I was telling someone about the wonderful beignets I had in New Orleans.
Just for the record, it’s a square doughnut with no hole buried in powdered sugar. It’s pronounced BEN-yay and should not be confused with BEN-wa.
Some people are just wrong.
Archive for January, 2004
Thoughts about online dating… (part 3)
I used to think Seinfeld was rediculously funny.
More like poignantly funny.
Thoughts about online dating… (part 2)
Somebody really needs to skim the dating pool.
Or drain it.
Thoughts about online dating… (part 1)
If you have a pool of contestants the size of Czechoslovakia, and you run a show like “American Idol” do you *really* expect a number one hit on the charts?
Another blog entry proving I’m obsessed with New Orleans…
When they vote for most friendly city, I think the following story should be taken into account:
My brother Keith and I (yeah, yeah, another “My brother and I…” story) were walking down Bourbon Street when Keith spots two very large football-tackle-size men in the middle of the street - one drinking a 5th of Crown Royale straight from the bottle. Keith walks up and extends his hand saying, “That deserves recognition.” They shake hands and the guy’s buddy offers Keith a drink. Keith declines but the guy pulls out a bottle (a real bottle, not one of those little airline toy bottles) of vodka from a backpack, a bottle (once again, full size) of orange juice, and a fresh cup. He proceeds to mix a screwdriver standing in the middle of the street and hands it to Keith. They shake our hands, tell us to have fun, and be safe.
So far as friendly city criteria goes, this tops out way above colorful airport lounges or downtown shrubbery. No contest. 
Gomer Pyle - part 2
Prostitutes. I’d like to think of myself as worldly, but in the end, I’m still more Midwestern boy than anything else. Pretty much, I’d figure on bumping into, and starting a conversation with, a Cuban ex-national than I would a prostitute. The “bumping into” appears to be a natural part of visiting Bourbon Street in New Orleans - though the tourist board doesn’t seem to point this out. Kind of like “Paint Your Wagon” doesn’t appear on Clint Eastwood’s filmography (if you don’t understand the reference, then look it up - you *are* on the Internet for Pete’s sake). The conversational part - well, that’s just a part of Midwestern politeness. My brother (he does get dragged into a lot of stories lately) and I were walking up and down Bourbon Street birdwatching and we ran into a “nice lady” who seemed to us as friendly as anyone else. She asked where we were from and some other small talk questions before subtly stating her real agenda (we’re Midwestern, not stupid!). We politely declined (”F-off” would have been rude, I’m sure she is still somebody’s daughter) and moved on. We passed her by again later without incident. Later yet, we saw her again from across the street and she and I waved at about the same time - most likely for different reasons, but hey, I saw “Pretty Woman” and she could have just been being polite like us. So, we walked across the street and the conversation went something like this…
Me: “Any luck?”
Her: “Nope.”
Me: “I’m surprised!”
Her: “Yeah, me too. Doing okay?”
Me: “Yeah, still sight-seeing.”
Her: “Change your mind yet?”
Me (and brother at same time - you forgot he was still here, didn’t you?): “No.”
Her: “Cool… Well you guys have a good night.”
Me: “Thanks, you too.”
I didn’t think about it until later but we probably could have been arrested for soliciting even though we weren’t doing anything you wouldn’t do with a Wal-Mart check-out person (and if you’ve visited Walmarts in the Midwest then you *know* we weren’t soliciting). It would have been embarrassing to get arrested for saying hello but on the plus side, we would have been Midwest trailer park heroes if we made it onto “Cops”.
Gomer Pyle - part 1
Evening in Fort Wayne - mosquitoes. Evenings in New Orleans French Quarter - prostitutes. Okay, so perhaps that’s a bit extreme, but I’ve never felt so “aww shucks!” Midwestern than walking down Bourbon street this trip. First off, I didn’t notice any difference between the amateur bead-gathering inebriated tourists and the wampum-for-humpum professionals. My brother and I were talking to a local who’s job it was to stand in the middle of the street with cardboard sign trying to point people into “his” establishment. I’m not sure exactly how we started a conversation with him (couldn’t have been the friendly effects of alcohol) but once you got beyond the “uni-bomber” / “Howard Hughes in the final days” appearance, he was actually a pretty nice guy. It’s not that we meant to talk about prostitutes but the conversational choices turned out to be the cardboard sign, beer, breasts, or prostitutes. It’s not that we chose “prostitutes” either but I think it must have been his favorite because that’s where everything ended up. The end result was a crash course in prostitute identification and after exhausting the rest of his conversational topics we walked on down the street with our new-found “eyesight”. It was amazingly like the 80’s movie “They Live”. If you haven’t seen it, then just imagine a really warped version of “Where’s Waldo”. I can’t wait until they hold our conference in New York or L.A.
