New Orleans, day 2

First, I have to really think about switching to AT&T. T-Mobile's plan is nice, but their signal is very unreliable. I was without for an hour in this hotel room, a new record. Also, 3G tethering apparently uses power faster than USB charging can replace it.

As for today, let me get the negatives out first. I looked up the transit here, NORTA. Canal Street and St. Charles aren't too bad, but odd, swinging between every 7 (St. Charles) or 10 (Canal) to every 30 minutes in frequency, and not in a clear pattern either; there may be every 30 minutes in the evening, then every 20 later. Or, no, I just realized Canal has PM times of 9:46, 10:36, 10:56(!), 00:16... St. Charles is better. Riverside is 20, going to every 40 minutes after 7pm, and stopping after 10 (the other two run past 1 AM, even if not very often.) The driver who took me up around 5pm claimed he ran every 13 minutes, or every 26 after 7 pm; the online schedule calls that a lie. Plus, the final Riverside streetcar stopped at Canal, when I'd wanted to ride it down to Julia St. to get to my hotel.

And this is the good part of the system. The buses run like every 30-70 minutes. And both St. Charles and Canal are under construction work, such that you actually take a shuttle bus along a fair chunk of their route at the moment, before switching to the real streetcar.

If I want to stay for the music on Frenchman street, which doesn't even get started until 9pm, I can count on walking home, or maybe figuring out the schedule of some other bus.

Transit rage!

***

As for my actual day, it started pretty late; I slept 10 hours straight, which I needed, and then found the phone had no charge (see above). Since I really like the backup of having GPS maps when needed, not to mention a camera and note taking device (and my real camera refused to take my rechargeables; not sure if they're read or it is, it's been increasingly prone to claim low charge on even fresh batteries.) So I got out later than ideal. But productive anyway.

Headed for the river, as my INTP brain went "Mississippi! You're near the Mississippi! Go look!" Had brunch breakfast at Grand Isle, which I think the hotel woman may have mentioned last night -- I don't remember the name, but there's an X on my map -- and had gator sausage po' boy (sandwich) and chicken andouille gumbo. Both were really good. Then I reached the actual river -- which isn't all that impressive looking around here, but is fairly big -- and caught the ferry over to Algiers. This is free for pedestrians, maybe a dollar for car? I'm impressed. Runs every half hour, trip itself is 5-10 minutes.

In Algiers I first found myself surrounded by green rises on three sides, and thought "levees". Never been on one before, even in the Netherlands! (Never got to dike country.) Grassy embankment, gravel path on top (paved path elsewhere, I later found.) The excitement wore off quickly, so I went back down among the houses.

THEY ARE SO PRETTY. I don't have the bandwidth to upload photos now, and googling for Algiers Point Houses gives a bit of an idea but is kind of disappointing compared to the physical experience. But they're carved and colored and decorated and it's all really really nice. A guy said the best streets were Olivier and Delaronde, and they are good, but the whole area around there is pretty, really.

A Catholic Church was closed -- surprised it wasn't a voting location -- and surrounded by signs saying "THOU SHALT NOT KILL -- God" I have no idea if the point is against war, crime, or abortion.

Oh, I forgot. There's a courthouse near the landing point, heading off to the left. It looks rather nice too, outside and in. Small, but high ceilinged with chandeliers and leather couches and such. That *was* a voting location. Voter ID laws are in effect, though there's a special ID you can get for free if you don't have a driver's license.

The place is pretty but there's not much neighborhood, so I headed back across on the ferry, walked down a bit to Riverwalk Mall, which is like a block long but has only one entrance (RAGE), then took the streetcar up to Esplanadade, as lyceum had recommended musing on Frechman Street. I went down Decatur first, then up Frenchman, and ended up eating at the Praline Connection. (Pralines in general seem to e a thing around here.) Service staff were all darkly black men in brimmed hats. I went for a seafood combo: catfish, shrimp, oysters, and crab, everything breaded, plus fries and salad. I really liked the catfish. The rest... I guess I'm not a big shellfish person. (Sorry, Mama.) (My mother loved all shellfish.) I give the restaurant props for not having a hideous Flash website -- that's a direct menu link, so you can see they don't say what kind of crab is involved...

As lyceum said, by 9 music was starting up, including a small street band I listened to for a while. I felt like exploring more, so stalked around the French Quarter some more. Bourbon is still the #1 street in activity by far, but others are Decatur and St. Peter, and maybe Toulouse (don't recall) which I came back on to catch the abortive streetcar.

Was tempted to ride the Canal St. shuttle up and back for the sights, but I waited for a while watching the bus not move, so gave up and went home.

***

Princess Bride novel: still good. _Tooth and Claw_ re-read: slow to catch me again, but good experience in the end. Railgun and Sora no Woto final episodes, and the Wedding of River Song: still fun. I did wonder if Railgun could be seen as a shounen format anime with girls.

***

I have managed to avoid any election news so far. I shall continue this and go to bed in blissful ignorance of any possible horrible losses or agonizing re-counts. This has served me well in 2 out of the past 3 elections, after all.

