A GEORGE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF ... 

On Wednesday night, we (Bert, Paul, Jacob, Kelly and I) went out to dinner to celebrate Kelly starting her new job teaching the little kids in Des Allemands starting Thursday. For the second time this year, I found myself watching the hibachi chef at Miyako.

But before we headed out to St. Charles, Paul and I gave Kelly a present we picked up at the mall Monday afternoon. It's one of those clay molded things of the old K&B store. Works on two levels: Kelly and Bert and those are her initials. 

Needless to say, she loved it. "Thank you guys so much. I'm so excited!" 

Did the hibachi chef just shoot the bird at me? Oh, wait. That's his index finger. 

I didn't eat at Miyako. Had enough of that place at the March Yat-Together. I did, however, enjoy the show the chef put on. That's fun. I even caught the shrimp in my mouth on the first flip. 

During dinner, Paul and Bert got into a fight. It was pretty silly. In the middle of the spat, Jacob quipped: "Let's check the menu and see if there are two Maxi pads for ya'll." 

After dinner, we went back to Kelly's house and played Seinfeld trivia. 

 

THE TINA CURSING CORNER 

My mom is upset with our finances. "I can't catch a fucking break. Every fucking week I gotta pay more money." 

Three comments from stories in the paper. 

1) Guy arrested for snapping photos up girls' dresses in the Slidell Wal-Mart. "It's like fucking high school when guys used to put mirrors on their shoes." 

2) Guy tries to steal an ATM machine by yanking it out with his truck. "They did that in fucking Barbershop." 

3) The DUI guy got his third and fourth DUIs upgraded to a felony. "Really? The DA had to read that in the T-P (to change it to a felony.) That's fucked up." 

Mom avoids an accident while making a turn. To the other driver: "You have a $30,000 automobile, learn how to use your fucking turn signal. Fucking Porsche." 

RANDOM THOUGHT OF EVERY SO OFTEN

How's this for a new fashion fad? Wear a belt but let the buckle hang loose. I sported that look in the past few days. I think it works. I bet it could sweep the nation. 

PARTING SHOT

At Miyako, I eavesdropped on the convo between three hot young ladies. 

Middle girl: She was rude to me at the crawfish boil.

End girl: What she say?

Middle: That I shouldn't be drinking because I'm only 20 and not 21 yet. 

Other end girl: Well, how old is she? 

Middle: I don't know. 25. Old. 

MY POOR, BEAUTIFUL CAR

My phone rang at 8 a.m. this morning, and I answered it in a drunken daze. OK. I haven't had alcohol since Friday night, but I probably sounded like I was in a drunken daze.

It was the guy whose wife's car I hit the previous day. You remember that accident, right? The one where I fucked up my 2-year old car. I was hoping to avoid him filing a claim against my insurance by paying for his damage out of pocket.

Guy: "Yeah. I just had the car looked at. It's going to be $3,200 to fix. What do you want to do?"
Me (in my head): Seriously? Oh, yeah. Fine. Let me just write a quick check for ya there. No problem.
Me (out loud with a sigh): Just go ahead and claim it.

As for my car, we went down to Champs Collision to talk to the GEICO man about the extent of my demolishing. He said I need a new bumper, fender and hood but that I didn't fuck up anything internally.

Tina: What about the paint job? Is it going to be the same color?
GEICO guy (deadpanned): Uh. Unfortunately, the only color we have for that kind of car is purple.

They say it will take two weeks to fix as the parts must came from our friends in Germany. The good news is that the car should look as good as new, though I highly doubt that. And who knows the effect this is going to have on my insurance. (I'm paying $500 of the repair damage.)

Oh, boy. I can't wait to find out.

THE TINA CURSING CORNER
My mom's favorite topic of discussion Tuesday was, you guessed it, the wreck.

"You wrecked your fucking car like it was a little fucking toy."

"Fucking Volkswagon crumples like a fucking whore in church."

Mom was miffed by the actions of the cop Monday. "What the fuck was up with asking where you work? What the fuck difference that make? Only in Harahan."

