Blaque Jacques Shellac Chirac had a "vascular accident" last night.

Politics aside for the moment, one has to wonder what happens when one has a "vascular accident." Did his red blood cells crash into the white cells? Did a vein protest a ticket along the roadside of Blaque Jacques' aterial system, thereby causing a crash? Did his arteries collapse, like a freeway that's structurally unsound?

The possibilities are endless.

But, quite seriously, I think this means Blaque Jacques hasn't been imbibing the red wine in "moderation." Fausta wondes what this means for EU/French politics. I'm wondering what this means for the French whine wine industry.

The consequences could be quite severe.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:59 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Oy.

{...}Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, also sees God's mercy in the aftermath of Katrina -- but in a different way. Shanks says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin common to the city.

The pastor explains that for years he has warned people that unless Christians in New Orleans took a strong stand against such things as local abortion clinics, the yearly Mardi Gras celebrations, and the annual event known as "Southern Decadence" -- an annual six-day "gay pride" event scheduled to be hosted by the city this week -- God's judgment would be felt.

“New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again."

How much do you want to bet that good ol' Pastor Shanks prefers an Old Testament God to the touchy-feely-happy-go-lucky God of the New Testament?

Five bucks? Ten? Twenty?

The New Orleans pastor is adamant. Christians, he says, need to confront sin. "It's time for us to stand up against wickedness so that God won't have to deal with that wickedness," he says.

Believers, he says, are God's "authorized representatives on the face of the Earth" and should say they "don't want unrighteous men in office," for example. In addition, he says Christians should not hesitate to voice their opinions about such things as abortion, prayer, and homosexual marriage. "We don't want a Supreme Court that is going to say it's all right to kill little boys and girls, ... it's all right to take prayer out of schools, and it's all right to legalize sodomy, opening the door for same-sex marriage and all of that.”

That's kind of funny if you think about it. It's blasphemy to equate yourself with God and to put yourself on par with Jesus Christ. The good reverend here thinks that believers are "God's authorized representatives on Earth." That, technically speaking, is blasphemy. Which, of course, leads to the next question: what sort of natural disaster is going to wipe out the reverend's sin for equating himself with God?

{Hat Tip: Andy, who got it from Radley Balko}

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When I was a kid, I had this bad habit of putting other people's rings on my fingers. If you left a ring lying around, well, one way or another it would find its way onto my finger, just because I didn't have any rings of my own and I was fascinated with the stupid things. So, I'd slip this ring that didn't belong to me on my finger, stare at it for a while admiringly and then...well, that's where the trouble would begin.

My stomach would drop through the floor as I would struggle to get the ring back off my finger. I would get panicked. The anxiety would rise and I would start to get sweaty and my stomach would come back up from where it dropped to settle somewhere in my throat. This is when I would have to calm myself. I had managed to get other rings off my fingers. I just had to calm down and to do this, I would remind myself that where there is a will, there is a way. Meaning, if I could get the ring on, and if I wanted it off, I could do so: I just had to figure out how. This of course usually meant a frantic licking of my finger to loosen the ring, but it generally worked out.

This thought has been running around in my brain since I read this post by RP earlier. RP is concerned and I can understand why he is. I am as well. But, for one brief moment, while we worry about what we can't do, let's look at a few things the human race has achieved to remind ourselves of our capabilities. Let's take a look at all the things the human race has achieved to remind ourselves of the truth of "where there is a will, there is a way."

We built this

And this

and this

and this

and this

and this

A genius believed this form was just lying in wait in a slab of marble and that it was up to him to reveal it.

A man spent years painting an image with little tiny daubs of paint, only to show us how images are truly formed in the first place.

We eradicated this disease and we're working on eradicating this one. We found a way to treat infections in mold spores.

We have walked here

And because we're curious creatures and going to our own satellite wasn't enough, we regularly send probes here

If we can do all of these things we can rebuild New Orleans. Because there is a will to do so. And there is a will, no matter what the freaks over at Kos and Denny Hastert have to say. Hence we will find a way.

Posted by: Kathy at 03:55 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Go and read this.

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One of the first things they teach you when you're a political science student is that the opposite of law and order is anarchy. People, on the whole, don't like anarchy, so they are prepared to give up a bit of their own autonomy for the safety that comes in numbers. If government cannot provide law and order, people will turn to whomever can. This is why the mafia still rules the roost in Sicily. This is why gangs flourish all over the world. People will ally themselves with whomever can lead them to the solution to their problems.

