Happy Groundhog Day. And Happy Lost Day. I can't believe it's February already. I feel like that means the general public needs an update. Let's see, what can I tell you?

We just broke 100 fans on the facebook page for bodycounters. Stacey helped spur that along by asking all of her friends to become fans. She also drew us a new mascot, a counting death with a bucket of popcorn and an abacus. I have been doing nothing to help our cause because I'm stressed out over homework and work work. I need to scan the mascot guy in and then we want to hold a little contest to have people name him, but I need to figure out some kind of prize to give away. I also have counts to put up, of course, and the ASP code to figure out and the stats page to build and shirts to get printed and a new bodyshop to build and the film fest is fast approaching. No wonder I'm stressed out.

I have been having one of those days where I just want to run away from my life and go raise chickens and bananas in the jungles of Costa Rica. I've been having that day for the past week or so. Almost like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day except it's not all actually the same day, it just feels a lot like it.

It's not all bad though. If I can get my two papers written I will be breathing a lot easier as far as schoolwork goes. This is week four of seven so I'm halfway through these classes. And the big windfall is coming. We have a tax appointment set up for Saturday and I got my raise in my last paycheck, and then there's the bonus in March or April. Lots and lots of money coming my way. I will use it for things like furniture and curtains and slipcovers and doors. I am also going to put a deposit down for our summer vacation to Myrtle Beach. At the end of August I will be done all my classes and have enough credits for my degree. The last day of the last class is August 21. On August 22 we are leaving for Myrtle Beach. We are going to stay in a fantastic place called Captain's Quarters and have a relaxing, mellow vacation that's all about rum drinks and never changing out of my bathing suit. There is an awesome-looking Hard Rock down there that is shaped like a pyramid. Other than that I don't care what we do for the whole week or if we do anything at all. I'm going to reserve a huge suite and I told Ariana she can bring a friend. It's quite possible that I'll be bringing a friend too. Stacey and Mojo are going to get their own room, and possibly even share it with Lygia and Wil if they can manage to take another vacation this year. We'll see.

Oh, general public, I have neglected you so. To make up for it, here are some pictures from New Year's Eve. There are also a couple of fun videos up on flickr, mostly of Wil trying to put himself back together as he also tries to imitate the Christian Bale Batman voice. There was an awful lot of "Where's Harvey Dent?" yelled at my New Year's Eve party. There was also dancing in the street with a trumpet player, a lot of "Woot! Woot!" from Shanda, and champagne at midnight.

I finally got the database all updated and cleaned up so I can finish fixing up the site. Now I'm running into problems with the code because I don't really know what I'm doing. It's the same concept as a mail merge, and I actually have that part working. It's just the layout and format that I want to tweak. The page is reading the data out of the database and displaying it, I just don't like the WAY it is displayed. If you've ever done a mail merge where you had an address line 2 field then you might understand my frustration. I have fields that are sometimes filled in and sometimes left blank intentionally. Not every movie has an award or a comment to go with it. Some movies actually have more than one award. So I have all these placeholders for all these fields that are only supposed to show up when there is actually data there. The problem is that it still leaves a blank line where the placeholder is instead of keeping the data together and ignoring the empty fields. I know how to fix that in an actual mail merge in Word, but the code that is supposed to make it work in ASP is giving me shit. I need to learn more about this language so I have a better handle on what I'm doing.

It's frustrating, because I know what I want to do and I know it's possible. I just don't have the technical knowledge I need to make it happen. I wish I had an unpaid intern who knew how to code. I wish I had money to pay a programmer to do it for me. I guess without either of those things I'm just going to have to take the time to learn it myself, steal other people's code, and try to patch it together on my own. But I'm angry about not being able to get it working right now because I feel like I'm wasting the money we paid for the ASP-capable web hosting. I'm not happy that I'm still doing the manual updates and that I don't have a stats page yet.

What we really need to do is file papers to become an LLC. I think at the rate we are going right now we are definitely losing money all over the place and if it was a real business we could write all this stuff off. I bet I could also write off my Netflix account and every time I go out to the movies. If only I could get a business plan written maybe we could find some investors to throw a little cash our way so I can get all these things accomplished. I want the code rewritten so it interacts with the database and so you can sort and search through the counts. I want the stats page that tells you how many movies we've counted, how many bodies we've counted, how many bitches James Bond has banged and how many times Samuel L. Jackson says motherfucker. I want a real body shop with merchandise that comes from us instead of from a third-party site like CafePress. The quality will be better and we can offer it at lower prices which will make it easier to sell, but in order to get there we need to make a big investment to get the stock of merchandise to sell. It will be a huge profit generator if we can do it. I have visions of partnerships with Amazon and Netflix and maybe even Blockbuster. I have dreams of sponsoring Danger After Dark at the Philly Film Festival and having booths at horror conventions. I have so many ideas, and not enough time or money to make them all happen. The site has so much potential to be so successful, but I feel like we are just barely keeping it up and running with the bare basics of getting counts posted. I want to do so much more.