Early Tuesday, mom was worried about Champs being able to get the parts. "Your car is only made every five fucking years." (Thus, the importing from Germany.)

Mom thought the damage was much worse than it turned out to be. "Your door is fucked up. Your bumper is fucked up. Your panel is fucked up. Your hood is fucked up." (OK. So, she was only wrong about the door part.)

We find out that it will be two weeks before my car is fixed. "Two weeks. Motherfuck."

Mom finally talks about something else. "Going to the dentist tomorrow. Whole left side needs to be fucking deadened." And then. "Where's my fucking hair dryer? They been having it for two weeks. When they sending me a new one?"

FORTUNE (WELL, NOT REALLY) COOKIE

At lunch at P.F. Chang's on Monday afternoon, Minkus got an interesting fortune. I took it from him. It is my current motto. It reads: "The problems of today will soon be buried by the sand of time." I'm keeping that in my pocket for the time being.

PARTING SHOT
Derry is reading a story.

Derry: Why does he have to use 'But' to start another sentence every time. This should be one sentence.
Brick: Maybe he gets paid by the period.
Derry: I wish my wife did.

THE THREE MUSKETEERS GO ON A NOT-SO-GREAT ADVENTURE

In life, there are highs and lows. Over the weekend, I had one of the highest highs in recent memory: rockin' Green Day concert, crazy night at the daiquiri shop, a successful Sports Saturday, plus other stuff maybe I'll talk about later. 

I should have known better than to think this high would last into Monday when Paul, Minkus and I planned to attend Saints training camp and make a day of it. 

On the way to pick up Minkus at 7 a.m., I took a sip of orange juice right after I turned onto his street (basically across the highway from me). And that's when this happened ... 

My poor baby. Everyone cry with me. That happened at about 15 mph.

As I put down the orange juice, I looked at the road ahead to find a car in my path. I swerved as quickly and as much as I could, but I failed to avoid the accident. Oh wait. One more detail. The car I hit. Yeah, it was parked. 

Why do these accidents always f up my car worse than the other guy?
The morning turned into quite an event. Here Paul and Minkus, beautiful troopers that they were for hanging out with me through the hoopla that is the aftermath of an accident, take a break in the shade. Let's take a brief look at the madness after I had my first accident since October 2003. 

At impact, it didn't feel like the accident was that bad. I thought my car was going to look like the other car. I even tried to swing back around and park next to the other car before alerting any authorities. As you can see above, part of the car was jammed into the tire, so I had to stop almost in the middle of the street. 

The collision made such a big noise that no one came outside for the next 20 minutes. Eventually, our participants were Minkus, Paul, me, Tina, Minkus' mother, guy cop, girl cop, tow truck man No. 1, tow truck man No. 2, neighbor No. 1, neighbor No. 2, owner of the other car, owner of the other car's husband, who handled the negotiations. 

I spent more than an hour on the phone talking to Volkswagon, GEICO, the towing company and the body shop place. Everyone I talked to was incredibly nice, but I won't bore you with those details. 

How's this for fascinating? The owner of the car thought I wasn't all there. "How could this happen? He must have been speeding down the street. He had to be drunk. I want a breathalyzer test." 

For Paul, the highlight was when Tina showed up (before the tow truck and cop and before the other owner even knew). Obviously, she freaked out. But the funny part was her ripping apart the car. You read that right. Basically throwing loose parts around and trying to unhinge the car from being stuck in the tire. A sight to behold, indeed.

In the end, my car ended up at a body shop in Elmwood. It's getting assessed tomorrow. I got a ticket for "failure to maintain control." Court date is Oct. 6. 

So much for those low-insurance rates I just achieved by turning 25. And yeah, it wasn't a brief explanation. But damned if it wasn't entertaining. 

 
Wawwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!
What the heck, we went to Saints camp anyway and caught the final 43 minutes of offense-vs.-defense drills. And this punt drill, where Red Meat fields the ball. Pretty cool picture. 

This picture will not be appearing on the front cover of the Minnesota Vikings media guide. 

Highlights of the practice:

-- Shockey missing two perfectly placed deep balls from Brees. I was shocked.