New Orleans is in anarchy right now. No one can honestly argue the opposite. There's no law. There's no order. And all is chaos. Who is going to lead the people of New Orleans now that their government has failed them? The better question is where are they going to be led?

It just breaks my heart to read this.

NEW ORLEANS - New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out, cops turned in their badges and the governor declared war on looters who have made the city a menacing landscape of disorder and fear.

"They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said of 300 National Guard troops who landed in New Orleans fresh from duty in
Iraq. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will."

Four days after Hurricane Katrina roared in with a devastating blow that inflicted potentially thousands of deaths, the fear, anger and violence mounted Thursday.

"I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here alive," said Canadian tourist Larry Mitzel, who handed a reporter his business card in case he goes missing. "I'm scared of riots. I'm scared of the locals. We might get caught in the crossfire."

The chaos deepened despite the promise of 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop the looting, plans for a $10 billion recovery bill in Congress and a government relief effort President Bush called the biggest in U.S. history.

New Orleans' top emergency management official called that effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly lawless city.

About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at New Orleans convention center grew ever more hostile after waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead. Police Chief Eddie Compass said there was such a crush around a squad of 88 officers that they retreated when they went in to check out reports of assaults.

"We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten," Compass said. "Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon."

Col. Henry Whitehorn, chief of the Louisiana State Police, said he heard of numerous instances of New Orleans police officers — many of whom from flooded areas — turning in their badges.

"They indicated that they had lost everything and didn't feel that it was worth them going back to take fire from looters and losing their lives," Whitehorn said.

A military helicopter tried to land at the convention center several times to drop off food and water. But the rushing crowd forced the choppers to back off. Troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10 feet off the ground and flew away.

In hopes of defusing the situation at the convention center, Mayor Ray Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they could find. But the bedlam made that difficult.

"This is a desperate SOS," Nagin said in a statement. "Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses."

At least seven bodies were scattered outside the convention center, a makeshift staging area for those rescued from rooftops, attics and highways. The sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement.

An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.{...}

New Orleans is in absolute and complete anarchy. There is no law and order. Women and children are being raped. The elderly and infants are dying. People are acting like jackasses and shooting off weapons for, what it seems, is the hell of it because no one is there to tell them not to. And, of course, you have the looting. Who are the people, the victims, to turn to when their own government lets them down? Because you know they won't trust the government now, after all the delays. And, honestly, I can't blame them. All would have been fine had the levees not broken. But they did and the situation that was tolerable turned intolerable quite quickly.

I mentioned in this post that my brother, Steve, is co-owner of a Chrysler-Jeep dealership on Canal Street. Initially we were worried about flooding. To see what the dealership looks like, go here. They, conveniently, have a showroom on the second floor of the building. They put all the used cars up on the second floor because, for some reason that I don't know about, those cars are uninsured. The new cars were on the first level, because they were insured. Steve said that if the water goes higher than the dashboard on any of them, they're done for. Last I heard the water was six feet deep at the dealership.

Now, given the anarchy, I have to wonder if the dealership even exists anymore.

This just saddens and worries me so much. I adore New Orleans. The trip my mom, dad and I took when I was a senior in high school was amazing. I was really hot on the place because I'd just read Interview With the Vampire and was completely in love with Louis. I made my sister in law go and visit the French Quarter's graveyard and I had to hide my smile because she was freaking out. I remember trolling down Bourbon Street and wanting to gag because it smelled like booze and puke. But the architecture is wonderful and the place just drips with history and charm. I had a great Nikon 35mm camera at the time because I was on the yearbook staff and I had swiped a load of film from the stash in the journalism lab to take loads of pictures with while I was in New Orleans. I didn't take hardly any shots, though, because it was so gorgeous there that I couldn't decide what I wanted to photograph and I didn't think I had enough talent at that stage of my photography career, as it were, to get it right. Does that make any sense? I hope it does. I just didn't feel I could do the city justice with my limited photography skills and I didn't want crap pictures of New Orleans, so I didn't bother. And, until now, I didn't regret it. But I have to wonder if I will. With everything that's going on, it's hard to believe New Orleans will ever get back to normal. I know it probably will, and yes, it will probably be a tourist haven once again, but still...it's kind of hard to imagine right now.