I don't think I'm going to continue with that. Tom is already in New Orleans, or possibly even on his way home now. I'm not sure how long the trip was supposed to be. So it's not doing him any good anymore, if it did at all, and the last part of the story is boring because I got tired of writing it. The 2nd day was the Arena Bowl and the ensuing celebration on Bourbon Street when the Soul won it. I hope Tom is having a lot of fun down there in between his business stuff. I did get a picture of the sign for Bourbon Cowboy, so he must have made it to Bourbon Street at least once.

In other news, school is finished for the semester and I couldn't be more relieved. I have all my work completed and I'm just waiting for grades. I should get two A's just like usual and keep my 4.0, but it's hard to say with the one class because he still hasn't graded stuff from week two. I am determined to enjoy this time off and I'm going to try to not even think about school until January 11 when it starts back up again.

In related news, I had my meeting with my boss on Tuesday to go over my year-end evaluation. He wrote glorious praises about me again, making it sound like I am wonderful and amazing and the savior of the Pharmacy Department. I guess that's about right. In the meeting he asked if there was anything in the evaluation I wanted to complain about. I just laughed at him. Then he pointed out the score he gave me, which I hadn't even looked at. It is on a scale of 1 to 5 and I got a 4.8. He told me that is the highest you can get. I said what about a 5? Well apparently no one can get a 5 because no one is perfect. The score is supposed to dictate something about how much of a raise I can get and how much my bonus will be, but I didn't pay any attention to that. I don't care about more money. I want a promotion that comes with an office. Apparently it will also come with more vacation and a bigger bonus, but I'm just worried about the office right now. I want some damn privacy.

He pretty much put it in writing that I will get moved up to management level as soon as I finish my degree. That's nice to have in my employee file. I told him that I should be finished by August, barring some insane circumstances that would prevent me from finishing these next nine classes. So by this time next year I should be in that office. That's the goal I'm working towards and when I get stressed out about school I just keep reminding myself that it will all be worth it in the end.

And for now I have a nice little winter break, so I'm going to focus on bodycounters.com, getting all my Christmas shopping done, and planning a New Year's Eve party. I am also trying to put together a poker game and a trip to Longwood Gardens, but I think we are running out of weekends very rapidly and there are all kinds of birthday and holiday parties coming up too. I'm sure this month will fly by and before I know it I'll be starting spring classes.

Sorry for the delay, but that's what a cliffhanger is all about, right? Here is the rest of the story about our first day in New Orleans. Yes, all of this was just our first full day there. This was originally written August 4, 2008:

Stacey indicated to me that she needed to throw up. I asked her if she thought she could make it to our hotel or if she just wanted me to try and find a bathroom we could defile. She didn't like either of those options. Instead she turned towards the tree we were sitting next to and hung her head, getting ready to do the big spit. I didn't know what else to do so I just rubbed her back and tried to ignore all the people passing by who thought it would be funny to taunt her.

It was right at this moment that the French-Canadian diplomat decided to re-enter my life. He came around the corner and saw us sitting on the curb, and he said, "Hey, why did you guys disappear?" I played dumb and turned it around on him, telling him that I looked around and he was gone and why did HE disappear? At that point I was just glad to have an ally in the war against the big spit. He quickly assessed the situation and came up with the brilliant plan to get a taxi back to our hotel. Why didn't I think of that?

He flagged down a taxi, which pulled up right as I was holding Stacey up by the waist while she threw up all of her Krystal cheeseburgers on the tree and the sidewalk. The taxi driver was not interested in having her repeat that performance in his cab, but our friend the French-Canadian diplomat somehow talked him into giving us a ride. He also ran into a souvenir shop to get a plastic bag for Stacey in case she couldn't keep the promise he made to the driver. Stacey kept apologizing to both of us and we kept telling her not to worry about it. French-Canadian Diplomat helped me load her into the backseat and I gave the driver the address of our hotel.

French-Canadian Diplomat quickly made friends with the driver, deducing that he was from Haiti and then speaking French to him for most of the ride. He also tried to point out that the guy had neglected to start the meter, but the Haitian cab driver told him not to worry about it. When we got to the hotel I asked him how much I owed him and he said $10. I gave him $15 and then had to convince Stacey to get out of the car and into the hotel. I had my shoulder under her arm and started walking her down the sidewalk, and once again the French-Canadian diplomat stepped in and saved me, pointing out that I was walking in the wrong direction. "Isn't this your hotel right here?"

