And you thought the Supreme Court was all abortion and free speech:
"The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments beginning at 10 a.m. today in the following cases:
Spector v. Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd., No. 03-1388. Does the Americans With Disabilities Act apply to foreign-flagged cruise ships? (One hour.)"
[Link]
This is a case that no one has been following closely and has implications for literally thousands of foreign flagged cruise ship owners.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Sunday, February 27, 2005
NOLA
Last weekend, R and I went down to New Orleans to visit her cousin. Bourbon street is just as disgusting as I'd remembered it being, but at least this time I wasn't too hungover to go around taking touristy pictures the next day:
Loy la
Sell Your Stuff
Unbeatable Meat
Hand Made, Cooked in Grease, Delicious
Non-functional
Hummers on their way North
Jackson Square
Pat O'Brien's
Jack the Cat
The first picture on the right there is Loyola, missing the "O". After getting picked up from the airport and going immediately to devour po-boy sandwiches at Mandina's, R's cousin A and her husband took us on a drive around town to see some of what there is to see.
We saw some interesting signs as we ventured across a bridge and out to the Rockville Pike of New Orleans to get a drive through margarita. I remarked that this sign suggesting to "Sell Your Stuff" was remarkably close to a casino. At least it cuts straight to the chase, unlike the next sign exclaiming the ferocity of Wagner's meat, that R must have caught a picture of as I don't' remember taking it. Much like every city I've lived in or go to, New Orleans has the same block-to-block good-to-bad feeling. A lot of people make the same comment about every city: That you can go one block one way and be in the richest neighborhood in town or go one block the other way and be in the poorest. I've found that every city is like this, but in varying degrees. New Orleans is right up there with Baltimore in my book (both having severe economic contrast between adjoining neighborhoods). These pictures of dilapidated signs aren't from the worst area that we saw on our way for some barbecue on our second day there. The level of poverty I saw in some neighborhoods was an insane contrast to the gigantic homes along St. Charles Ave.
Our second day visiting started with some Beignets at Café Du Monde, which we ate on the monument at the South end of Jackson Square. While waiting for Beignets I spotted this rusty old chair, which seemed very out of place. While eating our Beignets, we watched a train carrying Hum-Vees and only Hum-Vees go by for about five minutes. There must have been 200 of them. A's husband, who is in the Navy, pointed out that they were headed to Iraq. The general population of the US doesn't seem to remember that there's a war on, but that train served as a reminder for me.
The next picture is of Jackson Square, where, after shopping around for Hot Sauce and framed Tabasco ads, the four of us sat down for a Mufalleta from Central Market. The horse in the picture has Andrew Jackson sitting on it. Thereby explaining the name of the square, which I didn't figure out for quite some time.
After the sandwich, the four of us headed over to Pat O'Brien's for gigantic drinks which are priced to include the glass that they come in. The glasses are nothing special. They're big and fit a lot of liquor. We were met by A and her husband's downstairs neighbors while trying to finish the glasses in front of us. We headed back to A's condo in the afternoon where I tried a Mint Julip, was disgusted, and opted for a Gin and Tonic. While we were out on the patio enjoying the amazing weather that R and I brought with, the neighbor's cat was climbing around on the window enough that they brought it out on its leash. And there it is.
All for now...
The Futureheads
R and I got back from New Orleans on Monday (pictures forthcoming, I think) and went to see The Futureheads that night. We were pretty beat, but they put on a really good show. They were a bit more punk in concert than on their album; something that I liked and R didn't.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Hrmm... This article in the post makes me wonder what I could do to soop-up the scooter...
I love Saturday mornings.
Oh, and please go download the stumbleupon toolbar. You'll never, ever be bored again... unless you have some kind of constant-boredom condition.
CA sent this interesting thing about names around in an email... I'd seen it earlier, but had forgotten about it:
[link] (requires java, I believe)
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
This article pretty much sums up what Bush means by "bringing freedom and ending terror." He means bringing free markets and ending the reign of those that don't agree with them. Of course, he can't actually tell people that, so he's left the chapter out of his annual economic report. Crafty devil, huh?
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
I'm not one for the reading of the US Weekly, but all this business about Paris Hilton's Sidekick getting hacked is extremely amusing. I imagine no one will be hacking my device as it contains nothing interesting and I haven't been featured in terrible shows on Fox or green and black videos in hotel rooms. Phew!