This is one of the few pictures I have of my trip to New Orleans. My mom took it. That's my Dad and I outside of St. Louis Cathedral, where we'd just gone to Palm Sunday Mass. I'd never been to a Palm Sunday Mass before where they could have gone outside to get the palm branches.

I sincerely hope that one day, sometime in the future, I can take another picture in front of the Cathedral on a sunny Palm Sunday.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:39 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Ummmm, if you're a mugger, I'd recommend staying away from this chick.

Just Damn.

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{this post will stay at the top of the page all day Thursday, September 1, 2005}

So, there's a bit of a blogburst going on today to help raise awareness and CASH MONEY for charities that are assisting in the relief efforts needed because of Hurricane Katrina.

You can either go to Instapundit or to NZ Bear to see all who's participating and who is recommending what charities. I'm choosing the American Red Cross because, let's face it, they're the big dog when it comes to natural disaster relief. I want the money to go to people who know what they're doing and who are going to get the biggest bang out of the bucks donated.

Clicket on that image and it will take you directly to the American Red Cross' donation page. Do what you can, kids.

It also bears mentioning that the American Red Cross is always hurting for blood donations. If you are perhaps a wee bit strapped for cash and would like to help out in some way, but lack the cash, it's time for you to go to your local chapter of the Red Cross and donate a pint. You'll be helping an organization that's helping those in need---it's just as good as giving cash. And, really, it's doesn't hurt that much. I promise. Plus you get a donut and juice when you're done! What more could you ask for?

I know some people will balk at the idea of sending money to the Red Cross given the International Committee of the Red Cross/Red Crescent's anti-American bias. But as Fausta reminds us: "A quick reminder that the American Red Cross has nothing to do with the policies of the International Committee of the Red Cross and has in fact withheld funds from the ICRC to protest its blatantly biased agenda." Don't let the ICRC stop you from donating to the American Red Cross.

In case you'd like a little somethin' somethin' in return, Phin and Sadie---the fabulous owners of Apothegm Designs---are auctioning off a custom blog design to the highest bidder, with all proceeds going to the American Red Cross. Go on over and start going crazy!

Technorati Tags: Hurricane Katrina, flood aid

(And if you're a blogger and the Red Cross is your charity of choice, feel free to swipe the image and use it on your own site.)

Posted by: Kathy at 11:58 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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If you've got miniblinds in your house and you have no idea how to get them clean here's a tip for you: take them down, remove the plastic stick thingy, dump them in the bathtub, fill bathtub halfway with hot water and add a dose of Tide laundry detergent. Let soak for ten minutes, rinse and dry with a towel.

You don't have to scrub your blinds this way! It's FREAKIN' AMAZING!

And lest you think I'm exaggerating, know that as a former smoker my blinds were supposed to be a light beige color but were, in actuality, a sort of brownish-yellow. If you're a non-smoker you should know that smoke sticks to stuff. It leaves a sticky, yellow-ish film on EVERYTHING. Glass, walls, clothes---you name it, if you smoke in your home, it's got this film on it. Including your blinds. But, thanks to this handy tip, my blinds are now completely clean and I did not have to scrub them.

WOO-FREAKIN'-HOO!

Posted by: Kathy at 03:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Let's do a little meme-ing. Music meme-ing, no less. Courtesy of Doug, we have this lovely meme: take the list from the year you graduated from high school then strike the songs you hate, bold the ones you love, and the ones left over are the ones you supposedly couldn't care less about.

Okedokey. I graduated in 1989. If you're interested, take the jump. more...

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I'm assuming most people have seen this, but in case you haven't, courtesy of the Huffington Post, we have Robert Kennedy, Jr. who, apparently, is the tackiest man alive.

In March of 2001, just two days after EPA Administrator Christie Todd WhitmanÂ’s strong statement affirming BushÂ’s CO2 promise former RNC Chief Barbour responded with an urgent memo to the White House.

Barbour, who had served as RNC Chair and Bush campaign strategist, was now representing the presidentÂ’s major donors from the fossil fuel industry who had enlisted him to map a Bush energy policy that would be friendly to their interests. His credentials ensured the new administrationÂ’s attention.

The document, titled “Bush-Cheney Energy Policy & CO2,” was addressed to Vice President Cheney, whose energy task force was then gearing up, and to several high-ranking officials with strong connections to energy and automotive concerns keenly interested in the carbon dioxide issue, including Energy Secretary
Spencer Abraham, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Commerce Secretary Don Evans, White House chief of staff Andy Card and legislative liaison Nick Calio. Barbour pointedly omitted the names of Whitman and Treasury Secretary Paul OÂ’Neill, both of whom were on record supporting CO2 caps. BarbourÂ’s memo chided these administration insiders for trying to address global warming which Barbour dismissed as a radical fringe issue.