***

At one level I feel cheated that we're having high temps of 20 C, rather than 25 or 28. OTOH, with all the walking I'm doing, it's just as well. That reminds me: you can really see the signs of this in the buildings and plants (duh). It reminds me of parts of LA/Madrid/Santiago, but that's mostly because those are the "warm all year" places I've been in, and LA gets too much irrigation water; this is the first hot/humid place I've been in, apart from Hawaii and Atlanta, which are rather different. I've seen really big "swamp cabbage", what look like banana plants growing randomly but are probably some other plant, still with big leaves, and of course all those porches and balconies. I guess what's distinctive is cast-iron balconies hanging off of multiple stories.

New Orleans, day 3

I'm writing this at 7pm. There may or may not be a further night post.

Got up and out earlier, had seen on Google Maps an interesting food possibility nearby, but scouted the warehouse district first. Julia has art galleries, St. Charles has a streetcar, Poydras is a business street. Between them I'd think there'd be a lot of food possibilities. There were some, but they streets felt deader than felt proper, and there wasn't anything I wanted.

(Side note: it's good for the residents to have lots of variety, like Chinese and Thai and Italian. But I don't go to New Orleans to eat Thai food.)

So I ended up having circled back to the Google place, Mother's, at Poydras and Tchoupitoulas, on which latter street I am staying. The menu looked promising -- lots of Cajun/Creole foods, for decent prices (10-12, vs. 18-22), also lots of people at 12:15. For once I stood in line, and ordered Mae's Filé gumbo, with chicken and andouille sausage, and it was good. So was the bread and butter, the latter served as a slab of soft butter on the plate, not wrapped in tinfoil. I decided I very well might eat all of my meals there.

After that it was a tossup between exploration and museums, but the aquarium here was said to be really good, so I went to the Aquarium of the Americas, buying a combo ticket for the Insectarium, but leaving aside IMAX or the Audubon Zoo. And yes, I'd say it's petty good. Highlights outline: coral reef you walk through/under; Amazon river 'walkthrough' with macaws and canopy-high trees (and skylights, so I didn't miss being outside; penguins (not that unusual, also not present until December due to renovation); sea otters, including one who opens an ice treat by banging it against the window that holds all the water in; bunch of sea horses; Mississippi river walkthrough with a white alligator (leucistic instead of albino) and chained (injured?) red-tail hawk and owl; scaled down but still large oil platform structure with lots of big fish and turtles swimming around it.

I also liked a small exhibit with three spiny lobsters and a moray eel. Active crustaceans are a lot more interesting to watch than fish, as they have more and more relatable behaviors. And spiny lobsters have so many sensory extrusions you get to wonder what will happen when they bump into each other.

A sign noted how weird seahorses are. Head of a horse, tale of monkey, armor of an insect (stretching it), pouch of a marsupial (but on the male!), males give birth, color changing of a chameleon...

Electric eels give themselves cataracts from the shocks they use.

You can touch stingrays (stings removed) at one exhibit. They're slimy.

3/4 of all Louisiana fishing is centered around oil platforms. There was a model of an Atmospheric Diving Suit that can go down to 610 meters without compression or saturation diving.

Odd thing: no octopuses or relatives.

Good old anabeps, the four-eyed fish.

One drawback: fish tanks weren't always well labeled with the fish in them. So you'd see something and continue wondering what it was.

***

I staggered out, my legs falling off, around 4. I thought about a dinner river cruise, 8-10, but it's $40 for the boat and $66 for the boat+dinner. I waited for the Canal streetcar again, then gave up again and walked, hoping a fast walk would feel better than the slow roll you do in a museum. And at 1643 my head swung and saw the words "OBAMA TRIUMPH" on what turned out to be USA Today, so that's how long my ignorance lasted.

Canal Street is full of businesses until somewhat beyond Rampart (border of the French Quarter) but they mostly felt like Shops and uninteresting to me. The street is lined with many tall palm trees, cue that LA feeling again for me. I was pacing a car with loud musing for several blocks, until it got fed up and turned around; traffic away from the river was literally at a walking pace. I thought the streetcar shuttle was running over the tracks, but at some point the tracks were being worked on heavily so it must go into traffic; that would have been fun.

***

So, I'd mentioned overly exposed strip clubs on Bourbon. By that I meant, in one case I could look from the street through the door and see a girl with a bikini bottom half *off* her butt. I've also seen Asian foot massage places which are equally transparent in their way: you can look through the window and see clients getting foot massages, so I assume for once it's an Asian massage place that isn't risque. Both kinds of place could be considered transparent.

On Canal I passed a place saying FOOT MASSAGE and REFLEXOLOGY, which sound above board and clinical, but with the blacked out windows and neon signage of strip clubs. I consider this sending mixed signals. Likewise a nearby VIP Spa, advertising Exercise, Jacuzzi, Steam Bath and Body Rub, likewise with blackout. I guess all of those could be risque, except, Exercise? I did not investigate.

***

At Treme I found the actual streetcars, but Canal was looking boring, and I turned back into the French Quarter, finding Remoulade at Bourbon and Bienville. I had natchitoches meat pies and cheese fries. The stuff was good, the pastry shell was meh, I feel like I should have gone all the way back to Mother's, but ow, my feet. (The legitimate foot massage places are actually tempting.)