He got his shoulder under Stacey's other arm while I unlocked the front door. We half-carried her to the room and as soon as we got there she collapsed on her bed. I ran into the bathroom because I was about to pee myself. When I came out Stacey was curled up in a ball on her bed and the French-Canadian diplomat grabbed me and started kissing me again. Before I knew it, we were on my bed making out and he wanted to know if I would go back to his hotel with him. He got up to use the bathroom and I cleared this plan with Stacey, who was still apologetic and told me to please go ahead. She also told French-Canadian Diplomat to be nice to me.

I grabbed the room key and whatever cash I had left and took off with the French-Canadian diplomat. He flagged down another cab and we took it over to the Hilton Riverside, a whole other world in comparison to our little hotel on St. Charles. And you all know how this story ends, but I do have to say that after all of the passionate buildup, all of the public making out, starting on the dance floor, then in my hotel room, then in the cab, and even in the elevator at the Hilton, I was hoping that the final result would be a bit more memorable. It's not that the sex was exactly BAD, it just wasn't as great as all of the buildup and anticipation that led up to it. And then he got all weird afterwards, acting all shady and asking me strange questions. He wanted to know all about my ex-husband and whether or not I had a boyfriend. Then his phone rang and when he saw who was calling he gave me a pleading look, held his finger up to his lips and said, "Please, shhh. Please."

My guess is that was the wife calling. I don't really know for sure because he held the entire conversation in French and I couldn't understand a word of it. He started packing and talking about his early morning flight. I fell asleep for a little while and woke up disoriented and concerned for Stacey. I quickly said goodbye to my French-Canadian diplomat, who only asked if I would be okay getting a cab back to my own hotel. I assured him that I would be fine and got out of there, marveling to myself that I had just had completely anonymous sex with a gorgeous French-speaking Canadian diplomat with a perfect body and a maybe-not-so-ex-wife. I literally have no idea what his name is. And in a way, I'm glad that the sex was only okay and not mind-blowing, because if it had rocked my world I would have been sorrier to say goodbye to him. As it was, I mostly felt glad to get away from him. He was bad news, I'm sure of it. But I did appreciate all of his help in getting Stacey back to the hotel. I don't know if I would've been able to manage on my own. I was barely functional myself at that point.

I decided against taking a cab this time and just walked all the way back to my own hotel. I had money in my pocket and could have gotten in one of the many taxis waiting outside the Hilton Riverside, but it was a nice night and I felt confident in my navigational abilities. It only took me a short time to figure that city out and before the end of that first night I was walking through the streets like I'd lived there my whole life. I'd found a little map in one of the guidebooks in our hotel room and between that, riding the streetcar, all the walking we did, and my unerring sense of direction, I felt right at home right away.

I got back to find Stacey passed out, so I got undressed and into bed myself. I didn't find out until later that she had drunk-dialed Ralfie while I was gone. Apparently Ralfie is the guy that everyone wants to talk to when they are drunk. I've been guilty of the Ralfie drunk dial myself, usually when we are out somewhere and wondering why he's not with us. I hear Jon committed the Ralfie drunk dial recently too, telling him something like he realized that when he's drunk, he thinks of Ralfie.

What this all says about Ralfie, I'm not really sure. It probably doesn't say much for the rest of us lushes either.

Here is part two of the New Orleans story, originally written on August 1, 2008:

Okay, where did I leave off? Mechanical bull rides? Right.

Once again pouring our remaining beer into plastic cups, we exited Bourbon Cowboy and ran right into two Soul players. Stacey got a picture with Mike Brown, who is the sweetest football player you will ever meet. If you look closely you can see Bogle in the background of that picture, and I feel like such an asshole because at the time we totally didn't even recognize him. We ran up to Mike Brown yelling his name and asking for autographs, but Bogle got no love. That's okay though, because in my eyes he was MVP of the Arena Bowl, and I shook his hand yesterday at the parade.

When we saw Mike Brown Double Down on Bourbon Street he kept thanking us and when Stacey asked him to sign her shirt he got all uncomfortable and moved it up so that he wouldn't be touching her boob. What a gentleman.