“A moment of truth is arriving,” Barbour wrote, “in the form of a decision whether this Administration’s policy will be to regulate and/or tax CO2 as a pollutant. The question is whether environmental policy still prevails over energy policy with Bush-Cheney, as it did with Clinton-Gore.” He derided the idea of regulating CO2 as “eco-extremism,” and chided them for allowing environmental concerns to “trump good energy policy, which the country has lacked for eight years.”

{...}On March 13, Bush reversed his previous position, announcing he would not back a CO2 restriction using the language and rationale provided by Barbour. Echoing Barbour’s memo, Bush said he opposed mandatory CO2 caps, due to “the incomplete state of scientific knowledge” about global climate change.

Well, the science is clear. This month, a study published in the journal Nature by a renowned MIT climatologist linked the increasing prevalence of destructive hurricanes to human-induced global warming.

{...}In 1998, Republican icon Pat Robertson warned that hurricanes were likely to hit communities that offended God. Perhaps it was BarbourÂ’s memo that caused Katrina, at the last moment, to spare New Orleans and save its worst flailings for the Mississippi coast.

{my emphasis}

Niiiiiiiiiice, Bobby.

Note that this was published on Monday evening. No one had any idea of how bad the damage was, or how many people had been killed in Katrina's wake. No one had any idea about any of this, but Junior, who was safe in New York, just assumed that since the hurricane had passed over, this would be a good time to start banging the climate change gong. That Katrina could have been prevented if only Bush hadn't listened to Barbour and had decided to push Kyoto. Which is complete and utter bullshit and Junior knows it, too. If you want to blame anyone for not pushing Kyoto, blame your good buddy Bubba Clinton, who never submitted the Kyoto Treaty to the Senate for ratification. If only Clinton had pushed Kyoto through, well, why that would have been a few years earlier and that would have given us more time to prevent these horrible hurricanes!

Never mind that good ol' Junior decided to publish this little treatise before the bodies were even cold. Or even until we knew how many bodies there were to be buried---which, I might add, we still don't know. It's all about scoring cheap political points in the wake of one of the largest natural disasters to befall our country. Way to go, Junior. Way to be just another spoiled rotten, Kennedy bastard who assumes the world should listen to you because of your pedigree.

I sincerely hope that Junior is ashamed of himself. But I doubt he is. He's a Kennedy, after all: that family has absolutely no shame whatsoever.

I think it's genetic.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:17 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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The marketing department at Blizzard Entertainment is just wishing they'd thought of this campaign.

I guarantee it.

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Hitch v. Jon Stewart.

I'll leave it to you to guess who wins. You won't have to expend a great deal of brain power to figure it out. I promise.

Jon Stewart really is a smartish sort of dolt, isn't he?

{Hat Tip: INDC Journal}

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My kid's blogiversary was yesterday. Go over and wish her a happy belated blogiversary!

I'm such a slacker mom.

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Sheila would like to wish a very happy 20th birthday to The Breakfast Club.

I was in eighth grade when that movie came out, hence I couldn't go to see it, the movie theaters in Omaha being the only place in the whole frickin' world where MPAA ratings are respected and enforced. I remember renting it about a year later, and I vividly remember my mother BLOWING A GASKET when she saw the rating. Of course this was after I'd watched it five times.

Heh.

It's an incredible movie that finally got the whole high school experience so incredibly right. I can't bother watching any of this crap that comes out nowadays that's meant for the youth of today. I just can't. It's all too happy-go-lucky, high school is the best time of your life, everyone's beautiful---including the unpopular people, that unpopular girl is just one makeover away from being gorgeous, etc. It's just all bullshit. It's someone's representation of how high school should be, rather than what it actually is: four years of being judged upon who you seem to be, rather than who you actually are. Which is very freakin' odd if you think about it, because no one at age fourteen has the slightest clue of who they are and who they will be, but that's beside the point. The Breakfast Club ignored all this and portrayed high school as it is and it's a brilliant film because of it.

Go read.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:03 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Skippy or Jif?

For me, it's Skippy all the way. And not the chunky stuff, either.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:38 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 Um. . .whichever's on sale?