***

At full normal non-exploratory pace, only 15 minutes from there to the door of my hotel room, big cut down from Monday's 30 minutes. Going to Frenchman Street -- or coming back -- seems more feasible. One future is I take a nap and do so. Another future is I stay in investigating election results.

Obama predictions, past and future

Yeah, politics and my legs beat New Orleans.

BTW, AFAICT the right is blaming the "mainstream media" for losing. "If only they'd reported on Benghazi". Or sometimes blaming the media for ensuring that Romney won the primaries.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2012/Pres/Maps/Nov07.html#item-3 notes that the states which have voted Demoocratic 6 times in a row add up to 242 EVs. At this point a Democrat needs 28 EVs from somewhere else to win.
Wonkblog notes Democrats have won 5 of the last 6 Presidential popular votes. Demographics at work.

I don't have a proper schaedenfreude userpic.

***

2008
http://johncwright.livejournal.com/199898.html:

"Look for a return of the Great Depression, as the administration enacts all the policies exactly opposite of what sound economic principles would suggest. A one year market correction will expand into a four or ten year ongoing disaster." A mixed bag. Unemployment is something of an ongoing disaster, and Obama didn't entirely follow sound economic principles, but those are the opposite of what Wright thinks they are.

"Look for the emboldened terror-masters to purchase nuclear arms from a relieved and encouraged Iran, while a too rapid pull out from Iraq leads to a general massacre," False.

"Look for terrorist attacks to resume in the Continental United States. Nuclear attacks? I hope not, but I fear that weakness in a world of danger invites attack. " False.

"Look for national legislation to legitimize taxpayer-funded abortion on-demand, and all state and local restrictions and parental notification regulations will be federally pre-empted." False.

"Look for nationwide gay marriage." Working on it! But far from true, and little thanks to Obama.

"Look for a vehement renewal of the war against guns. Go buy one now, before January." False.

"Look for three or four of the most activist and leftist Justices in history to be appointed to the High Court," False, AFAIK.

"Look for the strangulation and death of Talk Radio under the fairness doctrine." False.

"Look for a rapid decline in the rule of law, and respect for legal procedures. Look for intimidation and open violence against political adversaries. " False.

2012
http://www.scifiwright.com/2012/11/mr-obama-wins-reelection/
"financial euthanasia" of the US; American funding of terror; betrayal of Israel; 50% unemployment (see comments, 20% was a typo); ruination of the health care system; mass closings of Catholic charities; the dollar ceasing to be a reserve currency; hypertaxation and hyperinflation. He refuses to make a bet on hyperinflation though, e.g. borrowing $10 now to repay $15 4 years from now.

I wonder if he's looked back at his old predictions with any sense of humility. I'd bet not. I'd suggest it, but it's bad for my time use to register to comment on his site.

***

2008
http://jordan179.livejournal.com/100836.html
"Raises in taxes, trade wars, diplomatic and foreign policy disasters, and serious reductions in personal freedoms. On the bright side, this should discredit the Democratic Left for a generation." All false, except perhaps for the reductions of freedom aka killing alleged American terrorists without trial -- but Jordan probably approves of that.

"No, because Obama's tax hikes and trade wars will make this impossible. America has voted herself a Second Great Depression." False. Any Second Great Depression happened before Obama took office; he's overseen slow recovery.

"With Obama in office, Russia has a free hand to reconquer the former USSR and continue on its self-destructive path of feeding the very Islamist terrorists who ultimately want to destroy her. This will probaby not lead to a general European war, but it may spell the end of NATO." False.

"Obama's election will re-energize the Terrorists and give them hope for victory. Obama has promised to pull out of Iraq within a year and a half. If the Iraqi regime isn't strong enough to survive by then, Iraq will fall to the Terrorists -- and then begins the real dying of the Iraqi people, at the hands of the victors" False.

"It is also possible that Iraq will win over the Terrorists -- and then be invaded by a nuclear-capable Iran" False. No invasion, and Iran still isn't nuclear-capable. Why Iran would invade was not mentioned; Iraq invaded last time...

"Of course not." [We won't be better off.] Unemployment is down, corporate profits are way up. I'd call this false, though I'm sure he'd weasel out.

2012
http://jordan179.livejournal.com/254816.html
Much more reticent, mostly "we Americans are going to at least in part be responsible for the now almost-inevitable major war now brewing in the area between Libya's Western border and India's Eastern border. Oh, the Muslim Terrorist States will be guilty of the war crimes, but we will be guilty of sitting idly by and watching it happen. A lot of Israeli and Indian civilians are going to die in the initial attacks." Adds disintegration of the health care system in the comments. Other people predict Iranian nukes over the coasts and Egypt pulling out of Camp David.

2008
http://btripp.livejournal.com/886823.html Gas chambers!

http://rhjunior.livejournal.com/431715.html "Gas lines, recession, unemployment, hostage crisis". Partial credit, if we count 'predicting' a recession and unemployment that were already happening.