b.rox

A mysterious fungus sprung up in one of our flowerpots this weekend. It looked creepy and beautiful and smelled terrible. What could it be? Turns out it’s a Stinkhorn, a Columned Stinkhorn, to be exact: Clathrus columnatus. A tip of the hat to Lisa Mulvey for the quick ID.

I think this is the best photo I’ve taken in a while. Somehow phallic and vaginal at the same time. Best viewed large.

Thanks to Carol G for getting me in touch with the very helpful Christopher Elliott. He’s the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. Today he published my case. I found it in the Arizona Daily Star, though not, strangely enough, in our Times-Picayune which usually carries his column in the Sunday Travel section. I can [...]

Yesterday seemed to be getting off to a good start. I’d set my sights on completing a project that I’ve been postponing and procrastinating on for over a year and a half. Nineteen months actually. That’s when Xy smashed a window out in our kitchen with her bare hand, in a blind drunken rage. I’m [...]

I’ve been meaning to post about the Lafitte Greenway Master Plan. Actually I’ve been told it’s more of a “visioning plan” than a “master plan” but nevertheless it’s complete and you should check it out: Lafitte Greenway Master Plan This is the most comprehensive statement to date on the Lafitte Greenway. It explains what the [...]

Last week I posted about how Flickr should make sharing photos easier. (Actually I first started bellyaching about this last October.) I just wanted to point out that (as of yesterday) they seem to have taken my advice. I’m so pleased I’m not even going to bill them for a consulting fee. Thanks to the [...]

Dear Persephone, People kept telling me we should “enjoy this time” with you. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this advice. A couple weeks ago I said to Olivia: “She’s only six weeks old. All she does is sleep and eat and poop. Oh, and occasionally she cries. What moments are we suppose [...]

I’m taking my last Cipro today, the end of a four week course. When I first started taking them, the effect was dramatic. I called it “dropping the bomb” because I could feel it working throughout my body. I was sick; it made me better. It definitely made me sit up and take notice. (No [...]

My new iMac arrived Thursday. First impression: Wow, this thing is huge. It’s mostly screen, of course, but at 20″ x 12″ it’s almost twice the size of my old iMac’s screen. I tried using the Migration Assistant to move data from the old iMac to the new one. Unfortunately this worked for Xy’s account [...]

All my friends and relations up in Indiana are talking about the earthquake last night. None of them seem to remember the Quake of ’89 as well as I do. Mom thought it was 87, JB thought it was 86, and Lee doesn’t recall a quake in his lifetime. But I remember it like it [...]

I don’t know if there’s a name for this style of infant apparel. We call them “ghosties.” Here’s Persephone in her favorite ghostie.

“There’s no reason for anyone to worry.” So sayeth Section Chief Brett Herr of the Army Corps of Engineers. He’s a talking about a wee small leak that’s been discovered at the 17th Street Canal floodwall. This is one of the floodwalls that breached and flooded the city back in 2005. These floodwalls were designed [...]

April 15th is shaping up to be one of my favorite days of the year. Taxes are due, which is a drag, but so what? I always file early. Thirteen years ago today I was amongst the team that put the first TV show online. I’ve been bragging about it ever since. I have to. [...]

I went in to work last Tuesday just to remind everyone what I look like and make sure they hadn’t changed the lock on my office. Around noon I attended a “town hall meeting” on the University’s strategic plan, which is currently under draft. It’s eight plans in one, each addressing specific topics such as [...]

No Silence Originally uploaded by Often Absurd in the Humid City David Bonds was acquitted yesterday for the murder of Dinerral Shavers. Again there is an Ashley Morris connection. Ashley loved the Hot 8 Brass Band, for whom Dinerral played the snare drum. So when we marched on City Hall in January of 2007, Ashley [...]

Yesterday I learned from Karen G that Flickr is now hosting video. Of course they’ve provided a nice “embed” feature just like you’d expect, so you can grab an HTML snippet to paste the video into your blog or webpage. That’s dandy. But what really chaps my ass is: Why can’t they provide the same [...]

Speaking of Ashley Morris, some random guy left the following comment on my blog: Ilove NO and would like to live there someday but the mentality of a large part of the minority population is that they are owed something. Since Katerna, there has been Taco and Mexican restaurants popping up every where. That is [...]

I’ve learned a bit more about Ashley’s passing. It’s distressing to realize that he left behind not only his wife but three young children (ages 2, 3 and 5). This family could certainly use a lot of help from all of us, so please consider making a donation. Xy and I did. We couldn’t give [...]

The “Eat-Well Food Mart” has been under construction at the corner of Canal and Broad for some months. Google knows nothing about “Eat-Well Food Mart” so I was intrigued. Today, I saw that it was open, so I stopped in. Could this be some kind of health food store in my neighborhood? Wouldn’t that be [...]

It was a beautiful day, so we packed some picnic snacks, loaded up the baby stroller, gathered up some neighbor kids and headed down to the bayou for Super Sunday. Only Super Sunday wasn’t quite as super as I remembered. Don’t get me wrong, we had a great time. And the Indians we saw were [...]