Posted by: Margi at August 30, 2005 01:52 PM (nwEQH)

2 Jif. Chunky when I can get it. With a spoon straight from the jar.

Posted by: caltechgirl at August 30, 2005 02:18 PM (fyWFC)

3 Chunky no matter what. Will you all be grossed out if I tell you I mix it with a bit of margarine or butter? I can't stand the sticky feel.

Posted by: Rachel Ann at August 30, 2005 03:17 PM (Sb9NF)

4 Smooth, creamy Skippy.

Posted by: The Maximum Leader at August 30, 2005 03:46 PM (jiSuM)

5 Skippy, smooth, one heaping tablespoon full every morning before heading to the gym to lift weights and otherwise mortify the flesh. Sometimes if the Boy Child is awake in time, we share my tablespoon and then its extra heaping.

Posted by: RP at August 31, 2005 03:36 PM (LlPKh)

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So, did anybody else watch Prison Break last night?

I can't decide whether this show is overly clever or is actually pretty interesting. I'm still on the fence about it.

A few observations:

• So, is Dominic Purcell in hock to FOX, still, for John Doe? I have to think he is, given the number of times he keeps popping up on that network's shows. While I really liked John Doe and was sincerely bummed when it was cancelled, he just hasn't impressed me in anything he's been in since. Including this show. He just doesn't have the props to be playing a guy on death row. It's not working for me.
• Wentworth Miller---Hottie McHotHot. Rowr.
• I personally think Oz set the bar higher for all prison dramas and, baby, Fox River Penintentiary just ain't Oswald Maximum Security Prison, ya dig? Fox River seems to me to be the equivalent of a training bra, whereas Oz was a black lace merry widow, replete with underwires, boning, hooks and garter attachments. None of Michael's maneuvers with his fellow jailbirds were a surprise if you'd watched Oz.

  I really do miss that train wreck of a tee vee show. You couldn't be neutral about it: you either loved it or you hated it. And if you loved it, well, you probably hated yourself, like I did, for watching it because it was such a freak show. You just couldn't turn away from it and you felt dirty because of it.

• Is Peter Stormare getting a lot of work these days or what?
• The story set-up happened too quickly for my tastes. There was an awful lot to absorb in the first ten minutes of the show, and I don't know if that's a disservice to the viewers or not. We'll just have to see.

Discuss.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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JB over at Fraters has posted an interesting little piece:

{...}It is a matter of faith among the left that there is something wrong, if not immoral with Wal-Mart. Much of it stems from a simple elitism that allows them to make high-minded criticisms of a place they consider to be for the proles and the semi-washed. They realize it just doesn't sound right to admit that they hate Wal-Mart because they consider themselves superior to the people who shop there, but saying "I disagree with Wal-Mart's (fill in the blank) policy and therefore I go to Target" allows them to avoid the place (and the people) AND to make what passes in for an intelligent point at the same time.

Even those who aren't lefties and are in fact quite conservative can be heard making the case that Target is superior for this or that sundry reason and would never consider setting foot in a Wal-Mart. In the Twin Cities, part of this is the fact that Target has been around much longer, but the elitism of the left can affect conservatives as well (like people who somehow cannot find one item of edible food on a Friday's menu and moan about "chain restaurants").

I guess it comes down to the fact that Wal-Mart is perceived (correctly) as catering to lower class and lower middle class customers (one woman I work with said it was too "Bubba" for her). By shopping there and by telling (admitting?) others you do, you are positioning yourself with the lower class. For many people, they could care less how they are perceived by others, but for many others, this kind of decision is one of the ways (including the car they drive, their house, their Ipod) they tell society who they are. "Oh, we aren't one of those Wal-Mart families, Target is so much hipper and cosmopolitan" is every bit a part of the psychology of choosing where to shop and as important as rational reasons like location and price of the goods.{...}

JB makes some interesting leaps of the imagination, no? While I don't doubt that JB's got a point about the difference between Wally World and Le Boutique de la Target (pronounced Targhzay), I think, perhaps, he's overthinking it a bit.

