Yep, you might say there goes the neighborhood. The people to the east of us returned last week (although I do not think they are Canadians). If I didn’t say, they put a concrete flower pot out front because Wallace’s bumper was a few inches over on their “property” when he parked. That flower pot makes it very hard to park, and it was only a matter of time until Wallace or I accidentally scrapped the curb. Y’day Wallace scraped his paint.They are legally in the right. Two can play that game. This should not take long, as it is some old geezer shacked up with a Latina woman. They will screw up and need help somewhere. They will get into a jam sooner or later. That type always do. It doesn’t take much to notice Wallace and I are the best equipped house in the area, but you know, I suddenly lost all ability to understand French or Spanish in an emergency. The only sound can hear is of my buddy’s car being damaged.
The south neighbor is another matter. There is a walkway between the buildings that leads to an opening. I parked my wagon in there knowing it was partly on his area. Maybe I was hoping he’d say forget about it, nobody walks through there anyway. But he had a note pinned on my door the same day he got here. Therefore, tomorrow I cut down that fig tree that bangs against the utility room in the wind. I measured (and got Eric over to confirm) that although the shade is totally in the other people’s yards, the tree trunk is squarely on this property.
There is another advantage of the music room. I can see directly into the front patio of the east neighbour. Now I know exactly when to start practicing my new rock and roll music format. Alouette Yeah Baby! (A study in dissonance.) It is so nice that old Beatles is just now making it into their repertoire. How I love to play loud and long, and I can keep that up for months on end.
The new business cards go out fast, around two hundred a day on my way in [to the shop]. I love to target that new Kinko’s that is charging $15 per hour. Since I ran into every goof in town today, I’ll tell you about one more. For the second time [since in Florida], I was accosted by a pushy woman with the blood donor bus. It basically went like this.
“Do you want to give blood?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Lady, I said ‘no’.”
“What have you got against giving blood?”
“Lady, quit bothering me.”
“I’m not bothering you.”
At that point, my ability to sneeze on command came in very handy. I showered her face with tiny little wet particles at 300 mph. She backed off in a hurry. May I point out that she had followed me across the parking lot, watched me get on my bicycle and made a comment that she saw I “got plenty of exercise”. Don’t you hate it when unqualified people make judgments? A-chooooo! Oh, don’t worry, I told her I was very sorry and apologized like mad. Especially since I was “at that infectious stage”.
[Author’s note: As a matter of fact, I do have something against giving blood. A good friend of mine got into hot water after he gave his real name and address at a blood clinic. They put the information on a searchable database without asking his permission or warning him. Sure he’s dumb, but while everybody should always be good, if they are not, that does not become the business of the bloodmobile. One should be able to give blood without further issues. If blood people want be vigilantes, they will do so without my help.]
Before you automatically take her side, you should know that women shoplifters outnumber men almost 5 to 1. Protecting women does not make anybody chivalrous. Heck no, for most losers, automatically siding with any woman is part of their mating ritual. What a repulsive thought. Do I know any men like that? Lemme think. Most police, my brothers, jocks and anybody else who never scored much early in life. Oh, and cowboys. Personally, I think cowboys would get more if they wore little toy cap pistols and Lone Ranger masks as well. It brings out that motherly instinct. In the women, I mean.
Here’s some obscure trivia. MPEG1 had a maximum screen size of 352 x 240. Nobody liked it. MPEG2 was full screen. When I looked at the iPod, I was curious to note that the resolution was, you guessed it, 352 x 240. Do you get the feeling nothing has really changed?
For a challenge, I re-wrote the bass line to Achey Breaky Heart. Those simple tunes can be hard to get original with. But I don’t mean Hippie original, you know, the Zydeco version. I mean so that it still sounds like the hit but with more pizzazz.