After that, the real fun began. We wandered into a bar called Bourbon Rocks and ordered a beer. This was one of those bars on Bourbon Street that does 3 for 1 beer specials. This kept happening to us. The first time I argued with the bartender and told her we only needed 2. But then she explained we were only paying for one. Stacey and I took our three beers and divided them up into our two plastic cups. This place was playing good music and I was in the mood to dance. Then I heard some sort of emcee saying crazy shit over the speakers and realized this person was in a deeper part of the bar. Stacey and I went to investigate. In the back room we found a woman with a microphone and a tray of shots. She was giving these out Let's Make a Deal style to anyone who met her criteria. She also kept talking about a make-out booth in the back and trying to encourage people to get out on the dance floor.

Stacey and I hung back near the door, sipping our beers and observing. The woman with the microphone spotted us and started heckling us to come all the way in and have a seat. We politely declined and somewhere around there is where the French-Canadian diplomat entered the picture. I may butcher this story because my memory is a bit hazy. Stacey, please correct me on anything that I get wrong. But I think I remember Stacey dragging the French-Canadian diplomat over to me and saying something like, "Hey, he is divorced too!" So the French-Canadian diplomat and I started sharing war stories about divorce and our respective exes. He was wearing a gold band on the ring finger of his RIGHT hand and told me that he was separated from his wife. He also told us he was down there for some sort of diplomatic conference and explained something about where his buddies were and why he wasn't with them. The microphone lady started calling us the "threesome" and trying to encourage us to leave our little corner near the door, but we weren't having it. At least not yet.

But then she started giving shots out for crazy things again, and this ultimately led to my downfall. Literally. I heard her say, "If anyone has a piercing..." and I started to run out on the dance floor. I'm not sure exactly how, either I tripped over the step up to the dance floor or I tripped over my own feet, but I ended up doing a belly flop and sliding across the floor on my chest, hands and feet up in the air. I slid to a stop and a little of my beer sloshed out of my cup but I managed to keep it completely upright. Then I heard the rest of what the microphone lady was saying, "...below the waist."

Great. Now I'm on the floor, I've made a total fool of myself by falling, and I don't even qualify for the shot she's giving away. I have a piercing but it is above the waist. Microphone Lady said, "Whoah! She's on the floor!" And that was when Stacey looked over and saw me face down on the dance floor with my mostly full beer still in my hand. She thought, "Oh shit, she really IS on the floor!" I picked myself up and walked back over to our little corner. Microphone Lady started yelling that I should come back up there. I ran up there so fast that I fell on the floor and now I'm not going to show my piercing? I went back up and explained my situation and showed her my belly button ring. Feeling dejected and foolish, I went back to Stacey and the French-Canadian diplomat, hanging my head in shame. Then Stacey reminded me that I have a tattoo below the waist. I shouted that to the microphone lady and she told me to come back up and show that off instead. So I did, and then she gave me two shots. One for falling, and one for the tattoo. Not bad.

When I came back to the corner with the shots I gave one to Stacey and drank the other one. My French-Canadian diplomat made a big show of pointing out to Microphone Lady that she completely ignored the fact that I made such a spectacular fall and DIDN'T EVEN SPILL MY BEER! She acknowledged this and announced it to the crowd, who all cheered for me.

Before long we were dancing in our little corner. The French-Canadian diplomat seemed thrilled to be dancing with not one but two hot girls, although Stacey and I were both hanging back a little on the other's behalf, trying not to step on each other's toes or give this guy the wrong idea about us. Somehow all of this led to the three of us out on the dance floor with the French-Canadian diplomat between the two of us, all of us dancing as people climbed under our legs. Microphone Lady was the first to climb through our legs like they were a tunnel and then she got up and started dancing in front of me. Then, before I knew it, Stacey had wandered off and I was left dancing with the French-Canadian diplomat, which eventually led to a very public make-out session right on the dance floor. After a few songs we retreated back to the corner where he continued to kiss me and also continued to try to grab Stacey every chance he could get.

In an effort to get away from this, Stacey grabbed some random boy and dragged him to the dance floor, but he had no rhythm so she abandoned him there and went wandering off in search of another victim. She found a guy sitting alone at a table smoking, and she stole one of his cigarettes and tried to get him to come out and dance. He was having none of this, and that's how I found them: Stacey smoking a cigarette with some guy who looked like he was about to cry into his beer. French-Canadian diplomat and I had gone looking for her because it was 6 o'clock and time for Huey Lewis.