-- Brees and Colston. What a combo. Saw them connect five times, the fourth being a diving catch by Colston between two defenders. Somehow this was not the T-P's Play of the Day. 

-- During the portion where players signed autographs, running back Mike Bell, who is in danger of losing his third-string spot due to fumbles, dropped a football that he was trying to sign for a kid. Me: "Fummmmbbbblllleeee!!!!!" 

-- I saw Christina for the first time since her wedding. She was working for her new PR company. Her client is McDonald's, and she was passing out coupons. So, that was awesome. 

The adventure didn't end there folks. We hit up P.F. Chang's for lunch, browsed the mall and had some Coldstone ice cream for a cheer-me up. 

At one point in the afternoon, Paul looked quizzically at Minkus. 

Paul: Sometimes I wonder about that boy. He does some dumb things. 

Me: Hey, I crashed into a parked car earlier. 

THE TINA CURSING CORNER

As you might imagine, this entry is dedicated purely to the crashing of my car, which was perfectly perfect for 2 years, 1 month and 3 days. 

In summary of the day: "You fucked up." Then later. "You fucked yourself." 

When I first got mom on the phone shortly after the accident, she offered this almost inconceivable advice. "You have two choices. Either leave and get out because nobody has seen you or go knock on the fucking door and tell them." (Wow.)

Right before that advice. "Oh my fucking god. What have you done?" 

"What the fuck were you doing in the left hand lane?" (I made a wide turn?)

"How do you crash into a fucking parked car?" (I'm not sure, but I did.)

PARTING SHOT

Fortus is reading prep stories for the big prep preview sections at the end of the month. 

Fortus (to Trey): "Are Class 3A schools bigger than 2A?"

FRIDAY NIGHT PICTURES

I've decided that Friday night's Green Day concert is my third favorite concert of all-time. If only I was a little closer I could have taken some better pictures. But oh well.

I thought putting two buses outside the arena with their faces on it and playing their music was a tad bit lame for Green Day. Then again so was yelling New Orleans during 10 songs, but I let that go. Also, these morons apparently didn't think it was a lame idea.

That was the background when they first came out to play the first three tracks from 21st Century Breakdown. In fact, it was the 21st Century Breakdown tour.

That's some pretty cool lighting. As with all the pictures I deleted, you can't tell what be happening on the stage. Well, what's going on here is that Billie Joe has invited a teenage boy on stage to sing a verse from one of Green Day's 200 songs about masturbation.

After the concert, Bert and I met the gal pals (Paul, Kelly) and Nicole at the Daiquiri shop in Elmwood. Yeah, be jealous. There we witnessed a going-away party that featured on-top-the-bar dancing and a group of friends (separate from the party) take away the car keys from a Six Beers.

Six Beers was so pissed he emptied his pockets of all his change. That was very weird. I held back the desire to pick up the coins. That would have been sad. But would have provided a free meal. There was way more than I fit into this photo.

THE TINA CURSING CORNER

My mom watches Flo Rida perform on Conan. "Fucking make a million dollars on this crap."

Mom reads the front-page story on the guy who killed someone while drunk driving and had three DUIs already. "That's an ugly motherfucker."

I ask mom if she knows about the Cash for Clunkers program. "Yeah. What the fuck is going on with that?" There were also four WTFs at other random stuff Sunday.

MOVIE WEEK IN REVIEW

Funny People 2009. Overall, I liked it. It was 20 minutes too long and took some weird turns in the second half. Best quote: "Don't put me in a corner. I will fuck my way out of it."

He's Just Not That Into You. 2009. At first, I was just not into this movie. By the end, I thought it was OK. Girls be crazy, yo.

PARTING SHOT
Conan is talking about a TV reporter fired in Miami for being "too gay."

Conan: Yeah. It became real apparent he was gay when during a newscast, he stood behind his co-anchor and said, 'This just in.'

A TOP LIST
My top five John Hughes movies.

5) Breakfast Club. 1985.
Don't you forget about John. Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't.

4) Dennis the Menace. 1993.
Underrated film. I watched it maybe 10 times.

