Tuesday, February 28, 2006

I Want To Be Sedated

Below are my last purchases before my 40 day moratorium on shopping during Lent...






...long live the Ramones!

In Laurie's Brain - Top Ten Reasons I Go To Work Every Damn Day

10. I fear karmic retribution if I use a sick day when I'm not really sick.
9. Free sodas
8. There are no cute men to look at from inside my house.
7. People to talk to, even if they aren't listening to me.
6. Every couple of weeks, they give me money.
5. I enjoy pilfering the supply closet.
4. Nothing better to do
3. People tell me I smell good or they like my hair or they like my new shirt. It's just not the same when I say it to myself while looking in the mirror.
2. On a good day, it makes me feel smart.
1. On a bad day, it's still better than being stuck at home with a bad case of karmic retribution.

By Laurie Ransonette Anderson (www.missneworleans.blogspot.com)

Monday, February 27, 2006

That's Depressing

This is the caption for the thumbnail of my boob picture on Flickr:


#24: Laurie's Boobs
• 17 views / Nobody counts Laurie's Boobs as a favorite / 0 comments


*Nobody counts Laurie's Boobs as a favorite*

Well, that's just rude.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Happy Mardi Gras - Part II


In honor of Mardi Gras, here's a picture of my boobs from last night out at Crockett Street.

To be continued (for now, you can find more pics in the Flickr box on the sidebar)...

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Happy Mardi Gras! (Check Out the Bourbocam)

Happy Mardi Gras weekend everyone. Tonight, because of lousy weather, we will be going out to Crockett Street instead of going down to my hometown of Port Arthur for their annual Mardi Gras celebration. I'm on several New Orleans e-mail lists and I just received an e-mail stating that the Saturday night parades are also canceled there because of the weather.

Check out the Bourbocam. It's a live camera of Bourbon Street at the corner of St. Peter and Bourbon Streets located right outside of the Cat's Meow. The crowds are nothing like the normal Mardi Gras crowds but there's a lot of activity which is good. I've already seen several (probably not so sober) people almost get hit by cars so there is a sense of normalcy there. I especially like the people who almost get mowed down who then stop and joyously help to direct the traffic.

Having Mardi Gras in New Orleans this year has induced some mild cases of schizophrenia in most of us. On the one hand, it's important for the economy and for the morale of New Orleans to go ahead with Mardi Gras. Cajuns believe in celebration in the face of adversity. It helps to clear our heads. On the other hand, New Orleans is far from even minimal recovery and the appearance of business-as-usual down there can give people the wrong idea of the true state of the city.

There are also a lot of people who feel that the money spent on producing a Mardi Gras celebration should have been spent in other areas of the city. My personal opinion is that the money made from tourists will more than make up for the money spent to throw the Mardi Gras party and that the amount of money spent having Mardi Gras would have been a very small drop in the bucket in the rehabilitation of New Orleans at any rate.

A few short weeks from now, you'll be able to see me on that Bourbocam contributing my small drops to that enormous bucket.

Pictures Added to Little Office of Horrors Post

I've added pictures to the Little Office of Horrors post below to show Carly's lovely man-eating plant and to also show the lovely Carly.

Friday, February 24, 2006

Nudity at the Dollar General

I abruptly woke up last night at 3:00 a.m. from a dream that wasn't even a nightmare. It involved evacuation and a Frank Lloyd Wright style resort somewhere in east Texas which had a spring fed swimming pool and a softball field next door.

Those of us who evacuated together for Hurricane Rita were there and, for some reason, we were trying to find a guy my sister used to bowl with who was supposedly playing softball at the field beside the resort. Perhaps something frightening happened in the dream that I don't remember because when I woke up, my heart was beating out of my chest and I felt afraid.

Of course, you care nothing about that because you're here to read about the nudity at the Dollar General store, aren't you? That dream came from one of my co-workers. In her dream, she went in the Dollar General stark naked with her hands over her breasts, walked up to one of the workers in the store and said in exasperation, "I just need a toothbrush!"

I guess she only had one dollar.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Little Office of Horrors


Tomorrow is the birthday of one of my good friends at the office. She will be a whopping 26 years old.

Yesterday, she received flowers from the co-workers in her department and called me to her office to see them. It was a huge arrangement at least four feet tall with some unusual blooms in it. We agreed that some of the plants looked like something that would be in the movie Little Shop of Horrors.

