Friday, August 29, 2008

Panic City

Damn, this area is jittery today, the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Gustav is forecast to make landfall Tuesday morning down on The Bayou (Bayou Lafourche), in Cajun Boy's territory, yet I had difficulty buying gas this morning in Slidell, which is far removed from there. I don't know why, but that really cheesed me. I think it was just icing on the cake of overkill broadcasting, premature evacuations, and and a general sense of panic. Anyway, I was yelling, slamming my fist on the horn, and punching the steering wheel whenever I encountered the usual rush-hour frustration on the way into work this morning. I rarely get worked up like that.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Here we go again


Well, this certainly sucks out loud. Fortunately, I reserved a room in Memphis just in case we feel compelled to evacuate. Maybe we'll go to Graceland or something.

Monday, August 25, 2008

The Moviegoers

DW and I had an opportunity to play Politeness Man yesterday at the local cineplex, during a viewing of the movie about another superhero, Bat Man. Perhaps 30 minutes into the film, the ball cap-wearing philistine two seats over received, and responded to, a text message, shining his cell screen and making clicky noises. I said nothing, assuming that a theater employee would catch him next time around. After all, this theater previously had been a tad militant about its no-cell policy.

Sadly, the theater appears to have accepted the cellular decline of Western civilization, and such militant enforcement is no longer the case. With about 15 or 20 minutes left in the film, the cap-wearing philistine Cellular Man received a telephone call and began to engage in a conversation, no doubt concerning the purchase of whatever controlled substance he planned to use after the movie. "Get off the phone!" I shouted at him, to no avail. DW went to the lobby to summon help from theater employees, who were milling about, no doubt daydreaming about what they would do with that oily gunk to which the motion picture industry refers as "butter." I can only imagine the depraved horrors that go on in that den of celluloid atrocities. John Waters might learn a thing or two from the gunky daydreams I imagine these folks were having. I'm just saying.

Oh yes, back to our story. DW returned with a theater employee, who sat next to the cell phone scofflaw, spoke with him for a few seconds, then got up and left. Cellular Man and his wife placed their feet on their knees and refused to allow DW to pass through to her seat (one gets the feeling that these vile people have done this before). I looked underneath DW's seat and could not ascertain whether she had taken her purse with her, or I would have gathered her up and left the premises. I also worked through the mental calculations of whether it would be worth it to engage in a brawl inside the cineplex. Just then, DW summoned a theater employee, who returned with her, told the Cellular People to allow DW through, then disappeared instantaneously. Cellular Woman let her through, but Cellular Man attempted to trip her before letting her pass. A negligence action against the theater might have been an interesting prospect had DW fallen, but I'm glad she made it back to her seat. As the credits rolled, I shouted, "leave your damn phone home, next time, [expletive deleted]!" This all happened in a half-full theater, and nobody else had a thing to say about it. The Cellular People verbally accosted us in the lobby. DW made a point of loudly telling Cellular Woman not to try and intimidate her, which had the effect of shooing them of. The management provided us with movie passes, and I fired off an irate e-mail to corporate headquarters when we arrived home.

I think that if the cell-phone prohibition is dropped, then I should be allowed to blurt out snarky remarks and spoilers during movies. That is how some people used to watch movies in New Orleans, after all, which could make bad movies very fun.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

On the Rollercoaster


Fortuna's wheel spun low this week for your humble correspondent. Mixing metaphors, I took a steep dive on my emotional rollercoaster, into a significant depressive episode that lasted pretty much all week. Mixing metaphors again, I'm mired in a swampy personal situation in which there is no good outcome, and that was on my mind much of the week. Also, my boys are having a hard time with the beginning of the school year, and that also was on my mind. Yesterday, I had a scorching headache all day long that only got worse whenever I had to read or focus on my computer screen. Pretty much all I do on my job is read and focus on my computer screen, and my head was hurting so bad at one point that my eyes starting watering. Once I got home and watched television for a while, the headache pretty much went away.

On a more positive note, I'm taking this weekend completely off. I haven't done this since early June, as I've either been working, running around town with the kids, or addressing issues raised by my mother's death. None of that this weekend. I may go see Tropic Thunder today, I haven't decided. If the weather were nicer, I'd think about putting my kayak into the water.

A puddle of congratulations to Gentle Readers and parents-to-be Bill and Karen, who moved to New York City this past week for a taxation LLM program at NYU. Living in New York is among the many things I wished I had done way back when. I had thought of referring those two to Gentle Reader The Cajun Boy for tips on living in New York as an outsider and getting invited to A-list parties with other witty, urbane hipsters, but living there as an expatriate Utahn has got to be very different from living there as an expatriate Louisianian.

Oh yeah, the rollercoaster in the photograph is the late, great Texas Cyclone from Astroworld. That was a very fast coaster, and it was made even more fun when you walked underneath it while standing in line and could see loose slats of wood hanging in the breeze. DW smacked me with an umbrella when the guard-bar on our car wouldn't open and I said we would just have to go again.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

There's No Place Like Home Depot

T likes his tool belt. A likes the new piano.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

You can do it. We can help.


Home Depot Honors Fallen Soldiers With Great Prices On Tools
Hats off to The Onion. This is the tackiest thing I've seen in a long time.

Sunday, August 03, 2008