however will i keep in touch with friends now?

Just arrived back from Grand Isle a couple of hours ago only to find out that my favorite Facebook application has been removed: Facebook takes down Scrabulous. Turns out that the makers of Scrabble are laying the smack down!!

gunna lasso some fish

Everyone have a good weekend, there is a ton of stuff going on! ALTR and I area Grand Isle bound...

L<3VE

Nauseous in NOLA

Haven't been feeling good all morning. At first I thought it was (oh shit!) morning sickness.

Then I was told it was just a big maritime suit about to go down.

Whatever the reason, it's difficult working in my little office by the river right now. Check out Brad's photos of the aftermath over at Letters in Bottles.

Beat It

Last week State Rep. Michael Jackson qualified to run for the 6th District Congressional seat, dropping his democrat party affiliation.

Jackson is one of the senior partners in the law firm Jackson Bell over in the Baton Rouge. Jackson Bell represents Louisiana Citizens in many, many lawsuits filed by their insureds. They are largely absent in the process and take a slower time responding than other law firms representing Citizens. Jackon's wife Stephanie Jackson is the Claims Manager over at Louisiana Citizens.

Recently many of the cases that Jackson Bell was handling for Citizens have been moved to a firm in Lafayette (yeah, I know). I'd imagine that this is largely due to the Jackson firm's slow response time in typical lawyer bullshit. Citizens apparently doesn't employ any real policy in what firms they hire. In fact, they only have verbal agreements.

It's funny to read the disdain for Jackson in this The Advocate article. It's all to Jefferson-esque to me. But hey, you know, if Dollar Bill pulls a Lieberman, then Jackson might as well.

See also:
Report on Citizens Property Insurance Corp. released from February
Louisiana Citizens Performance Audit Report December 2007

Soft serve boobies!

Come and get 'em, Grey Ghost!

Today's page in the calendar

BAWLS

This will be a fine story to tell the first girl he hooks up with:

Brie Kennedy, individually and on behalf of her minor child
v.
Rezzie's Child Care Inc.
7/11/2008 661937
(Gretna)

Negligence complaint. The plaintiff's child suffered severe injuries when his testicles were bitten by another child.

Lane Shifter's University

Dear LA Z55146,

I know that in your football glory days at your high school (oh, how you wanted to make that LSU football team) you were used to barreling through people without a care as to their well being. However, 30+ years later, please understand that the same does not apply when changing lanes in your over-sized vehicle. While no one may have been in the lane immediately to your left, someone was CLEARLY in the left lane two lanes over. You are lucky I am a cogniscant driver at 8 AM and did not barrell into the back of your vehicle. Your arms flailing about as I slammed on my brakes and laid on the horn only confirm that the symbol on your license plate indicates a mental handicap. Please stay in Fat City and off the Causeway from now on.

Money ain't grey

From Sunday's T-P comes the article Vandalism or Art? on, well, the recently hot topic of graffiti throughout the city. At the end it referenced a new bill going into effect on August 15, 2008: House Bill No. 163 (Act No. 8), authored primarily by Rep. Tony Ligi, Jr. of Metairie and by my state rep. Walt Leger, III.

It shall be unlawful for any person to intentionally deface with graffiti immovable or movable property, whether publicly or privately owned, without the consent of the owner.

Sounds fair enough, though this is pretty much stating the obvious. The big deal about this bill is the maximum penalty is booted up from $500 to $10,000. So, what does this mean for our grey friend who has no qualms about doing his community "service" in broad daylight? What does this bill define graffiti as?

"Graffiti" includes but is not limited to any sign, inscription, design, drawing, diagram, eatching, symbol, lettering, name, or marking placed upon immovable or movable property in such a manner and in such a location as to deface the property and be visibile to the general public.

That being said...

"Deface" or "defacing" is the damaging of immovable or movable property by means of painting, marking, scratching, drawing, or etching with graffiti.

Painting...immoveable or moveable property. Sounds like this includes the Grey Ghost to me. Hopefully the NOPD won't continue to look the other way and will actually enforce the law. On Radtke more than anyone else, largely because he is a menace and dangerous. After the stunt he pulled on Dingler he's got to have something coming to him.

On a completely separate note, I'm curious as to why Sen. Cheryl Gray was one of five nay votes.

A Little To the Left to grayc show details 4:20 PM (0 minutes ago)


Senator Gray,

Could you please explain why you were one of five nay votes in the above matter (RE: higher penalties for graffiti)?

Are you in cahoots with the Gray Ghost?

Thank you.

Let's build a playground!

July 2:


July 16:


Now that they've painted this thing, what exactly is it for again?

There's always something strange afoot at Lakeside Mall.

Thoughts on Big Brother...

