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Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Can you hear me now?

I've resorted to accessing the Internet via Hotel TV and I can tell you it is like communicating with a tin can and string. It's the best I can come up with. The free high-speed Internet requires an Ethernet cable,so my laptop is making a great paperweight on this trip.

To add insult to injury, this piece of crap timed out and lost what I'm sure was a Pulizer Prize winning Blog. But being ever the trooper, I'm trying to recreate it, despite I've got a connection that looks like a test pattern.

So I made it in on Saturday evening after about 10 hours travel time. You may or may not be happy to hear I managed to upgrade the portion of the trip between Seattle and Atlanta to First Class and enjoyed a fine pesto lasgna with a side Ceasar salad while the scmucks in coach were fighting over peanuts. So what if it was served at 9:30 a.m. It was First Class baby. And I got to watch a fine edited for flight movie with Pierce Brosnan, Salma Hyak and Woody Harrelson. Brosnan and Hyak are lovers that are also retired jewel thiefs. Brosnan is my age. Give me a break. Harrelson plays an idiot FBI agent, so there was some realism in the film.

I normally despise people whining about how crappy they feel in their blogs. but we have already established that I am a hypocrite, so I want you to know that I started developing a major cough and fever on Friday. I've been coughing up things that look like extras in Alien vs Predator. The fever has subsized and I am now settling down to a nasty cold. This is how i arrived in New Oreleans.

This is not a lie. Marvin was indeed my shuttle driver from the airport andhe did shout major city facts into my ear on the way to the hotel (Loyala is apparantely the place to go if you want to be a pharmacist). The French and British tourists were eating it up. For some reason the British are really into New Oreleans (one of three places they ever go in America outside of New York and San Francisco).

Marvin dropped me off at the Wyndam Canal Place pointing out I'd have a great view of the Mississippi from my floor to ceiling windowns. I do. From the 22nd floor I can see the Padlewheel boats glide up and down the river, with rock bands blaring "Sweet Home Alabama" until 3 in the morning. Bright side is that the ice machine right across the hall occasional drowns them out.

Not that I'm feeling up to sightseeing in between coughing up a lung, but after waking up Sunday morning screaming "Sweet Home Alabamba" and "more Ice," I decided to go for a walk. Despite my now draining sinuses, I am fortunate to still have my sense of smell. Because I love the smell of Bourbon Street in the morning, it smells like a garbage strike, stale beer, warm vomit and a impudent little bouquet of disinfectant.

I've yet to see the poor little loser dressed like a "handgrenade," handing out discount drink coupons, but the trip is young.

Other than that, I haven't been out much.The marketing workshops have been pretty good. They have the prerequisite number of blowhards interruppting the instructor to offer tidbits of marketing wisdeom the rest of us are dying for. Because god knows we want te advice of an unemployed marketing wannabe that can't wait to share the next anecdote of there retail experience working at the Gap.

Today I attended an eMarkting workshop that included Blogs as a marketing tool that is sweeping the nation.

Beward the Ides of March.

I shall try and blog again if this piece of crapola Hotel TV doesn't mess with me.

Peace.

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