Ok, ok, why did Michelle Forbes get a mullet?

HT: Gateworld.

I’ve blogged about Steve and A. before.

Last night, at The Magistrate’s house, they found my blog.

I walked in tonight to A. screaming at me, furious that I’d blogged about how she put her hole through the wall, threatening to sue me for slander.

Then she stopped, shrugged, and said, “You didn’t use my name. Whatever.”

And for the rest of the night it was like she’d never found the blog.

Steve’s only comment, “Dude, you have a whole section on Ogre!”

Um. I do?

***

Ogre left the store — on to corporate. In his absence, and with Steve’s notice in, Zebulon was promoted to assistant manager.

Dear god.

The guy makes Ogre look competent.

There’s a certain amount of what I like to call “store awareness” that is required by the job position. You’ve got to know how many pizzas are on the make-screen, how long you’ve got until pizzas fall to the floor out of the oven, where your drivers are and when they’ll be back, where your insiders are and what they’re doing. You’ve got to be ready to answer operational questions from any employee at any time and about any subject. You’ve got to be wary of how much time you’ve got to accomplish key tasks like breaking down the make line, doing inventory, and placing food orders.

Zebulon, on the other hand, just sort of staggers through his shift. He doesn’t know answers to basic questions, even on orders he took. He gets snotty, defensive and mean when pressured to make routing decisions. “Just leave me alone!” he snapped at one point, storming to the walk-in.

Zebulon’s got it easy, right now. Going into the labor day weekend as he’s training, its slow as hell. But business’ll pick up in the winter, and this job is sort of like a meat grinder —

– in other words, he ain’t going to make it, unless he pulls his head out of his anus.

(Of course, I said that about Ogre).

Y’know, over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading on conservative blogs off-and-on about how the mainstream media is trying to cause some sort of panic with their fear-mongering on rising gas prices. Most of these conservative blogs will point to inflation and make the arguement that $1 for a gallon of gas in 1980 was a lot more than $2.50 for a gallon of gas in 2005.

I’m willing to accept the crux of their arguement - that gas prices, adjusted for inflation, were much higher in the past as compared to the now. Also, that compared to what citizens of other countries pay for gas, even $4 a gallon is a deal.

But you know what? Those blogs are also full of shit. The price of gas has been increasing steadily for many, many months. There was a brief drop in prices — before Memorial Day, prices in Cockeysville and Phoenix were averaging between $2.19 and $2.25. Then prices took a hike — Royal Farms at Jarrettsville Pike and Hess Road had gas just above two-bucks, and a venture into Essex showed prices below two altogether.

Tuesday morning I filled up at the Shell station at York & Ashland in Cockeysville. The price was $2.67 for regular unleaded. The price this morning was $2.87. I thought that was shocking? The Exxon in Four Corners, Jacksonville had gas for $3.05. Across the street, BP had the same — regular unleaded — for $3.19 … and within an hour, had raised prices to $3.79.

They’re full of shit because even if the mainstream media wasn’t talking about rising gas prices, people would be. The media isn’t fanning a panic — they’re talking about what many people are. Trust me — great discussion was had at work today about how to handle rising gas prices … Greg’s on vacation, but when he gets back, he’s going to find a proposal about cutting the size of the delivery area, as well as providing a more generous mileage compensation to drivers … possibly funded by a delivery charge. There’s also talk about a “mass call-out” if compensation isn’t increased, but frankly, if gas prices continue to increase the way they have been, I’m going to have to call Greg and have the following conversation with him:

Me: “Greg, I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news.”

Greg: “What’s the good news, Mr. Snay?”

Me: “I’m putting in my two weeks notice.”

Greg: “You’re right! That is good news. What’s the bad?”

Me: “My two-weeks was given retroactively fourteen days ago. See ya!”

Greg: “$#!^&*!”

Found on Little Green Footballs, and worth a read:

Thanks to all of you who have sent your notes of concern and your prayers. I am writing this note on Tuesday at 2 p.m.. I wanted to update all of you as to the situation here. I don’t know how much information you are getting but I am certain it is more than we are getting. Be advised that almost everything I am telling you is from direct observation or rumor from reasonable sources. They are allowing limited internet access, so I hope to send this dispatch today.

Personally, my family and I are fine. My family is safe in Jackson, Miss., and I am now a temporary resident of the Ritz Carleton Hotel in New Orleans. I figured if it was my time to go, I wanted to go in a place with a good wine list. In addition, this hotel is in a very old building on Canal Street that could and did sustain little damage. Many of the other hotels sustained significant loss of windows, and we expect that many of the guests may be evacuated here.