3) Ferris Bueller's Day Off. 1986.
The best of his 80s teen films if you ask me.

2) Planes, Trains & Automobiles. 1987.
Classic comedy adventure.

1) Home Alone. 1990.
Kevin, what did you do to my room?

FOOTBALL ALL THE WAY

I awoke this morning to the sound of thunder.
(On my bed) I sat and wondered

Those are Bob Seger lyrics. But that's how my morning started at 10:45 a.m. with rain drops pelting my window and the thunder roaring in the distance. It looked like Sports Saturdays Part II was in jeopardy.

Never, however, did I doubt we were playing Saturday. After all, last week I declared football would happen rain or shine. Plus, I tried willing it to stop.

There were several doubters in the group that we could play even if it stopped raining because the field would be in such terrible shape. With that in mind, I showed up at Jefferson Playground 15 minutes early (yes, I can be early for something) to check out the field conditions.

Turns out, Jefferson has an amazing drainage system. Around the track area was swampy, but the middle of the field was hardly wet. No puddles. Perfect for football, other than the ball getting wet after it hit the ground a few times.

At first, I was out there with just Chuck throwing the ball around, and it started raining steadily, threatening our game again. Bert, in fact, thought it was off until I called him and told him to get his ass over there.

Eventually, our lineup was me, Chuck, Little Joe, Bert, Kelly and Jacob. That's 3-on-3 for those keeping track at home. Not as many as you'd hope for, but enough for a quality game.

And you know what else? It stopped raining right after we started playing. Heck, the sun even came out and wore us the fuck out. In case you're wondering, my team won both games, but that's neither here nor there.

Highlights of the 1 1/2 hours of action
-- Kelly's interception and near return for a touchdown
-- My juke into a spin move to make two people miss at the same time; eat your heart out Red Meat
-- All the jump bumps Joe and I did, and Kelly and I inventing our own handshake

Sports Saturdays Part III is next Saturday with some baseball/softball. Be there.

THE TINA CURSING CORNER

My mom read Ramon's story about the dead stripper. "Left four fucking kids."

Mom is pissed at the new treadmill, I think. Or maybe it was something else. "All this fucking bullshit."

RANDOM THOUGHT OF EVERY SO OFTEN

I think I may be starting to like dogs. I'm up to two. Not big dogs. Those be scary. But medium sized dogs I might like. I feel ... different.

PARTING SHOTS
Liam reads that a co-worker of the girl accusing Big Ben of rape says she was basically bragging about boning him the next day, which will hurt her case.

Liam: She's screwed now.
Bake: She was screwed then.

Sandy tells me I owe her an extra dollar for dinner.

Me: No.
Sandy: Give me a dollar or I'll cut your heart out.
Liam: I got a dollar to see that.

IT'S SOMETHING UNPREDICTABLE. BUT IN THE END ...

Bert and I went to see the greatest rock band in the world. No, not U2. Or anything else beside Green Day that you just said.

It was one of the greatest concerts I've ever attended, and at $25 a ticket, it was the best value for a concert maybe in this decade.

Man, those guys can put on a show. Eight people on the floor ended up participating in the concert on stage at various points. Three people each got to sing a verse of Longview. The second dude really got into the act, and the crowd loved him until he announced that he is from Alabama. Billie Joe: "Get your Alabama ass off my fucking stage."

For the 10th song, they performed The Saints are Coming. Before the show, I bet Bert at 25:1 that they would do that song. That sucker took it, and I made a $1. Yippy.

The first 10 songs were all from this decade. Billy Joe then asked if any old school fans were in the house to a rousing ovation, which led to 11 songs from the 90s. They even played a song from one of the first two albums before anybody knew who the hell they were.

There were two encores for the show. For the second one, Billie Joe came out and performed a combo of Wake Me Up When September Ends and Time of Your Life. Somehow, people left before the first encore. Does that fake ending of the show before the return really fool people?

For the 25th song (there were 27 total) during the first encore, the band revved up the nine-minute power rock song Jesus of Suburbia. Billy Joe asked the audience if anyone knew how to play the song on the guitar. He pulled a teenage girl up on stage who said she knew it and had been playing for eight years.