Monday, February 21, 2005
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
This post will only have any real affect for a few hours until different news sites change, but here's the skinny:
R and I had a friend of hers and a her friend's boyfriend over this evening. Her friend is from Australia, but is currently living in Geneva. The boyfriend is from France. We were talking about how the media is skewed in every country, but in different directions. I mentioned that there was a lot of news today about Iran and he bet me that if I checked the French website there would be no news about Iran. I checked Yahoo news in the US and found this. Then we checked Yahoo news in France and found this.
Even if you don't speak any French, you'll notice that the word "Iran" appears only in the top parts o the US website. What's news to us, is not news to the French. The media is skewed to what you're interested in, not what's really happening. And that's the skinny.
Conflicting stories
One newspaper says that an explosion in Iran today is caused by a missle.
Another just talks about a mysterious explosions near an Iranian nuclear plant and then another bothers to not try scaring the hell out of everybody by mentioning that the nuclear plant is 150 miles away from where the explosion occured.
Reuters also agrees that it was a missle, but that the power plant is 100 miles away from the blast.
Of course, you have to wonder if any real information is actually passed to these companies, or if this all just different takes on the same thing coming out of Iranian State TV.
The BBC seems to have the least skewed story that I've read so far.
Ridiculous.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Man, Syria is so next on our hitlist... we're so transparent, but I guess we're also too powerful to care.
I know that what I said back in October, 2003 wasn't a total call on the fact that Syria is next, but I'll definitely say it now.
The Lebanse say that Lebanon's former prime minister was assasinated by Syria.
The US is agreeing.
Syria is next in line for US occupation.. I mean... umm... Freedom... and Democracy... and military bases.
Wow, even the faithful have no faith in faith-based initiatives. Perhaps, just perhaps, it does take more than words to get stuff done. What else? How about some funding? Or maybe the desire to do it?
Politicians everywhere keep handy their most useful tool, the unrealized campaign promise, and somehow we're all still so surprised when they wield it.
Monday, February 14, 2005
DC DMV, how I loathe thee.
R didn't have an original copy of our lease to prove that she was a resident and only my name is on the cable bill. They told her that she would have to wait for me to get my license so that I could then fill out a form to vouch for her living at my address (and they need a DC driver's # on the form). Then R would have to go back to the information desk after I got my license and get the DC license form, fill it out, get a number and then go through the same process that I had just gone through earlier in the morning. Luckily, while I was getting my license, I showed the lady the form and asked about it and she was like "why don't we just do hers right now? It would be ridiculous for you to have to go all the way back and wait in line again."
I came this close (I'm holding my fingers close together) to hugging her. So we're set up w/licenses now.
Monday's are awesome, especially when it's so dark and rainy out that you wake up and think it's 3am when it's really 7:30.
Went up to College Park on saturday night to watch MD beat Duke. It was a great game, even for a sports non-watcher like me.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Thank goodness for the memory hole blog, now let's just hope their servers don't crash...
And, in case you missed it, here's that lovely godaddy commercial that aired during the superbowl.
It's weird. You'd think that if life was fair, people as evil as Karl Rove wouldn't be put in positions of power. Wrong again.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Saturday, February 05, 2005
Ah! Saturday! My favorite day of the week... if only I could sit around Saturday morning reading through crap and listening to music all week... I wonder if that job is hiring.
Woke up early this morning to buy interpol tickets after wasting 30 minutes at work trying to get them through the presale. Ok, it wasn't "wasted."
Ummm.. yeah, that's all I've got. Time to sit around drinking coffee, eating a Croissant and rewatching Shaun of the Dead, which I saw for the first time last night and thought was amusing enough to get a rewatch this morning.
Tonight is the company prom. It's really the "holiday party", which always gets postponed until february because things are so busy during the holidays. Nothing like 200 consultants dressed up for an open bar.
Friday, February 04, 2005
Finally had a moment to upload pictures from Keane and The Arcade Fire. Also, for some reason, there's a big space on the page between this text and the images below... no idea why that's happening. Nothing new. Things are finally calming down at work, which should give me more time to pursue my latest passion of playing Grand Theft Auto 3 and trying to justify my ownership of a blackberry by emailing from places other than my apartment.
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| Keane | |||
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Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
This is good News
This is semi-good news about Sudan. As long as some action is being taken and it doesn't turn into another Rawanda.
If you haven't yet, go see Hotel Rawanda, especially if you haven't heard about what happened there in '94-'95.
Saw The Arcade Fire on Sunday night and will post some dark-ass photos later on in the week when I have some of that time stuff. Going to see Keane tonight. That should be some good mainstream rockin'.
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