Dislocation

I just received word from my mother that my cousin and her family no longer have a home in New Orleans.

I guess that's not 100% accurate. Technically, they still own their home near Lake Pontchartrain, only now it's under 20 feet of water.

My cousin, her husband and three children evacuated to Shreveport, but they are unsure what they'll do next. The short term plan is to move with the kids back to my aunt's house in Kansas so that the kids can get enrolled in school. They haven't decided whether to try to return to The Big Easy, or just relocate permanently somewhere else.

Obviously they are happy to be alive -- others weren't so lucky. But it is devastating to lose nearly all your worldly possessions.

Hopes and prayers to them and the thousands of others affected by Katrina. If the spirit moves you, you can donate a few bucks to the American Red Cross Hurricane Relief fund.

The Amelie game

One of my fav foreign films (foreign to me, that is, not to the French) is Amelie. If you’ve ever seen the movie, or listened to The Delta Park Project, you know about the lists of likes and dislikes that the main character (coincidentally enough named Amelie) makes throughout the movie.

Well, here’s my list for today:

Things I Like

1. Vino Nobile
   
2. Loose Park
   
3. football season

Things I Dislike

1. Monday morning
   
2. coffee from the office machine
   
3. open-mouth chewing

Okay, that’s my list from today. Add your own lists of likes/dislikes (three each per day) in the comments section.

He was a man

Okay, I don’t want to come across as some kind of hater. I believe in basic human respect for all individuals. That said, what the hell is up with all of the Peter Jennings retrospectives?

It was bad enough when Channel 12 interrupted my nightly fix of Seinfeld reruns to do an hour-long death announcement and remembrance when Jennings died earlier this week. Then for the next two days it was one of the top stories in newspapers, TV and radio. Even as late as yesterday, one of the major networks (they’re all the same, really) was doing a prime time “Peter Jennings was a hero” special.

Again, I’ve got no personal issues with Jennings. As far as I know he was kind to his kids and didn't beat his wife. I wouldn’t wish lung cancer on anyone, and any loss of human life is a tragedy. And that’s kind of the point. What makes Peter Jennings more important, more of a loss, more deserving of a week of prime-time coverage, than, say, any of the dead soldiers in Iraq?

My theory is that “The Media” are the only ones who really care about Jennings’ death – at least to the point of the blanket coverage that it has received. I think that other “journalists” are professionally obligated to make a big deal out of this for the sole purpose of adding more importance to their jobs than they deserve. I mean, let’s be clear, Jennings read a teleprompter. Sure, he spent some time in the field, told stories, asked a few questions. But did he really contribute to humanity to an extent that would justify all of the death coverage?

Did he invent a cure for polio? Did he decipher the laws of relativity? Did he contribute to peace in our time? Did he even hit 60 home runs in a season?

The only reason he’s getting the coverage is because of his pseudo-celebrity. In my book, that puts him just a couple of steps up from Paris Hilton or Donald Trump. Come to think of it, Trump actually creates jobs for people (of course, he also fires them).

So to paraphrase the Bard, Jennings was a man, take him for all in all, and is deserving of respect for that. But he wasn’t the American hero that his colleagues are trying to make him.

Getting Kristine caught up

From her post on the preceding entry, Kristine seems to need a little help getting caught up. It's not an indictment of her, it happens to the best of us. She's a victim of the "Birth of Black Jesus" phenomenon, which is illustrated in the following chart:



So, in the interest of public service, here are a few more words/phrases Kristine might want to avoid. Please add your entries in the comments. Working together, we can all avoid the embarrassment of sounding like an aging hipster.

"metrosexual"

"voted off the island"

"all that"

"don't go there"

anything with "izzle" in it

"where's the beef"

"you are the Weakest Link"

Highlights of My Day

1. Passed the dutchie on the left hand side
2. LMAO at this
3. Ordered a dopio espresso from Starbucks, paid with my immortal soul
4. Got really pissed off at that guy in the next cube who chews with his mouth open
5. Remembered how funny the word "ani" is
6. Decided that guy in the cube next to me isn’t such a bad guy. But damn that chewing!
7. Totally "phoned it in" at work today
8. Drew funny pictures of coworkers (at lease I thought they were funny)
9. Started a list of outdated catch phrases. It's "the bomb"
10. Made light of someone else's misfortune. Became victim of instant karma.

NOTE:
This post is an homage to Brian in Chicago. Nice work. Really top notch.