To out myself: I am a Target shopper. There was no Wally World in my neighborhood when I was growing up. There was, however, a Target about three miles from the house. We went just about every Sunday, right when the circular came out in the newspaper, and had to fight to the death for a parking spot. We bought our school supplies there. When I was little, my mother outfitted me in Garanimals purchased from Target. Target was where it was at. I didn't know there was such a thing as Wally World. I had no clue that there was a whole league of shoppers in this country who were devoted to buying things from the Walton family. I wasn't introduced to Wally World until I went to college. And even then I really didn't go there because it was the difference of about five miles and an interminable bus ride. Wally World was on the other side of town, near the mall, guaranteeing that you had to take the bus to get there because no one who had a car shopped at the Ames Mall. They drove to Des Moines, instead. You could, however, always catch a ride with someone to Target, which was nearby. I've got nothing against Wal-Mart, it's just never been convenient for me to shop there.

My local Target is here. The nearest Wal-Mart is here. In case you're not from the Twin Cities, this is how you'd get from the Target to the Wal-Mart. Target is much closer to the Cake Eater Pad than Wal-Mart is. Keep in mind that we don't currently have a car and are reliant on public transportation to get around. The bus may not go to either store, but to get anywhere near the Wal-Mart, I'd have to transfer, which is generally not convenient, ya dig, particularly not when you are schlepping bags full of laundry detergent and other products. None of this, of course, mentions that the East Bloomington Wal-Mart is---and how do I put this politely?---skanky. Been there, done that and I am NEVER going back there. The neighborhood Target is nice, clean, well-lit, populated with friendly and helpful employees and the chances of you being raped in their parking lot is much less than it would be if you went and shopped at the Wally World in East Bloomington in the evening. Call me crazy, but I think it's kind of stupid, in terms of a woman's personal safety, to shop repeatedly at a store where the management deems it necessary to have a security guard escort you to your car if you were unaccompanied. Granted, this was a while ago, but this one experience guaranteed I was never going to go back to that store.

While there are suburban Targets, there are very few urban Wal-Marts. Wal-Mart is always and forever on the fringe of cities and you have to drive to get there, as is evidenced by the massive parking lots. This is not to say that Target doesn't have massive parking lots, but is there a Wal-Mart in downtown Minneapolis? I think not. But there is a Target in downtown Minneapolis and it's nice. Wal-Mart is geared toward the suburban market. They need large tracts of land to set up shop and the only place they can get that land is on the outer fringes of cities. Target stores are, in my humble opinion, more geared toward the urban audience because they will work with what space they can get and will set up shop accordingly. While there are any number of Targets in the outer reaches of any metropolitan area, there are also Targets in the midst of the same metropolitan area. Target makes it easy. Wal-Mart, in my humble opinion, doesn't.

If there was a Wal-Mart nearby, I'd probably shop there. I have no particular loyalty to Target in regards to its products. You can generally find the same thing at Wally World for the same price. The only thing about Wal-Mart that bothers me is that they are very choosy about what entertainment products they will choose to sell. Don't get me wrong: they've got every right to choose wisely what products they will put on their shelves, but---and this is a BIG "but"---when they deliberately choose not to carry certain items, like, say, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas because of concerns over the content, I would say that they're doing their customers a disservice. They're playing the part of the morality police and that bothers me, but I will admit, they're free to do this. It's their business. It's worrisome, given their market share, but--again---it's their business and if that's what they want to do, that's their right.

While I don't doubt there are plenty of people who do shop at Target for the reasons JB stated above, that's not always the case. It could simply be because Target has aligned themselves better in some locations than Wal-Mart has. And that's simply where I live---other people might think differently.

Now if only the local grocery union would lighten the hell up and allow for a SuperTarget somewhere inside the 494/694 ring, I'd be a very happy camper.

UPDATE: The kid throws her two cents in.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:49 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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When Christi, et. al. were here at the end of July, they decided the kids would have a treat for dessert one night and that treat was root beer floats. So, along with about five hundred other things that Christi left in my fridge, there was also leftover vanilla ice cream and sugar free root beer (It was James'). They'd taken the good stuff with them. The husband, a true root beer snob conoisseur, stuck his nose up at the sugar free stuff---he prefers IBC---and, since he knows I don't particularly enjoy diet root beer, either, decided the only way I'd drink the stuff (because he sure as hell wasn't going to) was if he put it in float form. He knows I enjoy a root beer float every now and again when we go here. Which was convenient because there was leftover ice cream. And I enjoyed it...but there was still leftover vanilla ice cream when I was done with the sugar free root beer.

So, the husband bought me a liter of IBC root beer, because I'd enjoyed the float so much. Then I ran out of ice cream, but still had root beer left. The husband then bought more vanilla ice cream...and so on and so forth. Everytime we ran out of one, there was still something of the other left and that just demanded the other be purchased. You know, because it just works that way.

