Same old, same 'ol...

We went bowling Friday night. Lanes were in northern Baton Rouge, so we didn't have to venture into the no man's land created by the refugees. The alley was very nice. Fully electronic, clean, well maintained. We bought two hours, found balls and started bowling. After about an hour, a group of late-teen refugees was placed on the lane next to us. These idiots were all over everything like they were filming a lousy rap video. Walking in front of other bolwers, no etiquette for when to bowl, bitching because they had to wait until our balls returned after we used them so they could use them because they were either too stupid or too lazy to realize that there were other balls available to use.

Even with that, it was still fun, and nice to get out of the hotel room. But the only thing I keep thinking to myself is, "I'm glad we bought out in the country."

People watching in Gonzales, LA

Sitting on a bench outside the Tanger outlet mall watching the locals pass the time before they head to the LSU game this evening. (The line on the game is LSU by 43-45 points, with an over/under of 50.5. With those odds, I'd take Texas.)

Anyway, interesting things rolling and wandering around this particular parking lot: I saw a 4door SRT-10 Ram. Pretty cool. Lots of $300 cars with $4000 worth of wheels and tires. And of course, several rolling stereos vibrating their license plates like they were ghetto-rattle snakes.

Reason we're here, beyond the time waste factor is, we netted out about $520 ahead after a couple hours playing blackjack and PaiGow Poker at the Argosy casino this morning. So, the girls are getting some new church clothes with a little of the winnings. Plus the weather is great. 75 degrees and bright sun. Very nice.

Update: Game final was LSU 56, NTS 3. Covered the spread and the over. That is why I play poker.

Into the spirit of things...

A bit more purple and gold...

I Think I'm Going to like it Here.

Went to the Slaughter Fire Dept./Police Dept./Town Hall to see about the water and gas services for the new house. The clerk told us it was a 100 dollar deposit for each, but since the workers had gone home for the day, she could have it turned on first thing in the morning. We said we weren't closing for over a week and the clerk looked a bit confused as to why we were bothering to show up this early. She said if we got there the morning we needed the services turned on, she'd send the guys out immediately. But they only work until 3:30.

I think I can live with that.

New England, this ain't.

Thank God.

No wonder...

Would it be too much to ask that the people in this hotel pick up after themselves just a little? The floor in the dining area of the hotel might as well be a movie theatre. Yuk.

Excellent article on the state of Life in the USA Today

The latest take on the US abortion debate. (And a succinct description of the thought process that never allowed me to ever want children of my own. It's not a 'choice' I ever wanted to be in the position to make.)

Click Here.

They take their college football SERIOUSLY down here.

I saw this at a construction site while driving around this morning.



Geaux Tigers! (Kinda has a slightly different meaning when viewing this picture, no?)

Better...

Hit the Shoney's next to the waffle house this morning. Pretty good. Full buffet for $9.03 before tip. Best so far.

It's terrorism, damnit!

They're coming for the beautiful people now. Maybe the left will rethink the war on terror?

Fake BoTox sickens many.

Learn new words with the NASCAR announcers...

"Grinded"

As in, "They grinded the track surface."

Nice.

OK.

I really DGAF about USC/ND. NBC! Get to the NASCAR race already damnit!!

My car...

Had never spent a night out of the garage in the 2.5 years I owned it.

Until I got here.

Now it's been outside through two hurricanes and the BUMP.

Sheesh.

New Tropical depression in the Carribbean..

Oy.....

David Duke is smiling today.

A protest against a Neo-Nazi rally turned into a riot in Toledo, Ohio today.

By the way, (If you couldn't have guessed,)It wasn't the Neo-Nazi's rioting. The only people destroying stuff were the people who owned it.

I wonder if they have Heineken in Toledo?

Must be W's fault. He hates people who like Heineken, ya know.

Attention LSU fans...

I'm turning the game off. This is starting to look similar. It may be me.

There's a fine art to micro-waving popcorn in a hotel room

The microwaves in this hotel are adequate, but tiny. There is not enough room for a full-sized bag of popcorn to rotate so there is some burning no matter what you do. The key to not evacuating the hotel with a false smoke alarm is to have the bathroon fan running. Then, as soon as the popcorn is done, carry it into the bathroom and open the bag right under the fan inlet so the smoke is removed before it can get into the room.

Yahoo.

Another LSU Home Game this afternoon.

Should be getting underway shortly. (Tradesports is showing LSU to win trading around 68%.)

