Not to take anything away from JazzFest at this juncture as that is the next big fest coming, and the Bayou will have TONS of tks! Be listening to win! But with all the controversy surrounding VooDoo Fest it is important that all gets straight. The conflict has been resolved with the powers that be and VooDoo Fest 09 will be held on the actual weekend of Halloween! Oct 30- Nov 1. The conflict was that the Fest had been held the weekend BEFORE Halloween for many years. The Park had other events happening this year on Halloween weekend. Including a couple of weddings….????!! Guess that’s gonna be a big wedding with all of there! And hey, it’s thier fault for even getting married in the first place. (kidding….not really) At any rate, all is good and VooDoo Fest will surely be one that goes down in history with KISS headlining! Keep it here for details.

We will keep you posted with all the big Festivals in Nola! Now, get back to those JazzFest cubes!

Times are tough. I realize. The service industry is one the most thankless jobs in the world. However, I tip really well! And it’s not because I show off or have a lot of money. It’s because bartenders remember you and make your drinks stiffer. It’s also becasue I used to work in the service industry and I know what it’s like to bust yer tail off for a 3 dollar tip from a dooshbag. I have noticed in the last couple of years my experience with any kind of customer service has been a nightmare. Mostly calling your- cell phone company, cable, electric, credit card, making a Dr’s appt, basically anything you HAVE to do to like, live. You never get a real person. You never get a nice person. You never get ONE PERSON WHO KNOWS WTF I’M TALKING ABOUT when I call. Or, and please, don’t crucify me for this, you get someone with the thickest accent ever and wonder if you didn’t hit the ‘english’ button. Sometimes it’s easier to just say ‘eff it’ and not even bother to pay the bill that’s late that THEY keep calling you about yet, when you want to discuss anything with them no one can help you. Why can’t they ever call you and say THANX FOR BEING A VALUED CUSTOMER. Just outta the blue. A little thank you from the people who are trying to kill all of us. Wouldn’t that be nice? Never gonna happen.

And what about when your shopping. Why is the person on the cash register on thier cell phone???! Why can no one help you when you are a girl and can’t find anything at Home Depot? And to think when I was single, I thought that was a good place to meet single men. Why isn’t the hot coco in the same isle as the coffee? Why is there only 1 cash register open? Don’t people need jobs right now?

Many people have lost thier jobs and are having to take jobs not in there profession right now to earn some money. I undersatnd that. That’s gotta suck. I’m ready though for if/when it happens to me. Plan B if you will. And by golley, when I’m wearing my smock/hairnet/name tag, I will be nothing but more than polite! And network to try and find a better gig.

In the meantime, we’re all in this together. If yer stuck in the service industry all you gotta do is smile a little while working. And all be ok. Play it forward. Random act of niceness.

And after work, make sure to drink with other service industry peeps on a service industry night at your local watering hole. And leave a decent tip.

There is a fine line between having a huge ego and being insecure. Most peeps who you think have a huge ego deep down are insecure. Either way, being too big for your britches and having a huge ego is annoying. (for some reason, Obama comes to mind right now…sorry…I want change, not his ego) Anyway…. Working at any job, I’m sure you know the “I am awesome” person. Or the “I only talk about myself” person. And the “I tell everyone how much I paid for everything” person. Here are the-

TOP 6 REASONS YOU MIGHT HAVE AN EGO ISSUE

6. You have a vanity plate (pathetic!)

5. You’re a guy and you sport fake hair. (unless you are a drag queen, this is NOT acceptable)

4. You haven’t spoken to someone in over 3 months but then call them and ask for concert tickets

3. You brag about said tickets above and brag and blah blah blah on and on about all the freebies you get and name drop and tell stupid backstage stories. Please get a life.

2. You do not give credit to someone who has a great idea. You let peeps think it was YOUR idea. Pretty crappy thing to do.

1. You flirt/sleep with/have an affair with a married man or woman or a man or woman who is in a relationship with someone else. You are dumb. And not even your ego is gonna help you outta that drama.