Work with me here, people.

It's a vicious cycle, let me tell you. Fortunately, I haven't gained any weight from this month-long root beer float binge, but I just ran out of both root beer and ice cream. The cycle is at an end. Or so one would think. I am free of both products. I have no need to purchase one because the presence of the other demands it. Yet...I am still not done with the floats.

They're just too damn good. So, I'll go to the store tomorrow and will buy root beer and ice cream. I will have another float for dessert tomorrow night, like I've done on a goodly number of nights this August. I can't imagine that these will taste good for much longer, because, you know, fall is just around the corner, but I'm going to enjoy them while the getting is good. The cycle may be vicious, but it sure is tasty, too.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:58 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I just wet myself reading this.

{Insert hysterical laughter and a few "nannynannybooboo"'s here}

Posted by: Kathy at 04:27 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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As we've already established, the husband and I live in Cake Eater Land. While we love the houses around here, we could never afford one of these monsters. They're gorgeous, but they're pricey. Yet that doesn't stop us from having some good fun while we walk around the neighborhood every evening, looking to see which houses sell and which ones haven't. We also have a good time trying to estimate how much people took out in home equity loans for some monstrous additions some homeowners in the neighborhood have added. It's sport for us. And there's the added incentive to paying attention in that if the real estate market takes a big fat dive, (and we win the smallest powerball lottery) we'll finally be able to afford one of these homes. Right now we would have to win a $20mil jackpot to even be able to afford it.

So, I have to say that I fully agree with Jonathan's hopes/dreams/assessment of the real estate market in this post.

Go read the whole thing.

Now, I understand about supply and demand, but there is no way any of the houses in my neighborhood should be priced at two million plus. Don't get me wrong, it's a great neighborhood. We have good public schools, great wide, streets that are actually plowed in the winter (which, quite frequently, doesn't happen in a certain city coughcoughMinneapoliscoughcough), and a city government which takes good care of the taxpayer. A five bedroom, four bathroom, brick house with ivy crawling along the outer walls may be wonderful. And it may be equally wonderful that it's in a neighborhood with established trees, but when it's on a lot the size of a postage stamp there's NO WAY IN HELL it should be priced that high.

It seems the market here in the Twin Cities is at least coming back down to reasonable levels. That brick house I mentioned up there is not a hypothetical house: it was just for sale in the neighborhood. And it came off the market after what the husband and I assume was a two-month contract with the realtor expired. There are any number of large houses just like it in the neighborhood, that were priced comparatively, that haven't sold, either. In fact, even if you're in the market for a fixer-upper, there's a nice four bedroom colonial in the neighborhood for sale. It has gorgeous, if a wee bit dark, antique walnut paneling in the living room; a formal dining room with a built-in clam-shell shelves in one corner and gorgeous woodwork; and two fireplaces attached to a central chimney. It also has a plumbing system that's all galvanized steel; a roof that looks like it would come off entirely if there was a gust of wind over twenty mph; an electrical system that's only at 60W; rotting clapboards that haven't been painted in years; and a kitchen that would serve the needs of a hobbitt quite well. This house is, reportedly, a bargain at $799,999. The realtor, when we chatted him up and conned him into letting us take a peek at the thing whilst we were on our walk, admitted flat out that it needed work and that it would take about $300K to get it up to snuff. But, really, even then it's a bargain! Well, no, it's not and the fact that it's been sitting there for two weeks---which would have been unheard of a couple of years ago---is not at all surprising. No one wants to spend that kind of money on a fixer-upper right now. Money is not as cheap as it was a few years ago, and the real estate agents have, apparently, yet to figure this one out. As far as we can tell, just from observing, the real estate market here in this part of town is going tits up. And, considering it was never the most reasonably priced neighborhood to begin with, this doesn't bode well for all the people who went debt crazy over the past few years, and---Good God---there were quite a few of those people in this neighborhood. Contractors have made a fortune fixing things up around here. Huge additions, new garages, new wrought-iron fences, new landscaping, new kitchens...you name it, something's been done to the majority of the houses in this neighborhood. I've long thought that people were borrowing too much money here in Cake Eater Land to keep up with the Joneses---we'll just have to see how it all turns out.

Because even if it doesn't help us to live where we want to live, well, it's at least fun to watch.

UPDATE: The discussion continues.

Posted by: Kathy at 03:55 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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