thebreakfast.info
General Discussions => Spunk => Topic started by: Mamalakabubadaya on September 21, 2005, 04:46:40 pm
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how can you go wrong with a picture of your fav dog??
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Yeah I just noticed that yesterday.
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never noticed, but stabmasterarson and jocelyns\' avatars are very similar.
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My dad, mr paranoia extraordinaire, expecting gas to be $5+ a gallon, went out and filled up a ton of those big metal drums full of gas and diesel.. spent hundreds of dollars on gas. Turns out gas isn\'t $5+ dollars and he\'s feeling pretty silly. :lol:
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so thankfully rita didnt do as much damage as suspected. they are saying most people got out of the area. i hope the hurricanes soon cease, as i cant stand to see much geraldo rivera aka Gerry rivers from queens talking about how bad it is and holding babies that obviously dont want his greasy ass touching them. i wish the hurricane would suck him up and shoot him into a brick wall. and of course this will cause gas prices to increase, what else should we expect.
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Slim I really enjoyed your post....
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Slimmy P., nice to hear you made it out.
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Mr. Billy SlimPickens Kerouac: Please have that piece published! Glad you are OK!
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Wow. Post of the month. Im fact, that\'s a shoe-in for the single-post hall of fame. This being an internet message board there\'s naturally a wide range of intelligence and readability in the posts, but it never ceases to amaze me when people write incredibly for nobody but us. I feel like I\'ve done some of the best writing of my life around here too. Great job on the post and the escape Slim. Looks like you\'ve stepped up your game in many areas in the face of adversity.
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only author I read on a regular basis (which for me isnt often) that isn\'t named JK Rowling. Oddest thing is I have still not read Fight Club :hscratch:
I haven\'t either. Only Choke. Which I thought was great. Doesn\'t he have a new one out?
Oh, and thanks Ol\'Newb. It kept me busy during my stooopid 4 hour delay in Chitown.
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great post bill!! very entertaining. glad everything worked out for you and that you\'re home safe.
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only author I read on a regular basis (which for me isnt often) that isn\'t named JK Rowling. Oddest thing is I have still not read Fight Club :hscratch:
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that\'s some crazy **** dude, glad you made it out of there in somewhat good condition. shitty to say, but hey at least ya had fun ;) Reading that I felt like I was reading a Chuck Palahniuk book.
he\'s one nutty dude.
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that\'s some crazy **** dude, glad you made it out of there in somewhat good condition. shitty to say, but hey at least ya had fun ;) Reading that I felt like I was reading a Chuck Palahniuk book.
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Speaking of misery loving company, you going to Rev Hall tonight?
I was thinking no because of the long travels you have indured , but I thought I would ask...........You know you need your Breakfast...........
your thinking right. but thanks. woulda been a fun ride up. but I\'m shot.
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Speaking of misery loving company, you going to Rev Hall tonight?
I was thinking no because of the long travels you have indured , but I thought I would ask...........You know you need your Breakfast...........
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How not to evacuate from harms way.
Maybe it?s my weather scorned, New England composition or maybe it?s just thick headed stupidity that made me think that Rita wasn?t going to impact my travel day too terribly.
So I spent the early part of my week telling my boss that she was over reacting, that she was a worry wart & that she was thinking too much about this silly little tropical depression that was crawling its way into the warm waters of the Caribbean.
And while I should have been making last minute preparations Wednesday night - like waiting in line to fill up the tank of my rental car and packing so that I could get an early start the next morning ? instead I sat in the hotel bar breaking the rules of my new ?health-kick? one beer at a time.
****, I had endured hurricanes before. Just 2 years ago I ?hunkered down? in a motel 30 miles from the South Carolina coast after evacuating from Myrtle Beach which was in the path of Hurricane Charlie. Houston?s 50 miles from the coast, this shouldn?t be too bad.
So when I woke up at 9:30 am with a wicked hangover and no real memory of ?calling it a night? I still wasn?t grasping the true weight of this storm and the evacuation process. I leisurely ate my $20 hotel breakfast (it?s amazing what you?ll pay for stuff when it?s not your money) and slowly packed my bag stopping to watch key scenes in ?Rounders? which was being shown on Starz. I even timed my shower so that I could miss that slow scene where Martin Landau tells the boring story about breaking his parents? heart by leaving Yeshiva to pursue his dreams of practicing law (yawn!).