New Orleans - Night 3 (of 3)
Last day of the conference! Yeah! They hold these things in places like Vegas and New Orleans so the participants don’t die of boredom, resurrect themselves, and then brutally kill themselves again rather than be accosted by one more participating vendor trying to sell you something. Okay, it’s really not all THAT bad, but three days of anything work related stuck in one big room is a bit much. So, we got stuff at the conference and we’ll make a fortune this year with all the great ideas and shmoozing that we did. Yeah! Rah!
We got invited to dinner by a couple guys who make wreathes. I think it was a reward for selling their product the year before. We sold, like, umm… 50 wreathes in one sale. Hell, if we’d actually kicked some pine butt they might have bought us both cars! Well, there’s always next year (hint hint wreath guys)!
After dinner, we figured the wreath guys (from Wisconsin) would turn in and we’d go walk down to Bourbon Street again - but we weren’t going to drink tonight. Turns out Wisconsin guys don’t go to bed at 10pm like depicted on popular television after all! So, we ended up at [censored] and [censored] and a whole lot at [censored]. Then we returned to [censored] and we did [censored] at least 3 times! Crazy, man… crazy. I can’t really remember the rest, but everybody was smiling a lot and didn’t mind at all that the “shot girls” seemed to make twice as much as our annual salaries in one night. Hey, it’s a highly specialized field, right?
*Note - I had to edit the above because I wasn’t sure, what with my wide readership, that it was appropriate to report the mass amounts of alcohol people from Wisconsin are able to consume. Of course, I would not want to do that. Though I always wondered how they didn’t freeze up there in the cold winters.
All in all, we closed down Bourbon Street the last night… went to bed (not) and flew out the next morning (we didn’t know what time it was and camped out at the airport early to make sure we didn’t sleep through the boarding).
Viva La New Orleans!!! Err… I mean Viva Fundraising Conference! Yeah, that’s it…
New Orleans - Night 2 (of 3)
Morning. I discovered that New Orleans pigeons subsist on a diet of spilled beer and powdered sugar. I’d swear the birds at the Cafe Dumonde were stoned. One of them was walking around with a piece of fuzzy rope or something on his head making him look a lot like a rastafarian pigeon. It was weird and the next cell phone I buy will have a camera so I can proove I’m not making this up.
Evening. Lost $20 playing the nickel slots in the casino. Hrumph. The casino giveth, the casino bleedeth you dry. Gave up and went back to Bourbon Street. Kind of bored with it all. Feet hurt from walking all day. Vowed not to drink anything this time - too much money for an unknown mixture of alcohol and water. Still po’d that a “shot girl” stole my change the night before so out of spite I was not going to extract test tube shots from anywhere. That would teach them. We met up with another convention guy about the time we were going to give up and go back to the hotel. He liked buying drinks. Curse him. Went back to the cover bands (still loud). More unattainable women - as pushy as they were pretty. Avoided them successfully. Of course it helped that the other convention guy I was standing beside was a six foot plus thin good looking well dressed guy with good hair that I was really starting to despise. Suddenly I wanted the pretty unattainable shot women to at least offer and give me the chance to turn them down. I mean, like, HOW RUDE. Wandered out into the street. It was colder but ironically more breasts. Really, a bunch of Mardi Gras wannabes. The least I could do was watch - I didn’t want to be the one spoiling their fantasy. Went back to a place from yesterday where I thought shot girls were a really good idea. One was very very nice and I realized I couldn’t hold her accountable for the rude ones at other establishments - I mean that wouldn’t be very nice. I said no. I said no. I said see me next time around. My group left. CURSE THEM. Finished drinking. Went to another establishment. Drank more. Sang. Sang? Sang.
One more night to go. Oh yeah, DAY, I mean one more day of conference to go.
New Orleans - Night 1 (of 3)
Rainy. A little cold. Won $40 playing the nickel slots in the casino. Was jones’ing to play craps like last year in Vegas but the tables all had $10 minimums (too steep). Still a lot of people on Bourbon Street. It appears it is always open. Saw two breasts (bare) and drank a lot (watered down). There were a couple of really good cover bands playing (loud). Also, there were unattainable very pretty women selling shots out of test tubes that they don’t hand to you (’nuff said). Got wet. Had fun.
Oh yeah, went to the conference during the day.