I said, "Have you ever seen the old version of Little Shop of Horrors?"

Carly said, "Yeah, the one with Steve Martin?"

That's when I realized that Carly was 6 years old when the remake was made. To her, that was the old version. To me, the version made in 1960, when I was 5 years old, is the old version.

Damn, young whippersnapper.



Edited to add pictures at Neal's request (2/25/06):


Man-Eating Blooms ala Little Shop of Horrors


Carly and her lovely Happy Birthday plant


Carly being attacked by her lovely Happy Birthday Plant

ala Little Shop of Horrors


The lovely Happy Birthday plant

after his satisfying meal of Carly stew

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Last Plane Out


Neal in Antarctica posted this picture of the last plane departing with all of the non-essential personnel leaving behind those who will winter at the pole. I thought it was a great picture.

Don't you think Last Plane Out would be a great name for a band?

Edited to add:
While you're over there check out the amazing slideshow at the end of this post.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Self Control

Today I had to meet my mom at an attorney's office to sign some papers. In the conference room were me, my mom, a nice couple buying a house from us and the attorney who happened to be a guy I also went to high school with.

The attorney, who-happened-to-be-a-guy-I-also-went-to-high-school-with, was being very professional and lawyerly while my mom and the couple had on their best be-nice-to-strangers faces. I was fifteen minutes late getting to the meeting because I couldn't find the office so, although I had on my be-nice-to-strangers face, inside my adrenaline was pumping.

As the attorney, w-h-t-b-a-g-I-a-w-t-h-s-w, was explaining all the deeds and whatnot to the nice couple, my mind wandered here and there and yon until I was shaken back to reality when I heard him say, "...there have never been any toxic dumps on the property."

The house my mom and I were selling was the house my aunt and her family had lived in for about twenty years. I wrestled with my adrenaline addled brain and rapidly loosening tongue and it took every fiber of my being to not say, "I bet Uncle Robert left a couple of toxic dumps there."

An Actual Billboard in Alexandria, Louisiana



Thanks, Elizabeth!

Quarter Crawlers


My sister, Terry, wrote this extended limerick in honor of our upcoming New Orleans trip:

There once was a storm named Katrina
And then there was one name o' Rita,
But we'll go back to Pat's
And we'll all sing at Cat's,
'Cause the Quarter, you know, you can't beat 'er.

Thirteen years, it is now we be goin',
Through the ice and the rain and the snowin',
The risks we'll keep takin',
New friends we'll keep makin'
So, fuck the big winds that come blowin'!

To mutha nature, our nose, we'll keep thumbin',
To Mother's Poboy's, you know, we'll keep comin',
And we'll walk Bourbon Street
'Til we can't feel our feet,
A Lucky Dog, late at night, we'll be gummin'!

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Blatantly stolen...

...from Old Horsetail Snake:

Christ is on the cross when he says, "John, John."

John tries to get closer so he can see what Jesus wants. But the Roman soldiers grab him and throw him down the hill.

John makes his way back up the hill, behind the cross, and finally gets close enough to ask: "Yes, my Lord, what is it?"

Jesus: "John, John, I can see your house from here."


Edited 2/21/06 to add:
All my commenters have been so freaked out by this joke that I thought I would go back and check on Old Horsetail's commenters to see if they thought he was also endangering his mortal soul.

For some reason, his readers thought the joke was a hoot. I guess Old Hoss' soul has a little more wiggle room than mine on the big getting into Heaven scales.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Repeat After Me

My dad has been a local entertainer/ventriloquist/magician/clown for about 50 years. He still does about two shows or birthday parties every weekend as Jingles the Clown.

He recently developed a cough that just won't go away. At first it was a bronchial thing and when that cleared up and he kept coughing, they found he has a hiatal hernia. Hiatal hernias, while not usually associated with comic moments, can lead to unexpected fits of giggles.

While we were out shopping today, my dad called my mom. She asked him how his party went and if he coughed much. He said he was fine for most of the party but during the audience participation portion of his magic show, he told the kids, "Repeat after me: Hocus pocus *cough, cough*..."

The kids responded, "Hocus pocus *cough, cough*..."

Another Night, Another Bar, Another Musician


On these nights when I go out on the big town of Beaumont straight from work, I am worn out by midnight. Pitiful. Tonight, among other things, we saw Drew Tichnell, a 19 year old Southeast Texas native with an amazing voice (that's Drew up there at the top of this post). We saw her at the Vortex, a funky little club which I loved immediately.