Things were obviously bad yesterday, but they are much worse today. Overnight the water arrived. Now Canal Street (true to its origins) is indeed a canal. The first floor of all downtown buildings is underwater. I have heard that Charity Hospital and Tulane are limited in their ability to care for patients because of water. Ochsner is the only hospital that remains fully functional. However, I spoke with them today and they too are on generator and losing food and water fast.

The city now has no clean water, no sewerage system, no electricity, and no real communications. Bodies are still being recovered floating in the floods. We are worried about a cholera epidemic. Even the police are without effective communications. We have a group of armed police here with us at the hotel that is admirably trying to exert some local law enforcement. This is tough because looting is now rampant. Most of it is not malicious looting. These are poor and desperate people with no housing and no medical care and no food or water trying to take care of themselves and their families. Unfortunately, the people are armed and dangerous. We hear gunshots frequently. Most of Canal street is occupied by armed looters who have a low threshold for discharging their weapons. We hear gunshots frequently. The looters are using makeshift boats made of pieces of styrofoam to access. We are still waiting for a significant national guard presence.

The health care situation here has dramatically worsened overnight. Many people in the hotel are elderly and small children. Many other guests have unusual diseases. … There are (Infectious Disease) physicians in at this hotel attending an HIV confection. We have commandeered the world famous French Quarter Bar to turn into an makeshift clinic. There is a team of about seven doctors and PAs and pharmacists. We anticipate that this will be the major medical facility in the central business district and French Quarter.

Our biggest adventure today was raiding the Walgreens on Canal under police escort. The pharmacy was dark and full of water. We basically scooped the entire drug sets into garbage bags and removed them. All under police escort. The looters had to be held back at gunpoint. After a dose of prophylactic Cipro I hope to be fine.

In all we are faring well. We have set up a hospital in the French Quarter bar in the hotel, and will start admitting patients today. Many will be from the hotel, but many will not. We are anticipating dealing with multiple medical problems, medications and and acute injuries. Infection and perhaps even cholera are anticipated major problems. Food and water shortages are imminent.

The biggest question to all of us is where is the National Guard. We hear jet fighters and helicopters, but no real armed presence, and hence the rampant looting. There is no Red Cross and no Salvation Army.

In a sort of cliche way, this is an edifying experience. One is rapidly focused away from the transient and material to the bare necessities of life. It has been challenging to me to learn how to be a primary care physician. We are under martial law so return to our homes is impossible. I don’t know how long it will be and this is my greatest fear. Despite it all, this is a soul-edifying experience. The greatest pain is to think about the loss. And how long the rebuild will take. And the horror of so many dead people.

PLEASE SEND THIS DISPATCH TO ALL YOU THINK MAY BE INTERESTED IN A DISPATCH from the front. I will send more according to your interest. Hopefully their collective prayers will be answered. By the way, suture packs, sterile gloves and stethoscopes will be needed as the Ritz turns into a MASH.

HT: Little Green Footballs.

CNN.com:

New Orleans hospital halts patient evacuations after coming under sniper fire, a doctor who witnessed the incident says. More soon.

Like Jerry Falwell post September 11th, “Repent America” director Michael Marcavage had this to say about the disaster:

Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city. From ‘Girls Gone Wild’ to ‘Southern Decadence,’ New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. From the devastation may a city full of righteousness emerge.

The extreme religious right — the fundies — speak again. Y’know, after Falwell’s flap, then Robertson’s “Hey, let’s assassinate Chavez” bit, and now this … goodness, what the eff are these people thinking? It’s one thing to be politically identified with the right or left and Christian, it’s another to identify with these fundementalists.

Y’know what I’d really like? And, yes, this is horrible — but I would love to hear what these asshat asshole fundies would have to say after their parish or home or town gets ravaged by a tornado.

HT: Andrew Sullivan

I got home from work today to find my keyboard tray on the ground, the rails completely snapped off. This is what I get for leaving the tray out, because believe me, I know exactly what happened: Guy saw an opportunity to scratch himself on the keyboard and took it and probably had a terrible fright as the tray gave loose.

Indeed, Guy was hiding under a nearby table giving his best “I dinn’ do it” look on his furry face.

Aw, fuck it, I didn’t want a keyboard tray anyway …

One year ago, today.

Good stuff.