Some Asswipe

Has jammed his/her ratty floppy disk backwards into one of our two remaining functional removable A drives and snuck off leaving me to sit here and fish out the little metal disk clippy deal with a paper clip. Add to this the constant rush of headphone vandals and mouse ball thieves (that's right mouse ball thieves!) and you wonder how this place stays running.

Update: Problem solved. Good 'ol butter knife.

Fun with headlines

Registrar repays money to Jeff
Where's my check?

Jeff high-rise ban may be extended
I'm afraid of heights anyway.

Who's watching?

In New York, could be anybody.

Across Long Island, thousands of regular citizens -- from shop clerks to waiters to landlords and teachers -- are quietly being asked to enlist as foot soldiers in the war on terror through Operation Safeguard.

Interviews and documents show that the unique statewide plan, started last year by the New York State Office of Homeland Security, aims to use local police to contact citizens who are encouraged to identify, report -- and even confront -- possible terrorists.

The authorities are asking Long Islanders to do everything from reporting on diners' conversations to monitoring strangers' Internet use to observing fellow worshipers at religious services to noting when parents withdraw their kids from school.

Once gathered by the local police, contact information from participating businesses and organizations -- names, addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses -- is forwarded to the Albany-based agency, which uses the data to warn of threats. Tips from Operation Safeguard are forwarded to a Joint Terrorism Task Force made of local, state and federal authorities.

This is getting out of hand. But what can you do? I suppose repealing the PATRIOT Act wouldn't hurt. Here, go sign the petition.

Oh No We Suck Again!

After yesterday's draft, it looks like my Yahoo FFL team (The Fat Guys) is in for a typically crappy year. Here's the lineup: (Quirks: our league inexplicably allows for two starting QBs three defensive players, and some flex WR/TE or WR/RB spots)

Fat Guys 2005
QB: Tom Brady
QB/Literacy Advocate: Aaron Brooks
RB: Deuce McAllister
RB: Clinton Portis
WR: Hines Ward
WR: Lee Evans
TE: Bubba Franks
WR/TE: Isaac Bruce
WR/RB: Cadillac Williams
K: Lawrence Tynes
DEF: New England
LB: Takeo Spikes
DL/LB: Jonathan Vilma
DB: Tony Parrish

Bench: JP Losman, Kevan Barlow, Donte Stallworth, Brandon Lloyd, Justin McCariens, Rex Grossman

This is going to be ugly.

The public being weird again

A man just walked up to me and asked randomly, "That's not your Vespa outside is it?"
It is not.
"Ok, I was just... impressed."

He doesn't seem to be surveying the room for other possible scooter conductors. Why have I been so profiled?

Uh oh

New LSU head football coach Les Miles gives tiger fans a moment of pause with this dubious comment on his level of anticipation for the upcoming season.

"I want to get to games," Miles said. "I want to start playing games with these guys and see how they respond to opponents' colors. But that's a ways away, and I look forward to the practice that leads up to that.

"I can't wait to play football. I can't tell you -- this is as pensive as I've ever been," Miles said later. "I haven't taken the field with this team yet, and I so desperately want to get this done."

(Emphasis mine) This can't be the word he was looking for can it?

Could it be?

Did the former president of COX cable and habitual friend to and enabler of the continued corporate gutting and disneyfication of the culture of New Orleans for the puroposes of generating profits off of the backs of the perpetually demeaned and underpaid hospitality industry wage slaves of the city actually do the right thing for a change?

Don't bet on it. This hotel will be built and it will receive the mayor's blessing.
The ban on new hotels in the French Quarter will be effectively ended and the destruction of the last of what is authentic about this neighborhood will continue.

And it gets stupider and stupider and stupider

My much promised return to regular posting may be delayed a bit further as I muddle through a transition to a new home internet connection. In the meantime, I'll try and peek in from work.. if I get the time (which is in short supply around here these days). If you need something to do in the meantime here are this site's latest reading recommendations.

Planet Simpson: How A Cartoon Masterpiece Defined a Generation Chris Turner
It's more or less what the title says. That is an argument that the last 30 years of pop culture zeitgeist resonate most clearly through the satirical language of this goofy little cartoon. Turner covers a lot of ground and I find myself in agreement with his take on just about everything from punk rock to indie films to rave culture to Ultima to bungee jumping. But then, he's a white male exactly my age so... what are the odds.

The Lost German Slave Girl : The Extraordinary True Story of the Slave Sally Miller and Her Fight for Freedom John Bailey
Nearly novelized story of Sally Muller, a young German immigrant who was separated from her family only to be found years later by a relative horrified to discover that she had become a slave. The legal battle for her freedom reveals a great deal about the complexities of race and slavery in 1840s New Orleans. While the subject is intriguing, the dramatization is a bit much. Bailey admits that he hit upon this project while being nearly bored to death by his research for a much denser work on slave law. He seems to have overcompensated.
Book reviewed by others here.

Bad Blogger's penance Take 3

Ok so I promised to get a bunch of fun stuff up here like yesterday and it's still not up. It's coming, I promise. But for now, just know two things.

1) Tomorrow is my birthday which means I may be too hungover to look at a computer screen for much of the weekend.

2) We have the new Harry Potter at our library right now and you can't have it yet. I personally couldn't give a snitch about Harry Potter but it certainly is fun to lord it over someone who might.

Futile note to public no. 890

Please, for the love of God, stop tugging violently on the locked door which is clearly marked "use other door" and which sports a large red arrow indicating the appropriate door to use. Your repeated assaults threaten to shift the building off its foundation.

OK so we're back on the air.. I think

As usual with the extended hiatus has come a considerable backlog of crap to get to including the latest tenement tales, some booknotes, auto trouble, and a restaurant review. Probably won't get to that stuff until tonight though. In the meantime, this promises to be another busy work day. I'll try and pop in when I can. I miss you blog people, really I do.

Will Update Soon

Still getting my bearings after this morning's wild animal attack. Details to come.