Saturday night, we'll be seeing Cam Pyle, one of our favorites, at Antone's. Man, three great nights in a row. To quote Jack, an embarrassment of riches.

I have to get up early tomorrow because my aunt who got flooded out of her house in Port Arthur from Hurricane Rita finally got her insurance money and we're moving her to her new house. However, I got the cushy job of helping my cousin shop for new bedroom furniture. I guess they decided my decorating skills were a lot more valuable than my non-existent muscle power.

So, off to bed I go and I leave you with another poster from Art.com...

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Promises of Greatness

Last Thursday, I coaxed Jack out of the house on a Thursday night with promises of greatness from Leon Russell. This Thursday, he returns the favor with promises of greatness from Ray Wylie Hubbard AND a dinner buffet at Courville's. No promises were made with regard to the buffet.

Reviews will follow (eventually).

Edited to add:
I couldn't wait until I post a real review to let you know how great this show was. Ray Wylie Hubbard is not only a wonderful musician/singer/songwriter, he is hilarious. I haven't laughed that much at a live act since I can't remember when. Great show! Oh, and the gumbo and pork loin were also delicious.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Where Do You Shave?

I don’t remember how the subject came up but a friend of mine and I were discussing leg shaving. She mentioned shaving in the tub and I thought that was a strange place to shave your legs. There’s no light in there and I don’t wear my glasses or contacts in the shower so how is a person supposed to see what they’re doing in there? What if you shave something you didn't intend to shave? You know, take a little too much off the top, so to speak.

Well, evidently, I’m the oddball on this one. I now find out that most of the women I know, shave their legs (and other lady parts) in the bathtub or shower rather than at the sink like me.

Where do you shave?





Sunday, February 12, 2006

5.2 Mag Earthquake 165 Miles South of New Orleans

Never say, "What else could possibly happen?"

JuJu's Cajun Crawfish Shak




I got a call from my sister Terry this morning that we were taking a roadtrip to Fannett, Texas to eat crawfish. Our destination was JuJu's Cajun Crawfish Shak, 18277 FM 365 in Fannett (409-794-2020). I had never heard of the place but Terry and mom were on a mission to find crawfish and I can say mission accomplished. Me, mom, Bonnie, Terry, Dan and Katie were met by Aunt Hazel and Aunt Gladys at the restaurant. (More pictures in Flickr box over on the sidebar.)


JuJu
JuJu's Dad and chief cook

We all agreed that the crawfish were perfectly cooked and seasoned and there was JuJu's homemade seasoning on the table for those (ME!) who like their food with a little extra kick. You can dine in or take out and JuJu's dad (chief cook) also sells his homemade seasoning at the restaurant. The cost for a pound of crawfish varies between $3 and $4 a pound depending on availability and you can purchase corn and potatoes to go with your meal for 50 cents a piece. Canned drinks are $1.00 and they have no liquor license but you can bring your own beer and wine. When crawfish season is over (around mid-July), they sell boiled crabs and shrimp until crawfish season starts again in January.

Below is an instructional video of Katie demonstrating how to eat a boiled crawfish. At one point in the video, you will hear Aunt Hazel tell Katie, "Suck the head." Please be aware that this is a perfectly normal thing to tell your great-niece at a crawfish boil.


Saturday, February 11, 2006

In a New Orleans State of Mind


Last night, I finally watched the highlights of the Grammys which I had DVR'd from Wednesday night. The program, evidently, went on past 10:00 p.m. so my DVR cut off the recording before the end of the New Orleans tribute which was at the end of the Grammys. As I was surfing the internet trying to find a clip of the rest of the program, I decided to check and see if the Cat's Meow on Bourbon Street had re-opened, yet. I found out that they will be re-opening in mid-February which means they will be open when we go in mid-March.

The Cat's Meow is a karaoke bar on the corner of Bourbon and St. Peter and it's one of our favorite hangouts. I love to watch people sing karaoke and this is a great place to do that. When we get tired of watching people sing, there's a nice quiet bar upstairs with a balcony that overlooks Bourbon Street. The Cat's Meow is where we always start our evenings and I was relieved and delighted to hear it is finally going to re-open.

