setting up near a Brooks Brothers store in New Orleans

That store is in the Canal Place mall, at the foot of Canal Street.

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The rest of dinner was spent making Kevin Sorbo jokes. Quietly. Sort of.

And we got progressively less quiet, to the point where I was slinking down in my chair, hiding my face in my hands, and moaning, "Oh my god."

Not to mention that a waitress came by our table to tell us that we were sitting next to Kevin Sorbo. Which we already knew, because we could tell it was him from the back of his big giant head.

"Is anyone here in line for Mr. Sorbo? Anyone?"

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to the point where I was slinking down in my chair, hiding my face in my hands, and moaning, "Oh my god."

It was the Kevin Sorbo dildo joke, wasn't it.

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It was the Kevin Sorbo dildo joke, wasn't it.

t muffled shrieking noises

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Yay, Stephanie!! That's wonderful news!!

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There are places that have large-scale models ("large" being relative here) of the sloar system. I think the biggest one has Pluto 20 miles away from the sun.

There's one in Peoria! Well, the sun's in Peoria. Pluto is 40 miles away, in Kewanee.

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Tour the Solar System by bicycle

OK, that's cool.

Depending on your planetary destination, there are options for every member of your family, for riders of all ages and abilities. Road routes, trail routes or any combination are available. For example:

• Jupiter-Saturn-Jupiter - (Rock Island Trail) 1.5 billion miles (12mi.)
• Sun-Jupiter-Sun - (Sunday a.m. city streets) 2 billion miles (13 mi.)
• Saturn-Uranus-Saturn - (Rock Island Trail or roads) 1.5 - 2.1 billion miles (12 - 17 miles)
• Saturn-Neptune-Saturn - (Rock Island Trail or roads) 4 - 5.1 billion miles (32 - 41 miles)
• Through the Kuiper Comet Belt to Pluto (must depart by 7:30 am) - 14 billion miles (100 mi.)
• The Inner Solar System & Historic Peoria 3 billion miles (24 mi.)

eta:

Whatís Included in the Registration Fee

• Bragging Rights - Who else can say they've cycled to Pluto?
• Reversal of the aging process - Since ride speeds will be in excess of the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) there are relativistic implications. Some observers predict that participants will actually return younger than when they started.

Heh.

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Holy Fuck. The National Guard are proud of how they handled the convention center.

[link]

The most contentious issues were lawlessness in the streets, and particularly a potentially very dangerous volatile situation in the convention center where tens of thousands of people literally occupied that on their own. We had people that were evacuated from hotels, and tourists that were lumped together with some street thugs and some gang members that -- it was a potentially very dangerous situation.

We waited until we had enough force in place to do an overwhelming force. Went in with police powers, 1,000 National Guard military policemen under the command and control of the adjutant general of the State of Louisiana, Major General Landreneau, yesterday shortly after noon stormed the convention center, for lack of a better term, and there was absolutely no opposition, complete cooperation, and we attribute that to an excellent plan, superbly executed with great military precision. It was rather complex. It was executed absolutely flawlessly in that there was no violent resistance, no one injured, no one shot, even though there were stabbed, even though there were weapons in the area. There were no soldiers injured and we did not have to fire a shot.

Some people asked why didn't we go in sooner. Had we gone in with less force it may have been challenged, innocents may have been caught in a fight between the Guard military police and those who did not want to be processed or apprehended, and we would put innocents' lives at risk. As soon as we could mass the appropriate force, which we flew in from all over the states at the rate of 1,400 a day, they were immediately moved off the tail gates of C-130 aircraft flown by the Air National Guard, moved right to the scene, briefed, rehearsed, and then they went in and took this convention center down.

Those that were undesirable to re-enter the convention center were segregated from the people that we wanted to provide water, shelter and food. Those people were processed to make sure they had no weapons, no illicit dugs, no alcohol, no contraband, and then they were escorted back into the building. Now there's a controlled safe and secure environment and a shelter and a haven as they await movement out of that center for onward integration to their normal lives.

It's a great success story -- a terrific success story.

It's a great success story, yup. We didn't *feed* them, we didn't give them *water*, but we sure as hell invaded them once we had enough guards.

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The weatherman is saying that Tropical Storm Ophelia is on an erratic path.

This makes me very happy.

My hurricane dream last night was that they were doing away with the number rankings and using names instead. Something smaller than a 2 would be a "Shack," while a Category 5 storm would be a "Clysm." In my dream I realized these names were chosen because they'd been abbreviating "Category" as "Cat'y," so you'd have a Cat'yShack or a Cat'yClysm.

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Last Night tennis = THE AWESOME.

This morning getting to work = the suck.

am tired, am hoarse, am a wee bit cranky.

Funny sight of the day - aging punk on the subway. bleached out hair, skinny black stretch jeans, skinny red tie, black nails, purple lips, wrinkly face and hands, droopy neck skin. as sad as the appearance was, he was plugged into a walkman playing cassettes. the whole thing made me laugh.

Cranky-making item of the day - reading places on the net I should just avoid.

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