Depending on the hour, you could stumble on 1310 The Ticket and go minutes, a segment or even two, without hearing a word about sports. The Hot Sports Opinions promised by the station's promos often get buried by pop culture, old music, new music, race, sex — anything, really, to keep the routine of sports at bay. (These guys are getting older, and sports, God love them, get boring after a while.) But whatever the content, they manage to turn it into good radio, relying on smarts, jokes and, above it all, radio's No. 1 ingredient: honesty. Punches are never pulled, even if they are thrown at the station's annual Fight Night, an ode to their heavily male audience's heavily male attitudes. And when those HSOs do start flying? They're just as smart, and just as honest, as the Breaking Bad breakdowns and the always-uncomfortable man-on-the-street interviews.

Texas suffered through one of its worst-ever droughts last year, and it took a toll on water supplies. Dallas never came close to running out, but plummeting reservoir levels did prompt the City Council to take action and implement mandatory watering restrictions. Under the rules, homes and businesses can water lawns only twice per week. More than that means a possible fine from the city. Enforcement has been lax as drought conditions have eased, but the decision hopefully signals a turning point when politicians and the people who elect them recognize that maintaining water-thirsty swaths of St. Augustine and Bermuda grasses in Texas is unsustainable and, with a booming population and water resources that are more or less fixed, is a practice that will have to end.

We've got to hand this one to our favorite listener-supported station playing a wide variety of independent artists, and no, we don't mean KXT. Dallas' community station has an eccentric cast of DJs — who are clearly not radio pros, as the occasional technical gaffe proves. Much of the fun of listening comes from catching CDs skipping, bungled guest call-ins and stretches of dead air. The lovably shaggy presentation, though, doesn't mean they don't play an impressively diverse array of music. Along with far-from-the-mainstream rock, hip-hop and country, the schedule includes all kinds of niche music you won't hear anywhere else including zydeco, blues, polka, Jewish music, Native American chants and rockabilly. Keep that in mind around pledge-drive time, will ya?

It's difficult to single out the best talk radio show in Dallas, let alone on The Ticket. Each of the station's shows has its own appeal, avoiding sports-talk-at-all-costs for funny bits and raunchy laughs. The show in the mid-afternoon slot, BaD Radio, takes the most high-brow approach to its humor. The complex dynamic between Bob "The Sturminator" Sturm (a highly moral, Sunday school-attending sports super-genius), his foil Dan McDowell (a porn-loving vegetarian) and Donovan Lewis (the guy who introduced most of Dallas to "The Upper Decker") yields brilliant results every afternoon. OK, so maybe it's not all that high-brow. But, they do occasionally talk sports. After all, Sturm wrote a book about Dirk Nowitzki in a week.

It is when Corby Davidson goes traipsing into the wild, microphone in hand, that The Ticket's afternoon-drive show, The Hardline, earns its stripes. Things get raw and sometimes awkward, like a recent escapade when he asked an interracial couple about the challenges of their relationship, or a group of teenagers about various teenage exploits. Like the show he co-hosts with Mike Rhyner, Davidson's segments — roving interviews, local news, entertainment news — go where the material takes him, and he never holds back. That's the mark of a man devoted to producing entertaining radio at any cost. He also yells a lot, often for no reason, and it's funny.

Do we need to add to what we said in previous Best of Dallas write-ups, or the People Issue love we showed for the guys behind The Texas Theatre's revival? A refresher: the so-bad-they're-good genre flicks at Tuesday Night Trash; the bar; the arthouse films you won't see anywhere else; the bar; the revival of past classics; the bar; the Oak Cliff Film Festival; the bar. For us, seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark on 35mm was enough to seal a repeat victory.

The Mavs may have had a disappointing 2011-2012 season, but Delonte West's toughness and dogged defensive play were a highlight, and we're glad to hear he'll be returning for basketball reasons alone. But his unique personality has made his off-the-court presence especially refreshing. His Twitter account is always entertaining, whether he's tweeting pictures of his own vomit or urging Deron Williams to come help bring another championship title to Dallas. He teaches young ballers in charity basketball clinics, despite coming to the team so broke that he had to sleep in the locker room and had to work for a furniture-moving company during the lockout — very humbling, considering he's made millions over his career. Yet he kept his head up despite the troubling circumstances and has proved to be a great example of how to live with bipolar disorder even under the media spotlight.

Jason Kidd, the 39-year-old point guard who helped lead the Mavericks to their championship in 2011, shocked Dallas July 5 when he signed a three-year contract with the New York Knicks for $9.5 million — just half a million more than what the Mavs reportedly offered. Ten days later, at about 2 a.m. on July 15, he crashed his Cadillac Escalade into a utility pole and was subsequently arrested on drunken-driving charges after he refused a blood-alcohol test. Even more delicious, the wreck knocked out cable in the neighborhood — cable that was supplied by a company of which Knicks owner James Dolan is president and CEO. We're glad he wasn't seriously injured, of course, but will have to admit to enjoying a bit of schadenfreude over the incident.

In the days leading up to the NFL opener, it was said, somewhere on the AM dial, that the Cowboys would struggle to contain the Giants' offense because the Cowboys had "no pass rush." It was an understandable assessment, given their inability to so much as breathe on Eli Manning last season. But then the season opener came, and we all remembered: DeMarcus Ware. He bull-rushed his way to 19.5 sacks last season, helping the Cowboys amass the seventh-most sacks in the league — as many as the vaunted San Francisco 49ers — and he racked up two in this season's opener. He is the best in the league at one of its most important positions, especially in the era of 40 pass attempts a game. If the quarterback is back there throwing — and he so often is nowadays — Ware will be back there with him, right where the Cowboys need him.

After just three seasons with the Dallas Stars, Jamie Benn has already flown up the ranks to become the face of the franchise. Not since Mike Modano rode his feathered mullet into town have we seen a player with such skill lace up for the celestial skaters. Benn has seen his point totals increase with each season, and with another year of experience and salty vets Ray Whitney and Jaromir Jagr coming aboard this year, "Benner" could be poised for a true breakout. His combination of finesse and brute strength are not often found on the rink, making him a lethal force and the embodiment of the team's pesky attitude. Speaking of pesky, Benn had an appendectomy last season, so now there is nothing holding the British Columbian back from ultimate hockey glory.