Tuesday is Fat but New Orleans isn’t

While the network news folk are going to show us grim views of the mostly abandoned sections of New Orleans, perhaps contrasting that with the partygoers on Bourbon Street, the network may not show the people that have already come to the realization that most of New Orleans is a lost cause and in more ways than one. There’s always been issues with the ability to keep large portions of the greater New Orleans area from turning back into swampland, but the primary raison d’être were people who wanted to live there. And now, there’s a lot fewer people who want to live there. It basically comes down to the “How can you keep ‘em down in the swamp when they’ve seen anywhere else?” Don’t get me wrong. The parts of New Orleans that are above sea level still has value. Unfortunately, that makes the place a reallllly small town.

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Nobody talked about Neighborhood Warming

Saturday evening, I could hear the roar of jets outside. I dashed to the front yard, and the sound didn’t get much louder. Later I realized that the sound was reflecting off of the houses across the street.

The sound was coming from the roar of a pipeline fire eight miles away.

Taylor and Casey were having friends over to their house, with everyone readying the baby’s room for the joyous arrival of their newborn expected sometime in April. Their neighborhood is the second closest to the explosion, a scant third of a mile from Ground Zero.
[GoogleMap]
If you click on the map link, you can see two pipeline scar tracks running at an angle on the left side of the image. Both of those pipelines are of the large economy sized gas pipelines, running from Texas and up to natural gas locations in the Northeastern US. Somewhere to the northeast of where the pipeline emerges from those trees is the blast location.

Taylor and Casey’s house doesn’t show up on this older satellite image because it’s a newer home, the little subdivision is on the east side of Fry Rd to the right on that Google Map image.

Anyway, they quickly decided that evacuation of the house was in order, so they and the friends they had over loaded up the cars and took the pets (including our dog was also visiting for the day) and headed in our direction. Taylor has a snippet of what went on at her MySpace blog here.

What Taylor added later was a curious anecdote. Being that close to the explosion and resulting fire that easily went 200 feet into the air, everyone came out to look – but all they could see was fire in the sky. Down the street from their house some women were celebrating the explosion. They were doing that “ululate” that Middle Eastern women apparently do when they’re joyous. Apparently, they had concluded that Osama had attacked.

A little bit of surreal nature to the events, no?

They left, and meanwhile I took my camera and headed for the flames. I forgot my phone, one of the biggest mistakes of the day. I never got within two miles of the flames and turned around, getting stuck in a massive traffic jam both ways — going and coming.

I was taking pictures from the car the whole way, but the ones in focus were when I was stopped at a light and four miles off. Here’s a slightly fuzzy one I took from two miles away, right before I turned around

The upshot of the whole explosion was that the 31 inch diameter pipeline was nicked some four hours before the explosion, and while the gas was turned off, the nearby neighborhoods were NOT evacuated. The winds weren’t blowing in their direction, but that’s an awful risk to take, don’t you think?

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HEROES had a couple of great moments, including the unspoken glide in of the murderous Syler as the only thing audible about his approach was the murder in his heart.

All adventure shows should move as quickly as this one.

And the meeting of the comic book geeks — Hiro meets Stan Lee! Perhaps Stan will have a tidbit of wisdom to pass on to Hiro next week.

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Pro-Scrotum?

Children’s Lit got a setback when the word “scrotum” was used instead of “balls”

Librarians have to decide whether they are pro-scrotum or anti-scrotum

I’m rather attached to my scrotum, so I’m in the “Pro” camp.

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Daughtry, the latest American Idol that went big after being booted from the show, has sold nearly two million albums. [Chron.com]

If you haven’t heard the music, there’s a couple of sample sounds in the above link.

Bald is beautiful

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except when it comes to Britney Spears, who resembes a plucked chicken. It’s been amazing to watch her downward spiral.

When Britney decided to shave her own head, she also decided on some new tattoos.

Click the thumbnail pic to view the madness

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Microsoft knows what trick will allow users to install a cheaper (upgrade) version of the new Vista operating system.

Now you do too.

Of course, if you really ARE upgrading instead of installing a clean version, you’re not really saving anything.

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Whatever you say, Jack

3. When Jack asked Mrs. Graeme Bauer to put aside her natural fear of putting her son in danger, she said something to the effect of “Okay Jack.” The rest of the sentence was “Okay Jack, but only because I love your cock so much and wish it was in my mouth right now.”

Why watch 24 when I can get such a great recap? Tequila shots for the soul

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Whatever you say Jack, er Tim…

And finally, a word from George Takei about the homophobic rant made by former NBA basketball star Tim Hardaway…

from the Jimmy Kimmel Live Show,

and George Takei goes pretty much where no man has gone before…