"A way of life"

Guess those borderline racist commercials with the black lady actor telling you about her secret recipe really paid off.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Many Western New Yorkers waited hours for their dinner Wednesday night.
"Just didn't expect it to be three hours and there was a point where I couldn't turn around," Buffalo resident Joe Guido said.

"We actually just decided just to swing by, see how it was and how fast it would go and we just ended up being stuck on line so we were like, 'let's see how far we can go,'" Amherst resident Candy Rodriguez said.

Buffalo, meet Popeye's Chicken. Some transplants already familiar with the national chain swear it was worth the wait.

"Wouldn't classify Popeye's as fast food. It's something else. It's like a culture, a way of life, a cuisine I guess," Buffalo resident Rob Fussell said.

Um... no. It's fast food. But enjoy waiting in line all day. It's not the most encouraging thing to see we're so trained that we conflate corporate branding with, "a culture, a way of life." I'm pretty sure this means the terrorists have won big time. 

And I'm not picking on Buffalo here.  It's all over New Orleans too.

Just a few steps behind Velez, a weary group of Xavier University students sat gathered on the red carpet rolled out onto the sidewalk; they too had stayed up all night in anticipation of being among the first visitors to the new store.

"I love H&M so much I slept on the street," said Shelby Barb, 21. "I'm wearing my only sweater, I need winter clothes! And I thought, why wait? New Orleans made a really great decision."
In the middle of the line, 25-year-old Algiers resident LaToya Comeaux waited patiently for the store to open.

"The first time I saw H&M was in New York, in 2006," Comeaux said. "I've been waiting for this since then. This is going to make the French Quarter easier for families to shop in a more affordable way. This is definitely good for New Orleans."

In which the Christmas season begins to get to me.

Of course, I haven't even started with the obligatory shopping and preparations and such. Menckles and I had planned to go get a tree last weekend but you will recall that was a day I was feeling not-so-fresh. Besides, by this point in the year, if you're not hopelessly behind, and frustrated to the point of sucking on eggnog and everclear until you pass out on the floor every night, you're pretty much an asshole anyway. I hope you choke on a figgy pudding.

Anyway so this morning, I had resolved to make this a fifteen or sixteen hour day by heading out to the various suburban gift outlets after work so I could pace up and down and frown at various potential gifts until whatever always accidentally happens to make it all okay happens. Possibly a shooting or a collapsing dome or something. But that plan was blown away when I found the Tercel's right rear tire had mysteriously flattened overnight.

So Santa's sleigh is out of commission at least for another day or two until I get to it. Meanwhile I'm on the bike which is a far less convenient shopping vehicle but is still a pretty good way to get around town. At least it is until the city finishes putting these confusing and dangerous half-assed bike lanes everywhere.

Update: Matters became more fun last night when it was discovered that my jack had somehow rusted into utter uselessness in the trunk of my car.



No idea how this happened. It says it was just standing over there chopping some wood when all of a sudden it began to rain but I'm not sure about that. Anyway I bathed it in WD-40, banged it against the ground a few times, drank two bottles of Abita Pecan, but nothing seemed to work. When Menckles got home, I borrowed hers so I could put the donut on.... which, when we lowered the weight of the car onto it, we discovered was also flat.

So yeah. Christmastime.