The streetcars are back and running! They are truly beloved by locals and tourist alike. They are the most dignified way to travel. Not cold and impersonal like a bus. They are the best way, after walking, to tour St. Charles Ave. And yes, locals do ride the streetcar. They aren't just some gimmick cooked up for the tourist. When I first moved to NOLA, I rode the streetcar to work every morning. Parking downtown is a nightmare and expensive. On the streetcar, you could read, chat with your fellow passengers or just look at the window at the sights. You don't just see the St. Charles Ave streetcars - they have a unique smell and sound. Businesses along the Avenue have put up banners welcoming the streetcar back. I was inspired to wax poetic about the streetcars after watching a video on Adrastos' blog that features a well known, local newscaster driving one for the first time under the guidance of a first-rate driver. You MUST watch it if you love streetcars. And if you've never been on one, you'll want to.

I'm sure I'm not the only one here suffering from post-election hangover. Before I was a homeowner, I paid very little attention to local politics. But since now I have put down roots, I feel it's important to educate myself on the candidates and the issues and cast an informed vote. It can be overwhelming, especially when you have 10+ candidate running for one seat in Louisiana's open primaries.

I just finished reading Clancey Dubos' article "It never ends" where he talks about how "there's never a recession in Louisiana politics" and all the upcoming special elections on top of regular elections. Pshew! It wore me out. Since I'm registered "Independent" I pay a only a slight margin of attention to the on-going presidential candidates. I vote in every presidential election, but I don't feel like my vote holds as much weight as in local elections.

Slowly the election signs on the neutral grounds are starting to dissappear. I actually saw someone from Cheryl Gray's camp (he was wearing a Cheryl Grey t-shirt) picking up her signs on Louisiana Ave at St. Charles. Jalila's signs seems to the be the one mostly left around. According to an article in the T-P it's not clear what the law is in regards to the signs. I had decided if the signs were still up yesterday after work, I'd take it upon myself to clean them up on LA Ave. I also wanted the metal stands the signs sit on for another project. Low and behold when I drove home down LA Ave. someone had taken the plastic (coroplast in the biz) signs and left the metal stands! In a matter of 15 minutes, covering 3 blocks I had 35 stands. They sell for $.75 each and works out to $26.25 before tax. Sweet!

I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. And leave you with this gem; Nola.com has a "Turkey of the Year" where they encourage people to upload their candidate.

While poking around in the NO blogsphere I saw on Celcus' blog about a site that will rate the "readability" of your blog. You plug in the address of the blog, and it tells you what level of education you need to have finished in order to understand your blog. So I did my blog and got:

Well that's not too bad. Must have been all that gushing about The Police and updates about Ms. Mae's (which had it's grand re-opening today, at 9am. I drove by at 9:15 and there were people there! Only in New Orleans....)

So for the fun of it I put in my all-cat blog Gonzo for Cats and got:

What tha...?

Good Grief! How can it be November already? Time changes always mess me up and I still feel out of sync. Nothing really exciting to report, and weekend football watching seems to have sucked up a good bit of my time (Go 'Noles/Wave/Tigers/Saints!). Instead, here's some upcoming things to note:

1) Tomorrow night is Women & Wine on Wednesday, come by Zoe at the W hotel.
2) If you live here, go VOTE this Saturday.
3) Sunday is the first
New Orleans Po-Boy Preservation Festival
November 18, 12 noon - 6:00pm

Oak Street at South Carrollton
There's gonna be po-boys and music and po-boys and beer and po-boys and awrt....