Got an idea for a “Kat’s 6-Picks”? Lemme know!

My friends car got towed last night. To a niegborhood I believe they call HELL. Yes, he was parked illegally. In Metry of all places. However, the lot he was parked in was a friend/client of his! He just figured it would be ok to park there. The towing company however, couldn’t have cared less. My friend told them he could call the owner of the lot and that he would say it was ok and to not tow him. The Towing peeps explained that it was too late and that the car was already towed to the tow lot and that the only way to get it out was to pay CASH. I politely told them they were dooshbags and that I understood they were only doing thier job but if they really wanted to help us out they could. I did offer up a ’side deal’ if you will. Cash for them to pocket and our left overs from Copeland’s Social City. (Redfish, crab meat and a HUGE Chocolate cake!) They weren’t buyin it. They gave us directions to the tow lot and said they would meet us there in 10 minutes. They reminded us CASH ONLY. We then jumped in my car and went to the hood. By now it was past midnite. We rolled up to the tow lot. I think I saw a sign that said “Welcome to Hell, you are going to Die”. Felt like Iraq or maybe the short days after Katrina. No street lights. Very dark. Scary. One light above the gate at the tow lot. With a sign on the gate that said CASH ONLY. We figured we shouldn’t be sitting in the hood infront of a tow lot with a sign that said CASH ONLY. If I were a thieve, I would have robbed us. Neither one of us were packin either. I also was cranking Van Halen from my radio and thought maybe I should turn this down. Try to blend in. So we just drove around. Did the same loop for AN HOUR AND A HALF! (look kids, Big Ben) I kept calling the tow truck. WERE ARE YOU? IF WE DIE IT IS YOUR FAULT! GET YER ASSES HERE NOW! I WILL JUMP THE GATE AND DRIVE THE CAR OUTTA HERE RIGHT NOW IF YOU ARE NOT HERE IN 2 MINUTES! YALL HAVE THE WORST JOB IN THE WORLD!! LIKE SIMON COWELL AND BILL COLLECTORS! My friend, who, fyi, is the nicest man in the world and of all peeps does not deserve his car to get towed. He is not as street smart as me. (I think I am anyways) And he was mortified that I was being ballsy with the tow peeps. The driver was a huge greasy smelly dude that couldn’t or just didn’t speak. And the other one was a chick! A tiny little spit fire. I know she is just trying to make a living. But an hour and a half later I had HAD IT. They finally showed. This whole time I had my cell phone on and had already dialed 9-1 and was saving the last 1 for just incase. It cost 180 bucks. I gave her 2- one hundred dollar bills. She then said she didn’t have change. I went ballistic at this point. (no atm in this neighborhood and even if there was- are you effin kidding me??) Fat boy in the driver seat just sat there. My freind turned every shade of white there is and he may even have blacked out a bit. I told spitfire-THEN YOU WILL TAKE ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS AND WE’LL CALL IT A NIGHT. She argued some then gave up. We got the car for one hundred bucks. She asked me my name. I said-MY NAME? MY NAME IS FUCK OFF, THAT’S MY NAME. YOU HAVE AN AWESOME EVENING NOW!

We left. And I blasted Van Halen all the way outta hell.

Lately, I’ve started to be more aware of what I eat.  More fruits and vegetables, less twinkies and pizza.  Thus, the reason I picked up a jar of chili at the market the other day labled “95% less fat!”…less fat…that’s a good thing, right?  Then I cracked it open.  Less fat?  No wonder!  No meat!!  That set my beady little mind into a frenzy…what else are we being monkey-jacked into buying?  “New and Improved”.  How do we know?  300 different versions of Tide detergent on the shelf – “Tide with bleach”, “Tide with bleach alternative”, “Tide with Downey”, “Tide with Fabreeze”, “Tide with 7 new essential cleaning ingredients”.  How do we know???  It could all be the the same damn detergent with different labels, and different prices…How many times every day are we getting screwed by the Marketing fiends at these companies?  The next time you’re at the market, you’ll know if I’m there – I’ll be the guy in aisle 3 with the litmus paper and centrifuge…