There was a link on that site to a place to buy some New Orleans t-shirts so I bought a couple of those. I'm not sure if any money goes to Katrina relief, but the shop that makes them is in Covington. So, that's good enough for me.

While I was in a New Orleans mood (as though the mood is not always right below the surface of my many other moods), I decided to watch a DVD I ordered from PBS titled Hurricane Katrina: The Storm that Drowned a City. Particularly poignant is an interview with the man who created the Hurricane Pam simulation a year before Katrina. He speaks of how some public officials mocked their presentation showing the catastrophic results if a Category 5 storm were to hit New Orleans. He tells about his frustration because he knew it was going to happen and how painful it is to see the reality of his predictions in the aftermath of Katrina.

I'm going to work on my taxes now. I wonder if I can claim my eating and drinking expenses for my March trip on my 2006 taxes as a charitable deduction toward Hurricane Katrina relief.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Pour me another one just like the other one...


Posters and magnets available at art.com

Leon Russell at Cactus Canyon

I was hesitant to do a review of last night's show because Leon wasn't as stellar as the last time I saw him a year or so ago and I couldn't bear to say anything bad about him. However, Jack over at Wang Chi's House of Pancakes has done a nice job of reviewing the evening.

The opening act was Adam Hood and he was great. There is a link to Adam's site over at the House of Pancakes which I will add here later.

Vote Kinky

For an explanation of my Kinky "bumper sticker" over there on the sidebar, check out the House of Pancakes.

If you want the code for your own Kinky sidebar bumper sticker, you'll have to e-mail me because I can't figure out how to post the code here and it not appear as the bumper sticker.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Want to hear something weird...again?

This is the sequence of events that happened to me when I returned from lunch today:

  1. The song Superstar (The Carpenters) was playing on my XM.
  2. Out of the blue, I decided to check out Local Music Guide to see what was going on in Beaumont this weekend.
  3. I saw that Leon Russell is playing at Cactus Canyon tonight. I thought he was playing 3/9.
  4. I e-mailed my sister Terry at EXACTLY the same moment she was sending me an e-mail about Leon Russell playing tonight instead of 3/9.
  5. I sent an e-mail to a friend who replied by saying “Should I know who Leon Russell is?”
  6. While looking up Leon's bio for my friend who shall remain nameless because he should be embarrassed that he didn't know who Leon Russell is, I found out Leon Russell wrote Superstar.
  7. Leon Russell has many Beatles connections. See this earlier post and this other earlier post for my other recent weird Beatles coincidences.

So, off I go to see Leon Russell tonight when I thought I was just going to be laying on the couch. How's that for a kick in the head?

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Tragic Loss

This just happened in my building about 30 minutes ago:

BREAKING NEWS from KFDM.....

Beaumont police are investigating the death of a man who fell down an elevator shaft. Officer Crystal Holmes tells KFDM News the 32 year old man fell down the elevator shaft at the Bank of America building at 2615 Calder Avenue near 10th Street. It happened at about 11 a.m. Wednesday. Holmes says the man worked for an elevator inspection company, Schindler Elevator Incorporated. Holmes says the elevator was above the man on the tenth floor, and he apparently slipped and fell while he was inspecting it. Another man was working with him and saw what happened. The man fell to the base of the shaft and died.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

You Smell Good


The other day, one of the guys here at work told me, “You smell good.” Ordinarily, that’s a nice thing to hear but it can also be the catalyst for a freak out.

Many summers ago, I was at the Gulf Coast Market at Crystal Beach with my sisters and sister-in-law buying groceries for our weekend stay at a rented beach cabin. As I was unloading my Zima (it was that long ago) and munchies and lunchmeat onto the checkout conveyor belt, someone came up behind me and whispered in my ear, “Yew schmell goooooood.”

I turned around expecting to see someone I knew and instead saw a guy with sporadically spaced teeth and skin the color and texture of a dried up creek bed. Unlike me, he didn’t smell good. In fact, he smelled just like Crystal Beach on a really hot day after the tide’s been out a while and the dead fish and seaweed are really starting to funk up the place.

I looked into his eyes which were somehow simultaneously red and yellow and said, “Thanks.”

My sisters and sister-in-law had already checked out and were on their way to the car so they didn’t know what had happened. After I finished checking out my items, I hurriedly left the store and caught up with them in the parking lot and whispered, “Hurry, hurry, hurry. Walk, walk, walk. Faster, faster, faster….”

