It’s a trilogy now! My car and I have a trust issue. I never know when it’s going to start.

It decided to play dead in the AMC parking lot. The interesting thing was that the lights would disappear and then suddenly light up again. I opened the hood and tried wiggling some wires and then it just started up as if nothing had happened.

My current guess is that there is some corrosion on one of the connectors or in one of the wires, but as I’ve proven twice before I have no clue what I’m talking about. Therefore I’m headed into Paretti Mazda tomorrow morning to see if they can have a look at it. I don’t like not being sure whether my car will start. It’s not a good feeling.

On an unrelated note… I saw two rats/mice tonight running around on the streets of Greater New Orleans. I wasn’t close enough (and I’m not sure if I have the technical knowledge anyway) to tell whether they were rats or mice.

Well, it looks as if my battery wasn’t bad after-all. My car wouldn’t start today again. Even though I know nothing about cars, I think it’s a problem with the alternator. I tried to jump start the car with Will, but it wouldn’t start. I’m currently waiting for AAA to arrive to tow my car to the dealership.

This sucks.

UPDATE [11:15 PM]:
The guy from AAA came and decided to try to jump the car because it would be easier to drive the car onto the truck than to push it around manually. He looked at the battery and immediately noticed that the connections to it were really loose. He tightened both of the clamps and we were able to start the car a few times. Basically, I know nothing about cars and I didn’t do a good job of tightening the battery when I installed it because I only had needle-nosed pliers. So I drove around for about a half hour just to make sure that my car had a good charge. This is obviously much better than having no car for a few days while the dealership fixed my car. I love AAA!

I just went to what could be the best concert of my life. What made it so great? It was free to get into because I bought a six-pack of Abita 20th anniversary pilsner. But more importantly, since it was Abita’s 20th anniversary party, there was free beer all night long. And Abita beer is really good beer. In fact, they make my favorite beers (Amber, Light, and Andigator). Oh, and the band that I got to see for free was Better Than Ezra. It’s been a while since I saw them live, but I grew up with them. In fact, the first concert that I ever went to was BTE at the Saenger when I was a freshman in high school.

I did feel that the concert was missing Brent.

Small and stupid note: I visited 5 gas stations tonight in search of an air pump to fill up my car’s tires. They all had broken machines! I suspect that there is no money in keeping these machines in working order.

Thank goodness that the collective intelligence of New Orleanians (many of whom no longer actually live in the city and might never again) re-elected C. Ray Nagin. So what have Ray and his circle of friends who run the city been doing for the past couple of months? That’s such a great question because even Ray is asking it. The only real news coming out of the dilapidated City Hall is the resignation of the only person who was actively fighting corruption and helping to fix the city — Greg Meffert.

Nagin and his administration’s abilities were showcased in a recent Times Picayune article. A few weeks ago they released a schedule of events to mark the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. One can imagine all the appropriate memorial activities that a city could plan. But you have to remember that this is the city of New Orleans… they planned a comedy club, a talent search, cooking shows, a concert, a masquerade ball, and a fireworks display. Happy Katrina Day!

A public outcry would perhaps be enough to cause them to reconsider these joyous events on such a somber memorial day, right? Not really. They announced that the comedy show, masquerade ball, and fireworks were cancelled, but not because these were braindead ideas that celebrate the worst tragedy in New Orleans’ history. These events were cancelled because the Nagin administration could not plan them in time!

They presumably had 2-3 months to plan these events. Only this incompetent administration couldn’t plan such simple events. Everything about this story is a disaster.

So basically Nagin has spent the last few months traveling to other cities to pander to ex-citizens of the city, without doing anything thing substantial to rebuild the city. It’s a great feeling to know that in exchange for the death of my city, Nagin has been building his resume so that he can work for either Louis Farrakhan or the NAACP in 4 years.