HumidCity

HumidCity found its footing as a resource in the dark weeks following Hurrcane Katrina and the Great Levee Failure of ‘05. One of the main reasons was a distrust of conventional media to get the story straight.

Right now our near neighbors in Galveston and Houston are suffering many of the same trials that we have undergone and I must confess I doubt we can “get it right,” from our place here in New Orleans. With that in mind I have created a temporary login for Virgotex, an excellent Texas blogger and regular contributor to First Draft. Who is this Virgotex anyway?  In her own words:

A sentient carbon-based dyke geek nerd naturalist writer poet blogger photographer bureaucrat knowledge worker democrat mac user fat tv watcher music lover person living with five animals in Texas, pondering the nature of the time-space continuum, negotiating with the persistent illusion of reality.

Former proprietor here. Creator of, co-writer at, Got That New Package.  Also, due to clerical mixup or grave error in judgment, the fine people at First Draft let her guest blog there on Wednesdays.

In the next few weeks she will be bringing us the skinny from our neighboring state. Pease welcome her as a special guest blogger, we need her inside view as much as those outside of New Orleans need ours.

-Loki, Founder HumidCity

A proposed marching hymn for the incipient dawning of the Benign and Lewd Order of the Garrulous (B.L.O.G), with all due apologes to Fats Domino!

It’s time I’m bloggin’ ’bout New Orleans
I’m bloggin’ ’bout New Orleans
I’m going to need to hold my nose
Around those damned politicos
When I write about New Orleans

I’ve got my purple pills
Doctor says they’ll sure cure my ills
I’m stayin’ here today
Yes, I hope we find our way
Yes, I’m bloggin’ ’bout New Orleans

You know its very rarely sunny
And the State has all the money
No use for you to cry
I’ll see you bye and bye
Cause I’m bloggin’ ’bout New Orleans

I need to keep on typin’
Because my home is still a ailin’
New Orleans is my home
That’s true no matter where I roam’
I’m bloggin’ ’bout New Orleans

FADE:
I’m bloggin’ ’bout New Orleans
I’m bloggin’ ’bout New Orleans
I’m bloggin’ ’bout New Orleans

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Since war seems to have been declared on me via the machinations of Schroeder, Lisa and (the most henous offender of all) Adrastos I am left wth no choice but to retaliate. Look for the Heavily Photoshopped “NOLABlogger Saints” Calendar, coming soon!

EDIT: I have now uploaded the final version and replaced the tiny one above. Click it to see a readable size image.

Blogged with Flock

Gmail is down again. This time for the past two days. If it’s on their end they owe their users some form of update on what the situation is. (Don’t tell me its BETA, its been on the net since well before Katrina and its an ad driven service.) It could also be the side effect of some sort of selective port blocking by Cox, or basic incompetence, or the fragile and unstable infrastructure of the city. I bet its Cox, my lovely wife informs me that she had no trouble accessing it from Tulane’s connection.

Damn annoying though.

Since the Storm the internet is our main way of staying in touch with scattered friends and family. All the “social” applications have taken on a new dimension. Displaced friends in Cincinatti and I watch each other’s current reading and movie intake, trading notes and comments back and forth through LibraryThing and Netflix. We share pictures in the same way on Flickr, even sharing our bookmarks with del.icio.us. And that doesn’t even touch the subject of blogs, online journals and MySpace.

All of these applications add community to the services they offer. Each alows you to interact and communicate on a common platform. While fun, and no doubt, useful to most, these have become an important means of staying in touch with each other and home. I can see that my friend Rachel is about to rent a truly awful movie when  I’m in Netflix and leave her a note saying it’s not worth the effort.  We can also add reviews as we watch things which they will see when going to rent it. Little bits of day to day interaction that allow a sembalance of normalcy.

We are a people who crave the society of our fellow New Orleanians: loud, boisterous, eating questionable things of aquatic origin, and with drink in hand. The City of Cyber Orleans knows no geographic borders. It stretches as far as our furthest displaced has gone and is accessible from any internet connection.  For those away its not home, but it helps. For those of us here it is a link to all our misssing loved ones.

Kind of like a William Gibson novel reinterpreted by Morgus The Magnificent.