Friday, March 28, 2008

Repectfully...

With FEMA working toward a goal of relocating all those residents by summer, the city deadline would target people who simply don't want to leave or are living in trailers illegally, Head said. She estimated that as much as 30 percent of the city's trailer stock currently is being rented, a violation of federal law, or occupied by squatters.

"At what point are we going to say New Orleans is not a place where you can live in a trailer as a lifestyle choice?" she said.


Ms. Head, please understand my good intentions when I respectfully and contemplatively say, "Fuck you and your 'lifestyle' with a broomstick, sideways."

Yet another politician that I somewhat liked who has fully lived up to their bastard potential.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Probable penultimate article this Saturday.

That is all.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

A place like New Orleans.

This article confirms what I've already thought; Hawaii has a lot in common with Louisiana. A place started by a foreign people who were later occupied by the Americans, who incidentally don't understand their idiosyncrasies.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Supremely Wrong




Testing out their new box of crayons, the US Supremes have propounded another steaming pile. For the record, the opinion is insane. There are but a precious few citations to case law. The rest is rank speculation of the prosecutor's "intent" and the trial court's rationale. This opinion would make an F in a writing class in law school. The majority even goes as far as saying that the juror in question "could have made up the class time with one or two hours a week" because it was "early in the fall semester." Apparently Alito, J. did a brief stint at the SUNO education school. I shudder to think what this means...do we have to second guess every voir dire challenge for cause? Hey, who cares if it isn't in the record? We all just *know* how it goes.

Unmitigated bullshit. The "biased practice" that went on in Snyder happens every day in every state.

But the nola.com commenters should keep talking about white jurors and black defendants and backwards-as-hell JP. You know, it would have made far more sense for the opinion to have been, "Dude, it's fucking JP. C'mon!"

What's more troubling that the only two Js that agreed with me are Scalia and Mini-Scalia. I guess a broken clock is right twice a day.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

"That's so...Kansas City."

From an unusually good slice-of-New-Orleans-life post on The Gambit's blog. Honestly, this piece is "Confederacy of Dunces" good. Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.

There is a certain flavor of bizarre situation that I like to think is only served up in New Orleans: A box of crawfish sits outside a bar with numbers written on their backs in white-out so that the patrons of the bar could while away the previous night betting on crawfish races. The staff at a gas station on Esplanade gets a fancy LED light sign to announce deals on cigarettes and whatnot only to realize that they don’t know how to program the thing and resign themselves to the test message that the guy who installed it (apparently named Mike) programmed in: “MIKE”, it flashed, “MIKE, MIKE, MIKE”. Nagin laughs as he points an M4 rifle at police superintendent Warren Riley.

This is the stuff that we tell each other over beers, the hilarious antics of the city that keeps us going despite all the sadness we endure, the bureaucratic bs we’ve come to be familiar with, the violence we feel threatened by and all the other crappy things about living here that I know I don’t need to remind people of. I mean sure, there’s the music, there’s the food, there’s the parades, there’s the stuff you see in guide books, but the real character is so much deeper than that, and it wells up at unexpected moments on random street corners. It reaches out of unexpected places, like the wild excitement in an old man’s eyes, like the absurd mirror you turn on yourself when driving around mid-city looking for Guinea Pig food.

And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this stuff happens other places. Maybe right now someone’s finding a terrarium full of ferrets on the street and going, “Golly, isn’t that just so, so…Kansas City?” Hmm, it could be, but I don’t think so.


Reminds me of the time I was coming to work and this harried looking young black guy approaches me. I, my experience being what it is, got a little apprehensive at the focus and speed with which he was coming. As he gets about 10 feet away, he pulls out a tie and asks me if I know how to tie one. Turns out he's got an interview in five minutes, probably at a nearby restaurant, but doesn't know how to tie a necktie. Seeing me, dressed in business casual wear appropriate to this office, he figured I did. So, I put it on myself and tie it and give it back. He says thanks, and walks off to his interview. I go into the office. Again, maybe this stuff does happen other places, but I doubt it too.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Why C Ray is a piece of shit.