The gravity of my situation started to sink in when my boss called and told me she heard it was taking up to 6 hours to check in at the airport. Then while checking out I ran into the hotels concierge, Peter, who was checking into his own hotel in order to ride out the storm with his cat (yeah, he?s a little fruity), Holly. However, he was a life saver & represented one of the first smart decisions I made. Getting airport directions from him that didn?t involve any major evacuation routes is probably the only reason I didn?t end up on the side of the road with an empty fuel tank waiting for FEMA to rescue me as my 5:20pm to Chicago flew over head.
Not that my ride to the airport was without incident. Any road that ran south to north was packed and the directions I got from Peter were not easy to read. He definitely broke the stereotype I had that gay men write like 12 year old girls (ie bubble cursive with hearts replacing the dots over the eyes). I was far from calm as I sat in traffic slightly freaking out ? wondering if my hands were cold because I was about to have a heart attack or just because my cars air conditioner was cranked firmly to MAX. Lets face it, if I had to deal with Houston heat after getting dragged around town the night before by a salesman buddy who was entertaining clients I would have surly had that heart attack. My mind kept doing the math:
11am (start time) + x (travel time to the airport) + 6 hour check in process = Y (which can?t be greater than 5:21pm).
I also kept flipping my radio on and off as I had a schizo-style argument with myself over whether the news and press conferences were helping me or just getting me closer to heart failure.
The local press wasn?t even trying to show any tact in their desire to chase what was looking like the big story - how the Houston & Federal governments had already botched the Rita evacuation. That even though the first waves of Rita were more than 24 hours from Galveston Bay, people were starting to freak on the evacuation routes because they were traveling at the snail pace of 1 mile per hour and many were starting to run out of gas. The press was salivating over the thought of breaking the big story. Whose fault was it?! Truth of the matter, they could probably take some of the blame on their own shoulders. The crisis style coverage they use to keep viewers glued to their stations may have gotten people to ignore the governments recommended evacuation plan and jump ship to early resulting in folks in high risk areas getting stuck there trapped on the roads behind 70 miles of bumper to bumper traffic.
In my travels I was amazed to see how little things like the location of an open gas station (a rarity at this point) would trigger huge traffic jams and slow downs. After getting lost because the ?right on Helm? should have been a ?right on East Helm? I realized that west to east travel was much easier than south to north travel. My progress definitely improved, be it a bit of a zigzag route. However I was driving off the beaten path now.
Two clues made me realize that I was close to the airport. Low flying 747?s and car rental agencies in a depressed, primarily Mexican neighborhood (not a typical sight in most large urban ghettos). But I was at a crossroads. Literally. Left or right? Still stuck in traffic I began to ask locals that walked past my car for a little direction, but that only got me confused looks and ?Que?? I even tried to act out an airplane to one elderly passerby complete with jet noises. But it was no use. This stupid gringo was almost out of luck when I saw my savior, which in this case came in the form of a meth-junky with rotten teeth and eyes that looked like a couple of bloody buckets. But more important, a Caucasian methed-out junky. I barely understood the directions he slurred out to me but he did the only thing that really mattered. Pointed. Crossroads problem solved.
I really thought the airport was going to be the real nightmare of my journey. The mayor?s press conference informed me that airport wait times were currently 4 hours, thanks to 100 TSA workers deciding it was a smart idea not to show up to work today.
But I got to admit the check in process was flawless, in fact went faster than normal.
While I hate to be stuck in situations like that, there?s something about it that?s exhilarating. I actually enjoy watching to see what aspects of our intricate social fabric tear first. What rules do people break and which do they obey.
Obviously many traffic laws are the first to go. It wasn?t uncommon to hear radio reports of mass hysteria on some of the larger evacuation routes. Live phone calls from frustrated travelers saying that cars are driving on the grass median on Rt. 290 with the sound of sirens blaring in the background.