We left the bar with the intention of making our way over to the concert, but Stacey immediately started telling us how ridiculously drunk she was and that she needed to eat. During some of her wanderings at Bourbon Rocks she managed to get two more shots out of the microphone lady, on top of the Heinekens that French-Candadian Diplomat gave us when he got three for the price of one. She was wrecked. I was feeling pretty good myself, and not really in the mood to eat anything, but if she wanted food we would find her some food. The first place we found was Krystal, which I remembered seeing earlier and pointing out because they are just like White Castle. Stacey was ready for any kind of food and in no mood to discriminate, so in we went. I hung back while she ordered her food and at one point I looked over and French-Canadian Diplomat was kissing her. I shook my head in disgust, at him but not at her. I think he took Microphone Lady's "threesome" comments to heart. I could tell right from the start that his intentions were less than noble, but seeing him shove his tongue in her mouth just a few minutes after he had been doing the same to me really turned me off to him.

I wandered outside because there was a parade happening. Mascots and people in Soul jerseys were marching down the street and throwing beads. I was excited to be a part of it all and grabbed up as many strands of beads as I could, thankful that no one was asking me to flash them first. Stacey came out with her cheeseburgers and I gave her some beads to wear too. French-Canadian Diplomat was now nowhere in sight, so I took the opportunity to escape from him and led Stacey out of there. We made it as far as Canal Street before she informed me that she REALLY needed to sit down and eat her burgers. I looked for a good spot, but she just ended up plopping herself down on the curb next to a tree. I sat down next to her, glad to be alive and at that particular place at that particular time. I was totally unprepared for what came next...

My good friend Tom is heading to New Orleans for a business trip. He asked me for some recommendations about what to do and where to eat while he was down there and I'm afraid I wasn't much help. Stacey and I were only there for a weekend and we were pretty much drunk the entire time. I do have good memories of the trip and I know we had a blast, but asking me for specific details is just an exercise in futility. Especially about places to eat. I don't remember eating much, which probably contributed to our drunken delinquency. And since I'm so bogged down with homework that I can't make time to talk about how my life is going in the present, I'm going to treat you all to some more stories from the past. Maybe it will be an inspiration for Tom even if it doesn't give him any restaurant recommendations. This story was told over the course of a few entries for one reason and another, so here is part one which was originally written on July 31, 2008:

It was a race against time, but James Bond paved the way. I hadn't counted on all the Delaware shore traffic. It was way too early for rush hour traffic, but when I saw all the cars lined up for the shore points exit I realized what was going on. We made it to the airport on time, but just barely. As I raced down the highway I kept hearing movie lines in my head. "I haven't missed a plane yet."

Then there was a line to check the bags and a line for security. Traveling is such a pain in the ass in these days of terrorism, at least in places like BWI and PHL. On the way back home, our experience in the New Orleans airport left us both dumbfounded and dizzy. We zipped right past security in less than 2 minutes. I could hardly believe it. But now I'm getting ahead of myself, as I always do.

We hurried to our gate, expecting the plane to already be boarding, but there was no plane yet. The other passengers were probably upset about the delay, but to Stacey it was more of a relief. Now she might actually be able to drink enough to calm her fear of flying. I grabbed a sandwich and a beer and we waited for the plane to arrive. Several hours of traveling and a stop in Birmingham later, we arrived at our hotel and checked in. The hotel itself was definitely an example of "you get what you pay for." I wouldn't go so far as to say that the place was a horrible dump or that it ruined our vacation, but there were definitely some downsides. The place was undergoing renovations, just like a lot of places down there. The city is still in rebuilding mode, at least in certain areas. We didn't so much mind the renovations but our toilet broke the first day and there was no liner for the shower curtain so we flooded the bathroom every time we took a shower. Stacey got all MacGyver on the toilet and fixed it with a paper clip. The room itself was tiny, but all we really did was sleep there so I didn't care about that. There was a "continental breakfast" of sorts, but mostly that just meant a loaf of bread, a toaster, some butter and jam and some really cheap little prepackaged muffins and pastries, along with juice and coffee. Better than nothing, except there was no bread for toast on Monday and that made me sad.

The good parts of the hotel were: as I already mentioned the price was right, the staff was very friendly and helpful, and the location was fabulous. We were right on St. Charles and the streetcar went right in front of the hotel. Of course we only rode it twice, both times in the morning. Whenever we returned to the hotel it was either on foot at 2 in the morning or in a taxi with Stacey passed out in the back seat. But that's jumping ahead again, isn't it?