Speaking about the plodding nature of the recovery, Mayor Ray Nagin vented his own frustration Wednesday during an interview with The Washington Times.

"This is the toughest thing I've ever done in my life. I'm ready for another chapter. I need a break," Nagin said, according to the newspaper.

Uh huh. So do I. Too bad I don't have time off of work to go to Jamaica.

Remember all that race-bating and divisiveness you used to get re-elected? Ray, you don't get the luxury of "a break." You asked for this. You chose a job in a leadership position. That means you have to put the needs of your constituents, who don't have mayoral resources, as a priority. You don't get to complain about how "hard" it is. We fucking know because we fucking live it every day. You are supposed to provide answers, not commiseration because you can't do any better either.

FFS, grow a pair and fucking *lead* already.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Mini Love

This makes me happy and sad. Happy that we own a Mini S, as featured in the video, but sad that we don't own it in Germany.



I could literally sit here and listen to just the audio all day. It can't help but make you smile. Nothing like that little supercharged engine opened up all the way.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The 'burbs.

It's so safe on the Northshore, not like in New Orleans with all those crimes (and darkies).

Uh huh. Right. Whatever.

From my experience at the Court, it seems that while you're more likely to get shot in "The City," you're more likely to get molested by your meth-using stepfather in St. Tammany.

Not sure where that came from...just another peeve. Better-than-thou Northshorers talking about how "safe" their zero-lot-line subdivisions are.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Brief update.

Answers to an email from the author of our newspaper articles requesting a status report:

We have a fully functional bathroom absent a door, the floors were re-polyurethaned wonderfully well, and the fourth contractor is doing the last bit of touch ups and shoe molding. As expected, the trim work is costing more than we expected. While they have messed some things up, I do have to say they've been very willing to fix it. We will, however, be glad to have everybody out of the house. The Beeb may miss the guys as she likes them, and they like her.

Charlie is still "in the wind" and we are finding new screw-ups daily.

We found out from our lawyer (eventually) that CMC's insurance company will only cover the damage, not the shoddy work. For that, we'd have to go after CMC. Their number is now disconnected. This would also likely be the case against Charlie, and good luck collecting from him.

We went to New Iberia to pick up a couch, table, and some boxes of stuff. It was kind of nice having an empty house, uncluttered by stuff. :) Still waiting on the cabinets we ordered a couple weeks ago. May have a line on countertops, but haven't decided if we want to go "green" (ironic, because it takes a lot of it to be it) or stick with granite. Still not sure who is going to install the appliances (at least the non-electrical aspects of it).

Last night we sat on the couch, and watched TV while Beeb slept at our feet. It was almost normal, but for the lack of curtains and blinds. :)

Of course it would turn out the stuff we want to move back in first is at the back of the storage unit. :)

Folks coming up this week hopefully to help with little bits of paint touch up, and more furnture as the weather and my truck permit.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Wow, I'm smrt.

blog readability test

Spring showers

Well, we've got a shower and a tub now. Shower door got measured today and should be in in a couple of weeks.

The floors are done, so the final stages of trim work are set to restart on Monday. Once that's done, the only thing we'll have left to do in the house will be the kitchen. That is going to be a nightmare, I imagine, because of the way dumbfuck Charlie laid out the pipes behind the stove. However, we'll at least have furniture to sit on while we look at a half-finished kitchen. Countertops are still being researched. Preliminary findings are that they are going to cost a lot of "money."

This weekend we're going to go pick up some furniture from storage (in New Orleans and New Iberia) and put it in the house. We've ordered a bed online, and it should be in next tuesday. I'll believe furniture when I see it in the house. Now, if the current contractor can avoid more damage to the floors (than they've done already, mostly by sloppy painting) we'll be in bidness.

Also, just got off the phone with the lawyer in our suit against the first contractor. Turns out the general liability policy doesn't covery shoddy workmanship of the insured. This has been upheld by Louisiana appellate courts. As a result, we have to recover from the contractor directly. As it happens, their phone number is "disconnected or is no longer in service."

Fuck you, contracting industry.