New Orleans is Now Closed

Thanks to Hurricane Katrina, everyone must leave New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS - The governor of Louisiana says everyone needs to leave New Orleans due to flooding from Hurricane Katrina. "We've sent buses in. We will be either loading them by boat, helicopter, anything that is necessary," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. Army engineers trying to plug New Orleans' breached levees struggled to move giant sandbags and concrete barriers into place, and the governor said Wednesday the situation was growing more desperate and there was no choice but to abandon the flooded city.
"The challenge is an engineering nightmare," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
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A helicopter view of the devastation over Louisiana and Mississippi revealed people standing on black rooftops, baking in the sunshine while waiting for rescue boats.
..."Oh my God, it was hell," said Kioka Williams, who had to hack through the ceiling of the beauty shop where she worked as floodwaters rose in New Orleans' low-lying Ninth Ward. "We were screaming, hollering, flashing lights. It was complete chaos."
Looting broke out in some New Orleans neighborhoods, prompting authorities to send more than 70 additional officers and an armed personnel carrier into the city. One police officer was shot in the head by a looter but was expected to recover, authorities said.
A giant new Wal-Mart in New Orleans was looted, and the entire gun collection was taken, The Times-Picayune newspaper reported. "There are gangs of armed men in the city moving around the city," said Ebbert, the city's homeland security chief. Also, looters tried to break into Children's Hospital, the governor's office said.
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T-shirt

Tom said, in response to this post

Only thing worse to overhear during
a strangers coughing fit is
"I should get the TB results tomorrow..."

Which reminds me of the days when I worked at Children's Hospital Reseach Foundation. Early each morning, this elderly janitor would go around each floor of the building, emptying wastepaper baskets. I could track his progress by the sound of his wet, hacking, gargling cough; it could have been used as a sound effect for a Dickens movie.

Each morning, when he'd stop by my workstation, I'd say, "You really ought to get that thing checked out. It sounds really bad, like maybe it's TB."

He'd say, "Nah, it ain't nothin' but allergies."

Then he'd hobble off, muttering to himself between coughing sessions, and spitting blood into his handkerchief. I'd take my surgical mask off, and wonder who I should report him to. Then I'd get too busy to worry about anything as simple as public health concerns, and spend three hours arguing with my then-advisor about how little time I was spending at work (about 16-18 hours a day).

The Joke Everybody Likes

I'm so horny and lonely these days that I drive up and down the streets, yelling out the car window: "Fuck me. Fuck me! FUCK ME!"

And since this is Chicago, people shout back, "Yeah, buddy, FUCK YOU!"

The Joke No One Likes

A guy walks into his psychiatrists office and says, "I keep thinking of killing myself, but I'm so incredibly phobic. I'm afraid of guns, knives, heights, being crushed, needles, poison, deep water, shallow water, and fire."

The psychiatrist thinks about this for a minute, and says, "Well, you like cats, don't you?"

It was something I was going to eat

Had a very weird, very intense series of dreams last night, which couldn't have been caused by anything I ate, since I'd only had a banana and some milk for dinner. The dreams culminated in a very strange series of images "designed by British comedians to be as horrifying as possible": news presenters wearing gas masks, penguins driving penny farthing bicycles, and a "washing machine with a cartoon face and accordion tubing legs screaming 'I am giving birth' in the voice of Michael Palin." It was like a bad trip without the drugs.

Things you don't want to hear from an elevator co-passenger

"...I've tried everything, Immodium A-D, Kaopectate, everything. None of it seems to work."

And then you ride up seventeen floors on the far side of the car from this person.

Brio

Dinner with Eric and Susan last night, preceded by a tour of the furniture porn available at Easton, and concluded with dessert porn.

Supposedly, people who do lots of yoga don't gain as much weight, partially due to the exercise, but also because of the increased sensitivity to the way their body feels before and after eating. It's certainly true that I couldn't sleep for hours afterwords, and kept waking up with bad food karma.

Lucky for me, I didn't buy a new sofa, or I'd have had furniture chasing me in my dreams that night.

The Good Old Days

"Beth Orton has a Best Of album?" said the college-aged cashier at Borders. "How can that be? I feel so old."



Listening to - Beth Orton Pass in Time

I've got "Pedestal" and "Where do I Begin?" on infinite repeat right now.