I saw quite a few decked out cars and trucks this morning heading for the tailgate parties. (That was at about 8am mind you.) Several of the people at the Waffle House were decked out in full team regalia as well.

One comment: LSU needs to start pushing the purple clothing rather than the gold. There is already a LOT of gold out there. (As witnessed in the pictures I posted earlier.) And the purple really is an excellent color.

Breakfast

Meh.

Iffy at best. Bacon was tasty, but cool. Eggs were OK and the waffle was a waffle. $7.05 w/coffee before tip.

This area is screaming for a Denny's.

The Waffle House

Not a bad drive. Cash only though. Had to use the ATM at the store. $2.50 lesson that you have to carry cash down here. Oh well. The place is busy so I hope the food's decent.

We'll see if I'll be back.

Still waiting...

These 'people' are something else. It's now 0725 and no one has stopped by to check on the derelict load I put back in the washing machine. Must be a nice place to live when you are unemployed, your kids don't go to school, and you can afford to assume that everyone else is a societal leech as well.

Even more disgusting.

I just cleaned out the dryer. Some jackass washed something with a pocket full of used sunflower seed husks. Yuk.

So, now it's about 0625 and I've returned from hanging my shirts to dry to guard the dryer for another hour or so in case the inconsiderate drones who didn't feel the need finish their laundry last night show and can't figure out how my clothes got in the dryer ahead of theirs,

Christ these people don't think.

Saturday 0545, Sitting in the hotel laundry room

I'm starting to hate these 'poor, unfortunate souls' who are here on effectively MY dime. I used to be able to do my one load of laundry early on Saturday and there would be no problems.

Now I get down here at 0530 and the is a load of clothes in the washer but the dryer is empty. That means that one of these families started the load of clothes I saw on the floor at about 1900 yesterday and didn't feel like checking it in 30 minutes to put it in the dryer.

So, I gently removed their clothes and piled them on the dryer so I could wash my stuff. Now I'm guarding it all because these inconsiderate morons will mess up your laundry if you don't allow them to waste everyone's time and take as long as they'd like.

That happened to me last week when some dork opened the dryer door and didn't restart it.

Kinda reminds me of the 'FRIENDS' episode when Ross taught Rachel to do laundry and they almost had to kick some obnoxious lady's ass.

With a few minor differences. This ain't New York, and these people aren't yuppies.

Speaking of that last post,

What other movie sequals could be made now by the original actors?

I can see it now, "Driving the Guy that Drove Miss Daisy", with Chris Rock and Morgan Freeman.

Or how about, "The High-Fiber Breakfast Club."

Maybe, "46 Candles".

This one's a stretch, "Under Green Grass" aka "On Golden Pond: The Revenge".

Let's hear your suggestions.

Let's see. Who's pissing me off this week?

*Urinator of the Moment

*10) Sylvester Stalone. (You're 60 frigging years old for Christ's sake. We don't need Rocky VI THAT badly!)

9) Bob Barker

8) Garth Brooks

7) Gilbert Godfried

6) Fidel Castro

5) Kobe Bryant

4) Mike Tyson

3) O. J. Simpson

2) Scott Peterson

1) Michael Jackson

LSU Football Pictures

A couple Monday's ago, (The same day I found out what 'BUMP' meant down here), I attended the LSU-Tennesee football game. Here are a few pictures from the game. This stadium holds about 90+ thousand people. It was a Monday night, so it wasn't quite full.










Thanks to Shane R. for the ticket and pics.

Lots of changes this week....

*Urinator of the Moment

*10) Brian France, CEO of NASCAR

9) Bob Barker

8) Garth Brooks

7) Gilbert Godfried

6) Fidel Castro

5) Kobe Bryant

4) Mike Tyson

3) O. J. Simpson

2) Scott Peterson

1) Michael Jackson

Autumn in the South

This is the atraction of southern living. The 5 months of the year that the weather is perfect. Late February to mid-May, and again from late September through early December. Dry, 50's at night, 70's & 80's during the day. Light breeze. This is why people stay here.

Somewhat rural down here.

I was driving around this morning wasting time seeing how long a drive it might be from some of the houses I'm shortly going to look at to work and came upon this. The pictures aren't great because I was a bit far away, but that is a herd of about 40 or so cows in the road. They just kinda wandered around and finally ran off and headed down the driveway toward one of the houses I'm going to look at.

At least we'll have a decent supply of beef.

I don't care who you are, that's funny...

The Discovery Health Channel has a show called, "Plastic Surgery: Before and After." It's pretty much self explanatory. The funny part is the narrator is the same guy that does the "Biker Build-off" series.