Then there are the little things. The rental car return agents that had completely lost control of the car return process, the normally clean lobby, strewn with garbage. All of the airport restaurants closed except for the good folks at Pizzeria Uno who were now in the midst of their own supply crisis as the line to order food stretched the entire length of terminal A.
The hunt for food became its own little adventure. True, I had time to kill and could have easily waited in the pizza line, but who has that kind of patience. I mean, other than the 400 people actually standing in the line. Not me. I traveled to the lower levels of the terminal because I heard a rumor that there were vending machines down there. Then left there empty handed when some old Nel Carter looking lady told me that she was taking the airport train to the Marriott where the Gift Shop shelves were overflowing with tasty treats.
While checking out, my arms full of provisions - I was definitely going over board at this point, but hell, I was in survival mode ? Michael Clarke Duncan, or at least someone that looked and sounded like him, got a kick out of my obvious enthusiasm in accepting the cashiers offer of a fresh deli sandwich. Apparently he found it funny that I didn?t ask ?what kind?? or ?how much?? but answered with a simple and direct YES! I looked at him, patted my belly and told him that I dug his work in ?The Green Mile?.
Walking back to my terminal I felt like I just won The Masters or finished a marathon when all I really did was buy a sandwich and a couple of magazines. I may have even shouted ?SUCKERS!? as I walked past the folks in the Pizzeria Uno line. In hindsight, I wasn?t even really hungry and only ended up eating half of the sandwich. But I sure did have fun in the hunt.
Actually except for that short period of time that I was lost, almost out of gas and having a hypochondriac induced heart attack I really had a fun time running from Rita. There?s something about being part of something huge & awful that changes me from a super introvert into that guy who will talk to anyone. And when everything?s going bad, misery definitely loves company.
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Saw some traffic footage on the news last night, looks worse than a Phish festival in Limestone.
Seriously. Every Phish festival combined didn\'t draw 1 million people, and this one\'s probably got 3 million.
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Saw some traffic footage on the news last night, looks worse than a Phish festival in Limestone. Though I was glad to see that the state finally put their minds to work and opened up the other side of the highway for travel.
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24 victims and it ain\'t even hit yet.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050923/ap_on_re_us/rita_bus_explosion_hk1
WILMER, Texas - A bus carrying elderly evacuees from Hurricane Rita caught fire and was rocked by explosions early Friday on a gridlocked highway near Dallas, killing as many as 24 people, authorities said.
"Deputies were unable to get everyone off the bus," Dallas County Sheriff\'s Department spokesman Don Peritz said. He said he believes 24 people were killed, but that number could change.
The bus, with about 45 people on board, had been traveling since Thursday. Peritz declined to give details on who the passengers were except to say they were from a nursing home in Bellaire, an upscale enclave within Houston.
Early indications were that it caught fire because of mechanical problems, then passengers\' oxygen tanks started exploding, Peritz said. He said the brakes may have been on fire.
The bus was engulfed with flames, causing a lengthy backup on Interstate 45 already congested with evacuees from the Gulf Coast. The bus was reduced to a blackened, burned-out shell with large blue tarps covering many seats, surrounded by police cars and ambulances.
Tina Jones, a nurse from Ennis, was driving behind the bus when she saw it start to smoke and pull to the side of the road.
"I saw the smoke and then there was an explosions," said Jones, who pulled over and helped treat cuts and bruises. She said she saw at least six bodies.
"I\'ll probably go home and have a good cry," she said.
Peritz said the driver survived. "It\'s my understanding he went back on the bus several times to try to evacuate people," he said.
Interstate 45 stretches more than 250 miles from Galveston through Houston to Dallas. The crash site is roughly 17 miles southeast of downtown Dallas.
Gov. Rick Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said traffic on I-45 would be diverted at Ennis, about 30 miles southeast of Dallas. She said it was unclear how far the gridlock extended.
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This is getting ridiculous, too ad we can\'t go to war against hurricanes huh? We could mount a huge assault tear down a statue or two and declare victory. That\'s it people you heard it hear first I\'m starting The War on Weather!!!!!
oh and Pickens I\'ll be sending as much karma your way as I can.