ALTR and I found ourselves camped in front of a tv bar on Sunday evening in time to realize that Big Brother was on and it was, in fact, what we were watching and not the Mets game. While it was on mute and there was no closed captioning, it looks like our girl Renny may be on her way out! While I have no unique thoughts on the matter, I figured our friendly, judgemental craigslisters could do the job for us:

Opinion Number One

Two

Three

and Four

Long story short, she gives New Orleans [insert Bon Jovi] a bad name.

Where's my parade?

So I had sex with a woman on the ship. And I went through this whole thing you know - AM I GAY?! AM I STRAIGHT?!? And then I realized...

I'm just slutty.

Where's my parade? What about slut pride?!

I fuckin' love Margaret Cho. And the timing is just so perfect having called out this dude as a greedy bastard after he told me he's been doing it with a guy all summer but it "doesn't count."

Here's the long version of her account of being the resident stand up comic on an Olivia Cruise. From her video I'm The One That I Want:

Big Brother is definitely watching

Looks like someone was paying attention when the Big Brother auditions were in town. Meet Renny, a New Orleans salon owner who will break it down New Orleans style on national television.

This season of Big Brother begins this Sunday at 7 PM. I bet Jeffrey is counting down the hours to quality TV time.

It's time for Bible study, please take off your clothes.

Another real life lawsuit. Sometimes you just can't make these things up. Names not removed this time.

Kelli McGehee
v.
State Farm General Insurance Company; Scott Catalanotto dba Scott Catalanotto Insurance Agency
6/30/2008 08-cv-03851
(New Orleans)

Lawsuit for unlawful employment practices and sexual harassment. Defendant Catalanotto sexually harassed the plaintiff until she resigned. Among other things, he conducted a "Bible study" every morning, which focused on sex and strip clubs, and during the study, he would sit so close to the plaintiff that they would be touching. Also, Catalanotto had a practice of taking showers in his office every morning at 8 am, so that he was naked in the shower when the plaintiff and her coworkers came to work. When Catalanotto ordered a bed for his office the plaintiff became worried.

For God and country!!

Just some of the lovely sights in Metairie...

stayin' alive?

Via The Future of Newcomb College listserv:

Breaking News from the Associated Press - Court gives Newcomb College new life

03:03 PM CDT on Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Associated Press

A Louisiana Supreme Court ruling Tuesday -- exactly two years after Tulane University merged its undergraduate men's and women's college -- kept alive a lawsuit attempting to revive the H. Sophie Newcomb College for Women.

The plaintiffs -- two descendants of Josephine Newcomb's sister -- say Tulane violated the terms of Newcomb's will by merging its seven undergraduate colleges into Newcomb-Tulane College as part of reorganization after Hurricane Katrina.

Those included Newcomb College, which opened in 1887 as the nation's first degree-granting college for women.

In a complicated 5-2 ruling based partly on Napoleonic law and commentary from that time, the high court ruled that "would-be heirs" can go to court to enforce conditions of a will -- though it refrained from ruling on whether Newcomb's will had any conditions.

But it also upheld a lower court ruling that, as things stand, plaintiffs Parma Howard of Greenville, N.C., and Jane Smith of Columbia, S.C., do not have any right to sue the university.

It said they have not proved that they are Newcomb's heirs -- but sent the case back to district court to let them rewrite their lawsuit to try to show that they are.

"I'm so pleased," said Renee Seblatnigg, president of a Newcomb alumnae group created to support and publicize the lawsuit and promote the return of Newcomb as a separate college.

Daniel Caruso, who represents Howard and Smith, and Phillip Wittmann, who represents Tulane, did not immediately return calls for comment. Caruso was on vacation, his office said.

Seblatnigg said the ruling is historic. "My understanding is, the court has ruled for the first time in Louisiana history that would-be heirs have standing to enforce a testator's will."

Chief Justice Pascal Calogero wrote that he agrees with the majority opi nion but also thinks that third-party beneficiaries who don't claim to be heirs may also file a lawsuit to make beneficiaries of wills stick to the terms of a donation.

Two other justices dissented for different reasons.

Justice John L. Weimer said he would have upheld the lower court ruling that Newcomb's will did not put any strings on her donation.

Justice Bernette Johnson wrote that although Howard and Smith will be allowed to rewrite their lawsuit, the majority ruling denies them any chance to have a hearing and present evidence about whether they are Newcomb's heirs.

She said that should be the subject of hearings before any other developments in the case.

A group of Newcomb students and alumnae took the university to court in 2006 to try to stop the merger, but a federal judge ruled a few weeks later that they had no legal right to do so. That ruling was not appealed.

Think you're just too cool to spend time adding new Facebook friends? Think again...

A recent study by LSU confirms what I already knew: if you only have a few friends on Facebook, you are probably not a cool person in real life either. This is good news for me because it means that I now have a scientific reason for judging people by their Facebook profiles!

Thank goodness The Head Pelican girls boast more than 700+ FB friends each!

[via The Dead Pelican]

penis preference

Thanks to Beegs, I now know where I stand with the rest of the world of women.

Is it me or does that graph almost look like a penis?