They turned and said, “What?”

I said, “Just get in the car. We’ve been in town twenty minutes and I’ve already begun my usual collection of scary weird ass men.”

Thankfully, I didn’t encounter that guy again that weekend. However, we still recite his sadly inept pick-up line in the same slow, scary, stalkerish Texas drawl whenever we happen upon someone who schmells exceptionally goooooooooooood. Oddly enough, it isn’t working for us either...and we still have most of our teeth.

Monday, February 06, 2006

It's Time for NUNS Again

There is a tradition in the Catholic church of giving something up for Lent. As I mentioned in a post last year, I don't expect giving things up for Lent to get me into Heaven but I'm pretty sure it can't hurt either.

Last year several other people (including fellow blogger Aisha) and I decided to give up unnecessary shopping during Lent (3/1 - 4/15). We called our group NUNS for No Unnecessary Needless Shopping.

Feel free to join us. It's harder than it sounds.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Brokeback to the Future

Cory and Jamie are in town and I'm being lazy so this is your post for the day.


Update for Suga's Post

Mark Hancock has posted more pictures of Suga's which you can see here. My original post is here.

Suga's
461 Bowie
Beaumont, TX 77701
(409) 813-1808 - Reservations recommended

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Friday, February 03, 2006

Suga's

There is a new upscale restaurant in Beaumont called Suga's. It calls it's food Southern Cuisine. It's an odd marriage of traditional southern food prepared in unique and fascinating ways. I've had lunch there a few times and last night was the first time I went there for dinner.

The restaurant itself is absolutely gorgeous with a huge patio area featuring bamboo plants and a water wall. Upstairs is a jazz club which I can't wait to see.

I had the buffalo osso bucco served with crawfish grits. I know how that sounds but it was delicious. I had a crabcake appetizer that was served on top of fried green tomatoes which was also fantastic. The scallop appetizer ordered by one of my friends had the most beautiful scallops I have ever seen and they were perfectly prepared. One of the other people in our party ordered the roasted chicken served with crawfish pudding and she said the crawfish pudding was one of the best things she had ever eaten.

Then, there was the dessert. The bread pudding, strawberry shortcake and peach cobbler ordered by three of us were indescribably delicious but the hit of the evening was the dessert ordered in the form of a chocolate/espresso/Bailey's/vodka martini.

I highly recommend this place. It is pricey but worth every penny.

Here are some links to pictures of Suga's...
...Creme Brulee Sampler
...Strawbery Shortcake
Lunch prices range from $8 - $10
Dinner prices:
Appetizers $8 - $10
Entrees $18 - $38 (most were in the $20 range)
Desserts $8 - $10
Drinks $7 - $9 (specialty drinks and all were absolutely fabulous)

Suga's
461 Bowie
Beaumont, TX 77701
(409) 813-1808 - Reservations recommended

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Laurie's Keyword Help

Below are some excerpts from the keyword analysis portion of my stat counter. Since people landed here by using these search terms and probably didn't find what they were looking for, I've decided to make up some answers so they'll find something the next time they end up in my little world. (All search terms are as they were found in my stat counter.)

Is it legal to use an I-Pod while driving in Louisiana?
Yes, but only if you've just driven through the drive-through daiquiri store and are trying to drink your daiquiri while talking on your cell phone and simultaneously lighting a cigarette.

hard rain fall what it means
It means God is mad at you .

small titty kitty
The jar your wife uses to collect small change which she tells you is for her boob job but is actually for her divorce lawyer.

river separating texas and louisiana
The Sabine River. There's an old joke that goes, "What separates Louisiana from heaven?" The answer is, "The Sabine River."

pictures of people duct tapped
Sorry, no pictures here of people either duct taped or duct tapped. I'll keep it in mind for a future post though.

signs man too clingy
He weeps when you leave for work, he weeps when you come home, he wants to wear matching shirts, he stares at you adoringly as you pluck your chin hairs.

pipe bomb pictures
No pipe bomb pictures here. Move along.

do you miss him
If you have to ask Google if you miss him, my guess is, no, you do not miss him.

tara's boob picture
Somewhere on this blog is a picture of Tara Reid with one of her boobs hanging out. Seriously. Good luck finding it. Enjoy the blog as you troll for Tara's boob.

just so you know...you'll never know...
As long as I have Google, I will always know.

The Countdown Begins


13 days until Single Awareness Day