National Novel Writing month starts in just a few hours. I did this a couple of years ago and failed at it horribly. I did get a lot of writing done but I didn’t finish. Sadly, I really don’t have time for this right now. So I’m asserting right now that I will do it next year. And in the mean time, if anyone is doing it this year, let me know so I can throw you some good props.
For those who are unfamiliar, here’s a link that explains it all:
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Here’s another little local quiz. I was impressed that one reader, Puddinhead, got the last one so we’ll give it another shot. You probably know what big box store is going in this desolate space at Claiborne and Clio but my question to you is, what used to be there? What was the last functioning business there? Whomever gets this will get a gift card to their favorite hardware establishment . . . the picture on the right being your only clue.
Reading the paper is one of those normal things I should do and I really try to because you miss a lot if you only read it online, but mostly this real newspaper reading could only happen if I did other normal stuff, like sit down to eat and sleep a solid eight hours, and maybe didn’t go take care of business at city hall in my pajamas. So, I’m still in the weird post-K sleep warp, I don’t fight it, trying to ignore linear time constraints, I just get up, there’s plenty to do. It’s still an anything goes environment.
I am not a morning person, but this wee-hours time is the only time of the day it’s quiet and I can get up to speed on our city’s full spectrum fucked-upedness. It’s a luxury to be so entertained all the time. Today, I scanned what is now yesterday’s paper for the Halloween events announcement to see what’s up for All Saints Day. Instead, I found out what the Chalmatians have going on for Halloween . . .
. . . The St. Bernard Parish Tourism Department (huh?) is sponsoring this sociopathic event ~ TRICK OR TRUNK. Yep, this is how you adapt to Halloween when you don’t have any habitable places to live, I guess. “Elizabeth “Gidget” McDougall, tourism director, said volunteers are invited to decorate their cars in Halloween themes and allow children to trick-or-treat from trunk-to-trunk. . . . A DJ will play and there will be inflatables. Hot dogs and chili will be provided by Gulf Coast Bank & Trust . . ‘ Nunez Community College over there in Chalmette.
There’s so much going wrong here. I can’t stop laughing. Hooray, another day surrounded by lunatics, woo hoo! I’m gonna go get today’s paper !
Ah, comedy, I love me some funny shit. So I was thrilled to find out there’s a comedy theater right in my neighborhood. And if that weren’t enough, they’re having an improv Festival November 9th through the 12th. The show starts Thursday at 7pm and the theater is located at 2301 Soniat Street - which is basically the corner of Soniat and Freret Street.
The show promises to be a lot of fun since it’s more interactive than the run of the mill comedy show. And if there’s anyone out there with an improv troupe who wants to perform, there may be a few openings left.
The whole, happy mess of information can be found at the LaNuit website including a schedule and contact information. They’re still getting the website together with the most current information so be patient. We all know how difficult it is to get even a simple thing done around here. This is an excellent opportunity to support a local small business and have a lot of fun in the process.
During the past couple of months I have played a relatively high amount of pinball. But I’m hampered by a very shallow knowledge of where to play pinball. In fact I’m only aware of one decent place to do so.
Today during my daily websurfing I found that some places have websites where you can locate pinball machines in a given city. It’s a valuable service, but all this database driven, fancy schmancy web stuff is not really consistent with New Orleans’ position as a luddite city.. so I suggest that we just maintain this blog posting as a resource for pinball machine location. If it proves popular, perhaps I will create a standalone website to log New Orleans pinball machines. I don’t suspect it will be a very long list.
Anyway, my sole entry is Mick’s Irish Pub at 4801 Bienville Street. They have three machines; Circus Voltaire, Creature From the Black Lagoon, and Fish Tales. Cost is 25 cents per play.
If you have information to contribute, do so in the comments section. Gracias.
A house collapsed in my neighborhood this morning. Right around the corner from me. I was going to take some pictures and post them but I felt bad about getting up close and being a gawker. See, this wasn’t an abandoned / neglected house, this was a house that has been under construction for a year now. After gutting, they decided to raise the house to a lofty height, and then build a first floor underneath of it. They’d jacked it up about 15-20 feet off the ground and had it sitting on a stack of railroad ties, and then had built the framework for the first floor underneath. They had OSB on the exterior of the framing and it looked like it was ready to be wrapped with tyvek or whatever.
But at some point this morning, it all decided to come crashing down onto the street. I don’t know if they were working on it at the time or if something just gave way in the middle of the night. Seeing that house up so high on those railroad ties, I always imagined it crashing down from a strong wind, but didn’t think it’d actually happen. Either way, it was an incredibly depressing site to see, as someone had obviously spent a lot of time, money, and effort trying to return to their home. Makes me wonder if they’re going to give up and skip town now. I probably would.
The cute girl at the Credit Union recognized me today. Not from Metroblogging (that would’ve been too cool) but just from being in there before. Credit Unions are the best - so much better than banks. I have yet to find anything they don’t do better. Granted they don’t have as many locations, but that is rarely a problem since I’m almost always on Direct Deposit. Plus, not having as many locations, when you have to go to the bank for something, you’re more likely to be recognized which gives it a more “small town” feel. The tellers seem to have more of a relationship with the customers.
Then I was thinking about the down side to that whole ‘knowing your customers’ thing given the situation around here in the last year. My account, for example, lets just say, was not in excellent shape. And you have to think, that tellers have a very unique view of how people are doing financially. It must be hard on them in many ways. For example, watching someone they’ve ‘known’ for years, struggling with finances. Another example is, since they aren’t’ immune to the financial strains of the last year themselves, it has to be kind of hard watching people they’ve ‘known’ for years be unaffected by the financial strains of the last year and take it all in stride. Either way, I suspect there are customers that strike them one way or another a little bit; if they even bother to think about it at all. But how could they not?
I guess it’s just odd to me that I didn’t really stop to appreciate the unique perspective they have until today. Still, tellers have it easier than bartenders from what I’ve seen. Poor bartenders….sad, sad, sad.
So, this arrived in my mailbox yesterday:
I’m thrilled that Egana’s challenger in the run-off for House Representative/District 97, J. P. Morrell–son of perhaps the dumbest, orneriest, most egomaniacal, most corrupt politician Louisiana has ever seen–chose to take the high road this election season.
The New York Times today has one of those “I can’t believe it took them this long to figure it out” articles that makes most of us say ‘duh!’ and a few rational public officials do something about the situation. In a nutshell, the findings are that “Officials decided that for many patients with chronic diseases, it would be cheaper to provide free preventive care than to absorb the high cost of repeated emergencies. ”
I know that this may be deemed some yankee-thinking here but really, it makes sense. When I consider the inumerable New Orleanians with no health care who are repeatedly visiting emergency rooms for very common, treatable diseases, it really makes me wish there were superior health care systems here that would realize that disease prevention and treatment was, is, and will always be more cost effective than emergency care (of course, it is a shame that the dollar effect holds more import than the actual welfare of people, but it is what it is).
Now here’s a real shocker. Maybe we’re finally understanding, as our forebears did out of necessity, that nature bats last. Swampland=bad place to build a house that doesn’t float. They also seem to be discovering this over the past 20 years or so in South Florida, where so many homes built in what used to be the Everglades now have cracked or swamped foundations and other major problems.
I could go on and on about the gullibility of some folks, but I won’t. I got all my rants about Gubmint, insensitive people and other wrongs out during the Katrinacation period (as some of you remember). I reserve my incredulity (is that a word?) these days for observing the latest antics of the Bush Administration, but even that is waning. It’s being slowly replaced, fortunately, with laughter — since really that’s all you can do sometimes, ain’t it?
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