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Look at the size of this thing. It\'s as big as Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama combined. Fuhgeddaboutit. Hope everyone around here is ready for a second round of donations.
Here are some lovely words of encouragement from Yahoo news:
The last major hurricane to strike the Houston area was Category-3 Alicia in 1983. It flooded downtown Houston, spawned 22 tornadoes and left 21 people dead.
In Houston, the state\'s largest city and home to the highest concentration of Katrina refugees, the area\'s geography makes evacuation particularly tricky. While many hurricane-prone cities are right on the coast, Houston is 60 miles inland, so a coastal suburban area of 2 million people must evacuate through a metropolitan area of 4 million people where the freeways are often clogged under the best of circumstances.
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I repeat myself, the northeast will be hit with a big one very very soon (the way it looks it may be this year, with WILMA being the storm to cause havok).
"Cos Dr. Ant said it would"
I don\'t think the NE will ever see a big one like this... the Atlantic is too cold up that way...
At least this one isn\'t coming my way... I JUST cleaned up my yard from Katrina!
that may be (cold water up here), but this summer was crazy hot and its still in the mid 80s this late into september which is disgusting (I want snow damnit). I know we will never see a katrina/rita strength/sized hurricane but for us a Category 3.8 is what I am predicting, and that for up here is a doozie
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I repeat myself, the northeast will be hit with a big one very very soon (the way it looks it may be this year, with WILMA being the storm to cause havok).
"Cos Dr. Ant said it would"
I don\'t think the NE will ever see a big one like this... the Atlantic is too cold up that way...
At least this one isn\'t coming my way... I JUST cleaned up my yard from Katrina!
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thanks folks!! see ya\'all soon!!
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I\'ll be thinking about you!
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billy get the fudge outta there at the first chance you get..keep us posted
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thanks Ant. Would take an earlier flight if I could, but I\'ve got no choice (says United). So I\'m here till tomorrow. Peace till the next show.
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good luck slim, find an earlier flight!
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reporting live from Houston: This storm is gonna hit, and it\'s gonna hit hard. I only hope my 5:30pm flight gets me outta here tomorrow, but the 75mph winds may keep me on the ground. Rt290 (one of the main escape routes) is still packed @ 9pm. People are running for higher ground. And I\'m doing the thing I know to do... drink.
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Can we assume that Breakfast won\'t be playing Lovely Rita for a while?
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I repeat myself, the northeast will be hit with a big one very very soon (the way it looks it may be this year, with WILMA being the storm to cause havok).
"Cos Dr. Ant said it would"
I should learn how to swim some time soon then....
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I repeat myself, the northeast will be hit with a big one very very soon (the way it looks it may be this year, with WILMA being the storm to cause havok).
"Cos Dr. Ant said it would"
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Houston, you have a problem.
Confirmed..
These poor people har going to be under water by sunday morning. There saying that the coast of Texas can\'t handle 8ft of water, never mind 12ft. Underwater, mark my word. This could get ugly for the Gulf coast..
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I heard something about global warming causing all these crazy hurricanes. But then again this administration doesn\'t believe that global warming exists so we\'ll probably have to blame it on the resurgence of El Nino, which we all know is Spanish for The Nino.
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Houston, you have a problem.
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its the **** appocalypse.
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And bad ones too. But remember the one that hit Galveston in 1900 is still considered the worst ever. Over 8,000 people died.
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cobb i know that movie did suck ass...but there are like..a lot of hurricanes these days
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that movie sucked and was completely rediculous and could never happen. i was dumb enough to go see it in the theater. theres ten bucks down the shitter.
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has anyone ever seen that movie THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW???
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She\'s a Cat5. Gulf coast citys like Galveston are already in a mandatory evac. And most of Houston (which is about 50 miles inland) from the coast is going to be in Evac-mode by Friday night. She\'s supposed to come ashore saturday morning.
All the stores in Houston are already outta water, gas stations have already run outta gas and the highways are packed.
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there\'s another hurricane coming
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/21/rita/index.html
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adding onto that, people--BUY GAS TODAY..i wouldn\'t be surprised if **** gets even more out of control through the weekend