I keep waiting for these people to go in for a stomach staple and the doctor removes a radical chopper from their ass.

Coincidence? I think not.

Here it is:

Boy George


John Wayne Gacy

Say it ain't so.

Brian France, CEO of NASCAR will be on 60 minutes tomorrow. And, as with anything on CBS, nothing good can come of it.

France complains that he doesn't like fans flying the Confederate Flag at races because he's trying to make the sport more popular to minorities and women.

O-----Kay.

I hope all the fans for the remainder of the year will fly nothing BUT the rebel colors at all the races.

I've watched 99% of all the NASCAR races for the last ten or so years, but if this idiot goes this far into PC stupidity, I'm outa here.

It's bad enough that he's emasculating the drivers and forcing them to effectively kiss and make up on the track, but now he's trying to make the fans metro-sexuals too?

Let me say that the average upwardly mobile black family is NOT going to be seen ot a NASCAR race. Not because of the implied racism of the fans, but because they have better things to do. Where are all the minority drivers and crew chiefs you idiot? You already paid off Jesse Jackson's rainbow coalition because you're a pussy. Is this the next step in kow-towing to the racial demagogues?

NASCAR has effectively become an IROC style series for cars with competing stickers. It might as well be called American Rice because the only thing that makes any of these cars different IS the stickers. Just a bunch of punks running around under the thumb of a moron.

Screw you guys. I'm going home.

I knew better...

I figured I'd try to get some breakfast today. I found the nearest cracker barrel in Baton Rouge and here I am. I knew it would be packed but this is ridiculous. The food better be decent.

Update:

The food was very good, but the traffic SUCKED. That's the last time I go into Baton Rouge for awhile.

Some people are pretty darned stupid...

We just had to cancel the contract on the house we ere trying to buy down here. The appraisal wasn't even close to what we had agreed to pay and the owner wouldn't accept the appraised value.

I can't wait until the next person trys to buy that property and not only won't pay more than the appraisal, but will also make the silly bitch fix all the problems that showed up in the inspection. I was going to fix a lot of the issues myself to get to know the house, but most people are not me.

Oh well. There's a reason for everything. I'll find a better one for less money tomorrow.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Fred Reed:

Click here.

PC Commies at The Discovery Channel

The Discovery Channel was advertising some sort of hurricane/Louisiana related disaster analysis show last night during Dirty Jobs. The video they were showing depicted the ruined slums, (I mean neighborhoods,) with minorities weeping and aimlessly wandering around in the mess.

What caught my attention was the choice of audio tracks that was laid over the video. It was Jimmi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" which, while being a great example of early rock and roll, is about breaking out of a prison.

Is The Discovery Channel actually proposing that the people living in New Orleans were being forcibly held there against their will by the evil republican overlords stationed along the levees with guns ready to shoot on sight?

In today's world, and given the lame TDC response to the writings of one of the hosts of another of their shows, (A british fop who hosts a show about exotic cars wrote in a London paper after the first hurricane that obviously, since americans elected W he was not surprised that there were helicopter gunships blasting civilians in New Orleans and the country deserved what it got as we are not as cultured as he thinks he is.), they probably are.

Pre-emptive strike for this weekend. New UOM

*Urinator of the Moment

*10) Ashlee Simpson (She's on Saturday Night Live A-FREAKIN'-GAIN this weekend.)

9) Bob Barker

8) Garth Brooks

7) Gilbert Godfried

6) Fidel Castro

5) Kobe Bryant

4) Mike Tyson

3) O. J. Simpson

2) Scott Peterson

1) Michael Jackson

Dale Jarrett does not need to be driving THIS truck.

This is a UPS tracking summary for a tiny electrical part that was ordered on August 25, 2005. Four days prior to the first hurricane making landfall.

I've inverted the order to make it easier to read.

August 25, 2005
8:17PM Fort Worth, TX Origin Scan
8:48PM US Billing Information Received
9:51PM Fort Worth, TX Departure Scan
10:51PM Mesquite, TX Arrival Scan

August 26, 2005
5:09AM Mesquite, TX Departure Scan
1:59PM Jackson, MS Arrival Scan
2:55PM Jackson, MS Departure Scan
6:25PM NEW ORLEANS, LA Arrival Scan

We interrupt this delivery to bring you the never-ending entertainment provided by the Louisiana and feddle gummints as they trip over themselves to pander to uninsured minorities while hating them.

