Do you have those kinds of friends who are always taking pictures of you and then posting them for everyone to see? I'm sure you do.
A few years ago on one such trip, Jason took a photo of me in the pool. He liked my hat or something. Can you imagine? I think I've had nightmares involving that exact scenario.
Anyway, thanks to the miracle of cropping, no one needs to be subjected to that horror.
(yeah, that's me in the bottom corner. alas)
Instead, you get to be treated to something much better:
I don't think Jason even noticed that he'd also gotten a photo of this guy. Umm...I did.
If I remember correctly, there was a heated discussion (ok, on my part) in the pool as to whether he was "that way" or not, within, oh, 10 feet of his feet. I'd had a few daiquiris, what the hell.
Anyway, he could have bathed his manly feet in any of the three pools there, thank you very much, why ours? A consensus was never quite reached on the matter. But the gal he was with was really kinda ugly clearly not his girlfriend, if you know what I mean.
Anyway I figure the picture's a reminder that, oil slick or no oil slick, there's always something fun to do at the beach, right?
I met up with him at the chief attraction of the city, The Mall of Louisiana (pictured above...ha.) He had driven in from Lafayette. We met up with his friend Todd, who lives there. The three of us had lunch at some very collegiate place near LSU where the entire crowd seemed fixated on the World Cup.
Michael used his iPhone "Vuvuzela app" (tm) to make some noise. Really, one day the iPhone will replace everything. It needs to replace the state capitol right now probably.
Not quite knowing what to do in Baton Rouge, we ended up at the Louisiana State Capitol. It seemed the patriotic thing to do....or something like that, right?
We all went up to the top. Michael asked me to take his picture up there with his miraculous iPhone. Todd and I refused to have our photos taken. He took them anyway.
None of us had been there (the state capitol) since grade school. I fondly remember an hour long trip on a greyhound when I was in 4th grade where I watched Colleen McDermott eat three successive boogers.
It was very educational.
I'm sure it was the first tall building I'd ever been in then. It is a beautiful building, beautiful art deco, at least the lobby and the chambers are, but Bobby Jindal or Edwin Edwards or whoever the hell our governor is nowadays really needs to do something about the embarrassing state of disrepair the rest of the place is in. I mean seriously, cardboard on the elevator floors? Is this state that brokedown? Never mind.
All in all, the place was rather disappointing. They've even covered the bullet holes from Huey Long's assassination with a big ugly case of Long memorabalia...zzzzzzzzz....what memorabilia is more interesting than a bullet hole??
Anyway, the case didn't prevent us from seeking them out and putting our fingers in them.
More interesting than the Capitol's interior was its parking lot. As we were leaving, I noticed a woman with a bouquet standing in behind a white truck. I half thought she was going to place it on Huey Long's tomb. Someone had already decorated it with a bouquet of red white and blue for the fourth. But then I noticed a bride (her daughter?) in the back of the truck, sitting uncomfortably in her gown.
"Hey, there's a gun in the truck," Michael notices.
Uh....we then left.
I couldn't invent a more perfect tableau to represent our fair state than this if I tried.
Later, still not knowing what to do, we took a trip to see Mike the Tiger, the sainted mascot of LSU. I'd never been. There was a tiger sleeping in the heat.
Very anticlimactic. Still, there were twice as many people there than at the capitol.
Again, this ought to tell you pretty much everything you'd ever need to know about this state.
We went back to Todd's house, where somehow or another ok, ok, so I suggested he do it Michael gave dramatic readings of Tonya Harding fan fiction porn from his IPhone. Yes, I'm afraid, you read that right.
There's no IPhone app for that....yet. I'm working on it.
I suggested we three each submit an entry. I haven't quite fleshed out my submission, but I know it would feature this sentence:
"Slowly she slid down her tight acid washed spandex ... even her glorious pubic bush was bleached blonde and crimped, with shellacked bangs...."
I still need to work on it a bit, but I'll get there.
oh, by the way, if you're a complete utter sicko wierdo (like Michael, not me, I swear, not me!) you can click here.
After having our appetites whetted by Tonya Harding porn, we went to dinner, (where we had home fried potato chips with blue cheese as an appetizer...very good) and I got a tour of Robin and Bryan's new home....a complete walk through by iPhone of the entire place, even the yard. It's only a matter of time that the iPhone replaces houses too, I'm sure.
After dinner, I followed Michael back to Lafayette. What else did I have to do, right?
After lunch we visited his father, his brother and sister in law, and their six children. Michael offered to send his brother some games for the IPhone. Everyone in Lafayette has an iPhone it seems. His brother declined the games. I'm guessing you don't have much time to play games on the phone when you have 6 children under 10. Go figure.
What they do need there is a contract from TLC. Seriously. They put those Gosselins in the shade.
Later we took a trip through one of Lafayette's posher neighborhoods listening to
Radio Polska Stacja Internetowe on the ubiquitous iPhone. The machine never ceases to amaze. How else would we drive through Cajun country listening to Polish disco? How did people deal in the past? The only word, however, I could understand was "EEtahloh DeeSco". Apparently Milli Vanilli is still popular in Warsaw, and is considered "Italo-disco" Who knew?
Then I drove home.
I had to stop three, count em three, times to pee. Leave it to me to drink a bottle of water and a large diet coke before getting on the road.
When iPhone creates an app to let you pee from your car, I'll get one.
