The Lost Week

I've spent the last week glued to the television. Not too unusual, but I just couldn't take my eyes off the coverage of hurricane Katrina, and the events afterwards.

I used to live in Gulfport AND Biloxi, MS and I still have several friends on the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans. So, as I watched all this horror unfold, I was more worried about specific people's well-being. There was a lot of guesswork, trying to think if "so and so" would have left town, or stayed...and wondering who's house was still standing, and who was recently made homeless.

A week later, I've gotten in touch with all of my close friends and have gotten up to speed on a majority of their prediciments. Here's their stories:

Jeni.
Jeni was the first to contact me after the storm, via email. She lived in Gulfport, about five blocks from Highway 90, the interstate that runs along the Gulf of Mexico. Her dad lives in Little Rock, AR, so she and her two roomates were safe there. She later found out that her house and car both survived the storm. Her car-port did not. A few trees crushed it. Her two roomates went down to the coast last weekend to survey the damage, and while there, their neighbor-who was running a generator to supply power to his elderly father's oxygen-was beaten and robbed, and the generator was stolen. So, Gulfport doesn't seem safe to go back to yet.

David.
David lived in New Orleans, and was able to evacuate to Shreeveport, LA with his wife and two young girls,where his wife has family. Even though he thinks his house made it (it wasn't in the "bowl" that remains flooded to this day), he is already thinking of looking for work in Shreeveport and not looking back.

Sean.
Sean lived with his folks in Biloxi, and their house was demolished. They had made it out okay, and I THINK are in northern AL somewhere. His folks had the house paid off, had homeowners and flood insurance, so they should be okay. But all of their stuff is gone. Neighbors have reported to them that they found some of Sean's Dad's model train and baseball card collections in the rubble. He had an entire room full of that stuff.

John and Ted.
Two friends in New Orleans. I don't know much about their situation, other than they made it out, before the storm.

Pat and Kat.
A married couple, with a baby due any day now. All I've heard is that they're ok. No idea if their house made it or not, but they were pretty far inland...

Charley and Diana.
Another couple...all I've heard is that they survived.

Carter.
My old boss. He stayed in his apartment, about five blocks from the beach. The buildings around his got wiped out, but his apartment stood. Lucky guy. The story is Carter was hiding in a closet during the Category 5 storm with one hand on the doorknob, holding it shut, and the other clasp around a bottle of Scotch.

Anway, glad they all made it. I've heard that my old company might just shut down Coastal operations, and that would put a lot of these guys out of work...but there would be no better time than now to start over.

=====

DVDs

I've watched a bunch lately, but here are a few of note.

Constantine.
I hadn't read a bit of the Hellblazer comic it's based on, but thought the movie was pretty good. While I won't be adding it to my DVD library any time soon, I would recommend it as a decent watch.

Sin City.
Antoher comic book movie from a comic I'd never read. I was familiar with the "idea" of the comic going into it. I thought it was super. Really good. Hyper-stylized, and ultra-violent, but all serving the genre and characters. I want more, and I think I'll be rewarded with more, because I believe they've already begun production on a sequel.


Little Britain: Series 1
An awesome character-driven sketch comedy show, starring two guys as everyone. The 8 episodes are presented as a sociologial documentary on the people of Britain and we visit and revisit the same characters over and over. Most characters have one "joke" about them, but somehow remain funny though the entirety of the series. I think watching them a week at a time would keep everything more fresh than watching the entire thing in one sitting. I would look forward to a second series, but would hope that new characters and new "quirks" would be created.

This seems like the case, as in the final episode, most of the characters were undone in one way or the other.

If you're a fan of British humor, hypnotists, gays, transvestites and monster trucks, I give Little Britain a very high recommendation for ya.