August 29, 2005
2:00AM Jackson, MS A Natural Disaster Caused This Delay
2:00AM Jackson, MS Adverse Weather Conditions Caused This Delay
2:00AM Jackson, MS Adverse Weather Conditions Caused This Delay

After a shrimp boat re-supplying an oil rig snagged the package out of the Gulf of Mexico, we now return you to your regularly scheduled delivery.

September 20, 2005
3:08PM Mesquite, TX Arrival Scan
11:12PM Mesquite, TX Departure Scan

We interrupt this delivery for yet another hurricane related splash-down. This time, the roads are so clogged with nerds escaping from exploding tour-busses that we can't leave the terminal.

September 29, 2005
7:30PM Arlington, TX Departure Scan
7:57PM Fort Worth, TX Arrival Scan
10:00PM Fort Worth, TX Adverse Weather Conditions Caused This Delay
10:15PM Fort Worth, TX Adverse Weather Conditions Caused This Delay

We now return you to your regularly scheduled delivery.

September 30, 2005
11:42AM Fort Worth, TX Departure Scan
7:26PM Jackson, MS Arrival Scan

October 3, 2005
2:15AM Jackson, MS Departure Scan
6:09AM Baton Rouge, LA Arrival Scan
7:27AM Baton Rouge, LA Out For Delivery
12:08PM Baton Rouge, LA ALL MERCHANDISE DISCARDED. UPS WILL NOTIFY THE SENDER WITH DETAILS OF THE DAMAGE.

After all that, we decided you didn't really want the package in the first place. Good luck sucka!!

(I may have added the italics, but everything else is right off the UPS site.)

Cute, huh? The funny part is the package was actually delivered and in good shape on 10/3. Not sure why they said it was trashed.

Mental note: Check the weather when placing orderes for delivery to the gulf states.

Thanks again to Tom H.

Time for something completely different.

Got an interesting case study developing and I need to think about how I can approach it. Going to be touchy but could be big if it works.

I need a beer to think this over, over.

The Body is falling apart.

I saw former Minnesota governor on TV last night. I think he's lost his mind. He's got what's left of his hair dyed jet black and has his goatee braided into two threads that are at least five inches long.

What's he trying to do? Land a gig as the lead singer of Anthrax?

Sheesh.

Next test

Testing, 1, 2, 3.

New test of the new phone.

This new phone rocks!

Jimmie Johnson is a tool.

That is all.

Update: Heh. Karma's a bitch, ain't it you punk.

That was interesting.

I just went for a bit of a drive this morning. I figured I couldn't just sit in the hotel room for another entire day so I found the nearest Hardees, mapped it out and headed west. The restaurant is in New Iberia, LA. About 90 miles from here. West on I10 and South on LA 90. I was amazed that the road was as good as it is. I guess mild winters and effectively no ground frost make for decent highway stability. I was also amazed by the bridge(s). There was one stretch that had to be about 20 miles long where I10 runs through a swamp. The roadway is elevated about 20 feet above the water on pilings for the entire stretch.

I saw a Steven's Transport rig and trailer on my way back but I couldn't tell if it was my father-in-law.

The restaurant was pretty old and a bit drab, but the food was hot and fresh so it was worth it.

Now I'm back to watch the fall Taladega race on TV. Yippee. What a life.

The Original Gangster

Two questions.

First: Why is it only know as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, not just the Valentine's Day Massacre. I guess we weren't so secular in 1926 and it stuck.

Second: Was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in effect to Al Capone, what 9/11 was to Osama Bin Laden? The overkill watershed event that turned public opinion sour and allowed the feds to take drastic measures to disrupt the organization behind the madness.

Something else I've been wondering...

What is the appropriate etiquette for shaking hands with a right-hand amputee? This happened to me once. He put out his left hand and it took me a minute to figure out why and it was a bit awkward. I guess, you just need to be really quick on the uptake to figure out which hand to use and make it look seamless.

I wonder if there is a National Association of Ambulance Chasers?

Last evening I saw an ad on TV for James Sokolove. The ad was hustling for people who may have drunk Perrier during the late '80's and might have Acute Myelogenous Leukemia. (Actually he was looking for people who might have worked with Benzene, but I was close enough.)

I've seen this guy's ads in just about every state in which I've resided. C'Mon buddy, give the small town hucksters a chance!

October first

Wow. Where does the time go. I've been at my new job for over a month now. We're nearing closing on our new house and finally pulling this thing together. Soon the holidays will arrive and 2005 will be a memory. This will probably be the year of my life that, to this point, included the most significant and complicated changes. It will be nice to get back down to earth.