Remember when kids actually played OUTSIDE? With balls and sticks and threw rocks and got in innocent trouble? Remember when you only had 1, maybe 2 phones in your whole house? No cell phones. And a VCR the size of your car? With a microwave even bigger? When the most exciting technology out there was Pong? When you took a Computer Class in high school and thought it was a fad and the class would be real easy to pass? (like learning to balance your checkbook in Home Ec Class. You figured you’d never need to know how to do that when you became an adult) Have I totally turned into a maw maw or am I the only one sick of all this technology??!!! It is making our kids never leave the house and become fat asses. As I am blogging about this now, I realize blogging is actually part of all this!!! Obviously there are some positive things to technology. You can go several days without actually having to speak with the someone. You can text or email them. I enjoy this aspect when dealing with big wigs here at work or my boss. Or any debt collectors. I also have good luck with on-line shopping. While I’m at work of course. Technology does allow you to multi-task and get more done quicker. It also fries my brain at the same time. I beleive anyone over the age of 40 on Myspace who is there to flirt with young chicks is a loser. At least move over to facebook for peeps your own age! And any teenage girl who takes a naked pic of herself and emails it or texts it (they call this sexting) to her boyfriend and he promises no one else will see it, is dumb. His friends, ALL of them, his relatives, his teamates, pretty much everyone in your town is gonna see your picture. Ahhhh, the good ole poloraid. The film is ruined after you take the picture and the picture itself can not be copied or scanned into anything. Nude photos were safer back then. We must reluctantly brace technology but all remember where we came from. And kick your kids outside to play everyday! Gotta go IM, load my Ipod, make sure my bluetoothe is working and check all messages. LOL :=)

Here’s to the Irish! Green beer, lucky clovers and tiny little green men! Wait….sorry…that was a bad hallucination I was just having. Happy St Pats! Cuz we are ALL a little Irish!

Is it because they think their muscles will look bigger? (hair on head is omitted from this, bald is sexy) There are a few acceptable reasons for a man to shave their body hair-

1. If they are a true body builder (no steroids guido!) that competes and they gotta get all greased up at competition. However, there is only one muscle they should worry about and nothing they can do will make that one bigger.

2. If it is medically neccesary for them to shave the hair off their bodies. Like if there is some kind of glandular problem or something. Lice or something like that. (you’ve been there in college maybe…)

3. I have heard there are real ‘wolfman’ in the world. (see pic) Peru I think is where they come from. Or maybe Grand Isle. They probably shave, a lot.

4. If you have hair on your knuckles (one of my uncles did)

If you are a hairy man, it is ok to take it down a layer or 2. But to shave off completely for any other reason beside any above, you are more than likely gay. Almost forgot-

5. If you are gay

How can you not??!! Greatest invention ever. At first I made fun of it thinking it was only for really really old people like my parents and all thier neighbors in the blue hair village in Florida. But then I secretly checked one out and put it on. I’m hooked. I ain’t afraid. I love it! Next up, The Snuggie for 2! Now THAT might be kinda fun! Don’t you think?

Am I the only person who HATES to shop at Walmart???! WTF? Please do not be offended if you work there or looove to shop there. It’s not personal ok? And yes, you can save money shopping there. (non-paid plug) But the stress and anguish to do so is kilin’ me! I hem and haw about having to go there. I tell my friends if I never return please tell my parents I love them. I actually do mental exercises before I walk in. I repeat things all the way there like- “you can do this, you can do this”. And-”Walmart is good, Walmart is good”. And before I walk in I image a pretty Walmart. One that smells nice and has ALL cash registers open. And one where the blue employee vest actually fit the person who’s wearing it. A Walmart with dimmed lights. With candles lit. Ahhhh…the Walmart of the future. Walmart is doing well even in this economy. Shopping at Walmart. It’s a necassary evil. Like government and condoms.