Billie Joe: You know how to play it?
Girl: Yes.
Billie: Swear to God?
Girl: Yes.
Billie: You betta not be fucking lying to me.

She wasn't. She rocked the shit out of the first five minutes before giving way to Billie. Also, sometime during the night, I think he saved an 8-year-old girl. Like a televangelist.

Coming Sunday: Friday night pictures.

THE TINA CURSING CORNER


My mom had some issues with the sun Friday. At 1:15 p.m.: "Fucking sun decides to come out now. All day I was in, out. In and out." A few hours later: "I'm ready for the fucking summer to end. I'm tired of this shit."

Mom is not happy about a Spice Girl become an Idol judge. "Are you fucking kidding me? She can't sing a fucking tune. If she's a judge, I ain't watchin' no more."

And the most shocking quote so far in 2009. Mom is telling me about the kung fu guy who accidentally hanged himself while doing something else. "Yeah. It's a big thing. Strangling yourself and cumming. I'm like, 'What the fuck?' I never heard of that. Then, I get Weeds. Fucking Doug does it on the show. After you blow your load, you let go of the rope. Fucking crazy."

RANDOM THOUGHT OF EVERY SO OFTEN

Why do so many people want to move out of my neighborhood? There are seven houses for sale on our street. Was it something I said? So, yeah, come move next to Tina and me.

A TOP LIST
The top five song performances from Green Day's historic performance.

5) Shout remix.
As a sort of intermission, they played Shout. "A little bit softer now." Then they all laid on the ground. They played Twist and Shout, Free Fallin' and I'll Be There before going back to "A little bit louder now." Didn't expect that, but it was really cool.

4) Jesus of Suburbia.
Nine minutes of ecstasy.

3) The Saints are Coming.
Billie Joe: "That was the first time since the Superdome that we've played that song. And we'll only play it for this fucking city!"

2) Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
He let us sing most of it. Awesome.

1) When I Come Around.
Still their best song. Place was rocking for that one.

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

Late in the shift Thursday night, I glance over at Liam's computer to seem him fidgeting with some Internet tool. He's looking at the houses on his street.

Me: How the heck you doing that?
Liam: Google maps. You don't know about this?

I didn't. Apparently, you type in an address on the map option on google, and bam! they show you a shot of it. You can zoom in and stuff. It's creepy and somehow not illegal.

Outside one of the homes we looked at, we saw an old lady in the garden. I was half-expecting Tina to be in our garden when I looked at our house. The shot shows our two cars (Honda and Jetta) in their parking spot. So it was taken within the past two years.

Can you say new stalking tool?

THE TINA CURSING CORNER

My mom tells me that Ryan Seacrest signed a new American Idol contract. "Forty-five fucking million dollars."

Mom reads a story in the paper of a young boy dying while trying to cross Jefferson Highway on the street we lived on before moving to Harahan. "Yeah. He tried to cross over the fucking street."

I'm watching Conan. He has Sienna Miller on the program.
Me: Ma, you know who that is?
Mom: You think I don't know who the fuck Sienna Miller is?

We come back from running an errand. It was hot out. "Motherfuck!" Mom then looks at the thermostat, which is becoming her mortal enemy. "This motherfucker here."

ON THIS DATE IN GENE POOL HISTORY

2008: I compared a bunch of my peeps to Office characters. Lopes as Andy is looking much better for him a year later, now that Ed Helms is a super movie star.

PARTING SHOTS
D does his usual whistle and clap routine that he performs six times a night. We then solve a mystery.

Sandy: D, what is that?
D: It's the beginning of a song.
Sandy: A clap is the beginning of a song?
D: No. It's a drum beat.
Me: The whole time you've been doing a song? What song is it?
D: The Horse.
Sandy/Me: What is that?
Max: That's a Mardi Gras staple.

D is long in the tooth and slightly afraid of the new medium of communication.

D: If I hit the lotto while I'm here, I ain't blogging shit. I'll leave a note. 'Fuck ya'll. I ain't blogging.'