation, for sure, though, so taxpayers are not stuck with all the costs.
The Web site does stick it to the Redskins, however.
A virtual tour of the new complex shows virtual people walking around with a virtual score above them reading: Cowboys 21, Redskins 7.
Overall, the steel and glass monument to the concept of “Texas size me” can seat up to 100,000 and boasts a video screen hanging 110 feet above the field that will be 60 yards long and weigh 600 tons.
Making New York’s monuments look small, the stadium could fit the Statue of Liberty under its retractable dome and each end zone is slated to have a glass door 120 feet high and 180 feet long, which could open in 18 minutes.
The largest glass doors in the world are still about 445 feet shorter than the Washington Monument, however, so the Cowboys have a ways to go before they can claim national monument status for a team of boys largely defined by their ability to herd longhorn bull and celebrate excess.

Woman bites dog

When a dog bites a man, it’s not news, but when a woman bites a dog, that’s newsy.
The canine-to-canine turnabout took place in Minneapolis.
The woman, Amy Rice, bit a pit bull on the nose after the animal jumped a fence into her yard and attacked her pet dog.
Ms. Rice said she feared for the life of her dog, a Labrador retriever named Ella.
She said she bit the pit bull March 28 after she tried in vain to pull the dog’s jaws off her Ella.
“I didn’t plan it, that’s what happened,” said Ms. Rice, 38. “I broke the skin and had pit bull blood in my mouth. … I knew what happened, and I knew that it wasn’t good.”
The pit bull was being quarantined April 2 by Minneapolis Animal Control officers. The attack dog was tested for rabies and the woman’s doctor will have to determine whether she needs shots for rabies.
She said her dog is recovering with staples and stitches to her head and a crushed ear canal, but she is afraid to go for walks.
“I was sure that my dog was dying in my arms; it was horrible,” she said.