We went to bed almost immediately after arriving on Friday night. The next morning after having our breakfast breads we hopped on the streetcar and rode it to Poydras. From there it was only a few blocks up to the Superdome and the Arena where we hoped to be the first in line at the box office to pick up our tickets. The game wasn't until the next day, but we were nervous about not having the tickets in our hands. See, they were supposed to be mailed to us, but they never showed up. We kept thinking they would be in the mailbox when we got home, but as of yet they still haven't arrived. Stacey had made tons of phone calls to Ticketmaster and the Arena Bowl trying to make sure we could pick them up there, but they were giving her the runaround. So on Saturday morning we made it our first mission to try and get those tickets so we could stop worrying about it. There were a few security guards around and some workers setting up for the festivities the next day, but no one in the box office. The first security guy we talked to said the box office would open in an hour so we sat around on the steps of the Arena waiting, only to find out after that hour was up that there was no one coming at all and we were going to have to come back the next day.

Foiled in our first mission and dripping with sweat already, we walked to the French Quarter to look for the Hard Rock. I don't know why it didn't occur to me sooner that there was a Hard Rock in New Orleans, but I saw a billboard on our way to the hotel from the airport and of course we had to eat there at least once. This was a new Hard Rock for me so I had to get the obligatory shot glass to add to my collection. It was one of the smaller sized Hard Rocks I've ever been in, along the same lines as the one in Atlantic City probably. When we first arrived they weren't even open yet so we wandered down to the river and watched some of the boats floating around. We also noticed a stage being set up nearby for a concert later that night. Then I saw the banner on the fence that announced who was playing there: Huey Lewis and the News! This was cause for extreme excitement and we promised to come back to that spot at 6 pm so we could see the show.

When the Hard Rock finally did open for business we had our first and only hurricane drinks of the weekend. Those things are WAY too sweet. I'd rather have a Sticky Butt Naked. Or an Abita Turbodog as Tom so kindly recommended to me. It's a bit of a heavy beer for me, but I did enjoy it. I don't think I could drink a lot of them though. The fajitas we ordered were also our first and only meal of the day, unless you count the "breakfast breads" we had at the hotel. I believe that Stacey came to regret that later, and I think she also regretted not eating more of her lunch when she had the chance. After we finished eating we still had quite a few hours to kill before the Huey Lewis concert started, so we decided to wander the streets and get drunk.

Stacey had already decided that we need to move down there. She was talking about sending for the child and the kitties, and trying to convince me that we could totally open a bar and sell Philly cheese steaks. And all of this was before we had any REAL fun. The first bar we stopped in was called Club Decatur and we were the only two people there besides the bartender. We drank some $1 Miller High Lifes and watched television with the bartender until a local guy came in and gave us some good advice about places to eat and cool bars to check out. He liked our cheese steak idea although he recommended we call them Philly cheese po'boys. Then he went off to look at bugs with his friends.

One of my absolute favoritest things about this city? You can totally walk out of the bar with your drink and just wander the streets with it. We started this trend when we left Club Decatur, pouring the rest of our Miller High Lifes into two plastic cups and then going back out into the streets to search for another bar. We stopped and had a beer in a few more places, one of which was called Coyote Ugly. They had bras of every size and color hanging over the bar, some of them autographed. There was also a bar that was named something about a parrot where we nursed the beers we ordered and talked to the bartender about the two hot Soul fans she'd just seen earlier. After leaving there we found ourselves on Bourbon Street and rode the mechanical bull at Bourbon Cowboy. I have pictures of that, because despite the fact that we'd now been drinking for about 4 or 5 hours, we were still just getting started. It was the next bar we went to where shit started getting REALLY out of hand.

But I guess that will have to be part 2 of this saga, because I've been trying to write this on and off all day long, and now it's time to go home. I would have loved to spend more time on this story, but I had meetings and work to do, and then there was a parade outside my office for the Soul. I went downstairs with a big group of my coworkers and we had pom-poms and signs and we cheered for the Soul as they went past. I think most of my office-mates were just excited to get out of work for a little while, but when I saw my boys riding by it was just like seeing a bunch of my good friends. I waved to Matty D'Orazio, Chris Jackson, and Mike Brown and gave Phil Bogle a high five. All the players waved and thanked us for being out there, and I might even end up on TV for it.

I'll try to continue the New Orleans story tomorrow. And if you're really lucky, I might get the pictures up too!

(Note: The pictures are obviously already uploaded.)

I had to go to court today, and coincidentally it was the same courthouse I was in the last time I had to go to traffic court. I don't have as many interesting stories to tell this time, but I was reminded of all the fun I had there last time. Here's the entry I wrote back then, in April 2007:

Court was fun. It was well worth the $33 court costs just to watch the show. I could see myself totally getting a kick out of court reporting. And in true gonzo style, this time I was well immersed in the story. I was a part of the process, for sure. And the outcome is just priceless.

But first, I could not BELIEVE the number of people who showed up to court wearing worn t-shirts, sweatpants, hoodies and jeans, and dragging their babies along in carseats. Some of these people were facing some really serious shit, like DWIs and jail time for assault. And they looked like slobs and gang members. Even the ones who had lawyers still didn't make themselves look respectable, or even presentable.

I've never felt like more of a cog in the bureaucratic machine. But it all worked out for me in the long run, so I'm not really complaining. I actually tried to pay the fine last week. I mailed them a check for $180. They sent it back to me with a form letter stating there was a mandatory court appearance. I figured all I had to do was show up with my insurance card, prove it was valid at the time I was pulled over, and then pay my $180. I was ready to plead guilty. I'm a fucking criminal. I admit it. I wasn't looking to get a break. I already GOT my break. The $180 failure to exhibit insurance documents ticket was my break.

Then they start calling names for people to come get in line if they want to talk to the prosecutor. I figure they won't call me, but they do. So I got up and stood in the line like a good little citizen. I stood there with the pregnant girl who told me she liked my coat and the thugs and thieves with their thick gold chains and heavy accents. While we stood in line waiting to talk to the prosecutor (actually I spoke to the Special Liaison Officer), we at least got to watch the action as court progressed.

Two people actually needed interpreters. One of them spoke only Portuguese and only had a valid driver's license in the country of Brazil (where the fight BEGINS!). Then there was the guy who went up on a traffic charge with his lawyer, pleaded guilty to that and then his lawyer pipes up that they also have a criminal matter today if the judge would like to hear it all at once. The judge calls the complainant in that matter, an assault case, and up comes a girl with big hoop earrings, drawn on eyebrows, and her arm in a sling. She is carrying x-rays in the hand that isn't wrapped in the sling.

Allegedly, the guy grabbed her by the throat and threw her against a wall. The judge asked if she'd had a chance to talk to the domestic abuse counselor. Unfortunately for us, their case was postponed for discovery and I'll never know how it turns out.

By far the best case of the day was the woman called up for littering. The entire room was dumbfounded when the judge read the charge. Littering? The fuck? He asked her if she wanted to waive her right to an attorney, and told her that because of the low penalties involved he would not even offer a public defender. She said she didn't need a lawyer. He asked her if she wanted to plead guilty or not guilty and she asked if she could explain what happened.

And boy am I glad that the judge told her she could. She proceeded to tell a twenty minute tale of how she took her daughter-in-law grocery shopping, along with her son and grandson. The kids had just moved in to their own place, you see, and Mom was picking up the tab for the initial grocery shopping trip. Very nice of her. She also picked up groceries for herself while they were there, and between her own bags and all the bags for the kids' new house, they had quite the haul of groceries to bring home. They got out to the parking lot and that's when Mom discovered that the suitcases her husband had trash-picked the week before were still in the trunk. How could they fit all these groceries in the car? It was a dilemma, for sure.

The woman explained, close to tears, all of the ways she tried to solve her unique problem. She asked a clerk in the store if she could use their dumpster and just throw them away. She offered them to people in the parking lot. No one took them off her hands. Desperate to get home with all of their groceries, and with the grandson squalling in the cart, the woman just left the suitcases there and drove away.

Two hours later she drove past the same store again and noticed the police had swarmed the place, lights flashing, yellow tape up everywhere, they had even called out the bomb squad. She realized immediately that they probably found the suitcases. She drove to her friend's house and called the police to turn herself in.

Meanwhile, the detective is up there with the prosecutor and he wants to tell his side of the story. Sure, she turned herself in, but he wants to make sure it gets put down on the record that his team had already identified the responsible party by viewing the surveillance videos from the store and getting her name from the credit card receipt once they matched up the times.

The judge wanted to know what the state wanted to do with the situation. What kind of penalty were they asking for? The prosecutor deferred the matter to the judge, saying that he could estimate the cost to the township for calling out the bomb squad when they got a report of a "suspicious package" in the parking lot of the local supermarket. But after hearing the woman's story, the judge could also plainly see that her intent was not to cause such a disturbance.

They eventually fined her like $150 or something and sent her on her way. The judge also made sure to say, "Good job, Detective." Soon after this it was my turn to talk to the Special Liaison Officer. I didn't know what to say to the man at all, so I just gave him my name and turned on the Barbie smile. I said, "I guess you just need me to show you my insurance card?" He said yes and I handed it to him, he made a little mark on his paper and told me they would dismiss the charges and I'd just have to pay the $33 for court costs, if that was okay with me. He told me, "You took the time to come in here and show us your insurance documents so one good turn deserves another." I thanked him and took my seat back out in the courtroom to wait for my turn before the judge.

He called up a bunch of other girls in the same situation as me. Most of them got their cases dismissed with just the $33 court costs. One girl, however, was asked to raise her right hand and swear to tell the truth and she put in a plea of guilty to not providing the documents at the time (the same thing the rest of us were guilty of, too) and he made her pay $189 PLUS the $33 court costs. She happened to be in front of me in line to pay and she wailed to the clerk at the injustice of it all, but the woman had no sympathy for her and just told her to pay up.

I'm not sure why, but when he called my name I braced myself for the same fate. The officer had already given me my break, I was well aware of that. I was guilty, damnit, and I knew it. I'm a fucking criminal! It's true. Why deny it? But when the judge called my name he just mumbled something about, "I see all of your paperwork is now in order and you showed your insurance documents to the Prosecutor, so they are asking me to dismiss this with just $33 court costs. Is that what they explained to you?" I said, "Yes," and "Thank you," and paid my $33 and laughed my way out of the courthouse.

Justice served, motherfuckers.

Things are looking much better on this Tuesday morning. A technician called my cell phone yesterday and told me he was going over to the house to see if he could fix it from the outside again. I told him to have at it. When the baby got home she called me on her cell phone so I asked if there was still no dial tone on the house line. She hadn't even tried it, but she checked and the phone was working. She reset the modem and the internet was back up too. All was well, and I didn't have to take today off from work after all.

I got some homework done last night and a couple of bodycounts up, and I have a totally free calendar at work today so I'm planning on getting a lot done while I'm here too. The research paper that I thought was due on Thanksgiving is now due on Sunday instead, so the pressure has eased a little bit. I took the turkey out of the freezer this morning to thaw. I'm pretty sure we have everything we need for Thanksgiving. I'm definitely going to do a little cleaning up around the house before then though.

The facebook fan page for bodycounters now has 93 fans. We're getting bodycounts from fans faster than I can get them put up on the page. The data clean up is also moving along. I think I'm about halfway done. We're adding all kinds of new fields to the database so we can keep running counts of things like Samuel L. Jackson's motherfuckers, James Bond's bitches banged, and totals for some of the big killers like Jason and Freddy. I'm so excited about what I want to do with the site. I just wish I had more time to work on it.

There's only two and a half weeks left in the semester though, and then I get a nice long break, almost a month off. Spring classes don't start until January 11. That leaves plenty of time to get some things accomplished before all my time is sucked away again.

Verizon has decided to jump on the bandwagon of ruining my life. I haven't had internet or phone service in my house since Tuesday. I called them on Wednesday and they couldn't send anyone out to fix it until Friday. A technician did come Friday and supposedly did something about switching me off a bad line onto a good one. He let me know it could take up to 24 hours for the main office to switch the new, good line on. I let them have all day Saturday without bitching about it. At 8 am yesterday morning when I still had no dial tone and no internet access, I called them back. The guy I spoke to that time said it would be turned on in a couple of hours. In the afternoon when I still had no dial tone and no internet access, I called again. This time the guy I got on the phone after arguing with the robot lady for 20 minutes told me to unplug everything and wait a little while and then plug everything back in and it should be okay. That sounded far-fetched to me, but I tried it. Long story short, I still have no phone or internet.

Someone is supposed to come back out tomorrow, but this time I need to be there to let them in the house so it means I have to take a day off work. They are really pushing me over the edge with this. I called this morning to bitch at them and got basically nowhere. The billing guy I talked to told me I would certainly be entitled to a credit on my bill, but they can't put it in until the service has been restored because they don't know exactly how many days I will be without service. I guess that shows you their confidence in the ability of the technician that is coming out tomorrow to fix my problem.

This wouldn't be that big of a deal except that I am taking ONLINE classes. All of my work has to be submitted online. I have to log in to even see what the assignments are and I also have research papers due this week and next week that require me to do research on the internet. I cannot function without access to the internet, at least where school is concerned. I don't care so much about the rest of it, even though it does suck that I can't put bodycounts up or play world of warcraft. I'm much more concerned with what will happen if they can't get this fixed tomorrow. I have internet access at work, but I won't be here all day tomorrow while I wait for the technician, and then I won't be here Thursday or Friday either because of the holiday.

I am so close to canceling my entire account with them and calling Comcast. They just have this one more chance. The only good thing I can possibly see coming from this is that maybe it means Fios is coming. The last time I had a problem where my phone & internet got shut off for a week was right before they installed Fios in Deptford. We've been waiting a year and a half for Fios to come to Township. I will forgive them all of it if I can have my Fios back, but if they keep fucking shit up they are getting the boot.