Putting the Fear into Small Children

For awhile now we have had this problem with the neighborhood children throwing the rocks in our driveway. Well it got to the point where I would wait for them to come home from school and as soon as they picked up some rocks I would throw open the window and tell them to stop. I did it a few times before I got really tired of it all and about two weeks ago I rationalized with the kids. I told them that the neighborhood association was about to start charging their parents and the cops may be getting involved. Well that seems to have worked. And not only did it get them to stop, but I saw the kids kicking the rocks BACK into our driveway on their way home. I should ditch preservation and go into child psychology or hostage negotiation.

Flight of Fancy

For Christmas the hubby gave me a bird bath to accompany my bird feeder. It has been a huge hit with the birds since I have to fill it with water about every other day right now. Well today I put some old peanuts I had out on the patio as another treat. We had birds from all over come to the house. It was a non-stop bird fest. We even got two blue jays and two different woodpeckers come. I was able to cross off about four new types of birds off my bird book from today alone. The woodpecker was my favorite though because I have heard him for a long time in a nearby tree and wondered how to get him to come to my backyard.
The downside to all of this is that I want more feeders, baths and bushes now to make my yard even better for the birds. (I could also use a faster digital camera to take pictures of all the cool birds.) Our backyard is fenced off such that no cats or prey can get in, so anything I can do to attract them won't be creating a trap. I will say though that I refuse to set up feeding trays with bugs on them. They can get those from my yard in exchange for the other food and water. They have to earn it somehow. I hope this will also make it pretty mosquito free this summer so we can enjoy the patio furniture and bird watching outside.

The dumbening

Last Christmas, my brother introduced me to a brand new show on television that, at the time, marked the nadir of the intelligence-insulting trend on network television--a game show called Deal Or No Deal. He showed me this mind-sucking waste of time because it really is something you have to see to understand just how stupid it is. It's got all the drama of watching a group of old ladies play Bingo, but with more shiny things and pretty girls.

Sadly, this show has inexplicably become a huge hit, and now other networks feel a need to compete with it. Last night, I read about a new show on Fox that just might challenge Deal Or No Deal's moron crown: it's called Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader? Really, the title of the show says it all, doesn't it? It's a game show where they ask people questions from various fifth-grade textbooks and see if they can answer them. Jeff Foxworthy is the host; this is probably a good choice, given that he is roughly as intelligent as a fifth-grader.

The really sad part is that, merely by asking the question, you know that the answer will be "no" more often than not. I guess people will have to watch this until Ow! My Balls!is created.

I Feel Like Bart Simpson Without His Soul

I am rowing with only one paddle.
I was cruising through this project. I was making contacts, getting promised info, etc for the last several weeks and then suddenly nothing. Not one person has sent me what they promised and now emails are not being returned. I have also had a couple of cancelled appointments that potentially would have been helpful to my project. Only two of the newspapers have run the ad/article that they promised, and they are the two smallest here in Columbia. I have two months to complete this project as so far I have lots of ideas and concepts, and nothing concrete other than a historical framework and an "idea" of what the balcony and main theater looked like. No idea what the original ticket booth or lobby looked like. I can't even get a straight answer on whether African-Americans were allowed into the balcony area or not. Both of the previous histories done on the theater (or theaters in the area) didn't list their sources and after contacting the authors I was told that neither bothered to EVER make one. Bad historians! (And English professor!) They should know better.
Very frustrating. It also doesn't help that the owners keep going into the theater and tearing stuff done at their fancy without calling me to document it. (Plus I think they are doing some damage while doing it without the proper tools.)
I did, however, get into the main theater for a good look around for the first time. There is lots of original material still there it appears. I just need to get into the basement to see if the marquee is down there. (That is the neighborhood rumor.) I also spoke with the current tenants and managed to create a professional relationship, which was mine and the owners hardest battle to getting into the main theater. So at least I have access to the entire building (except the basement which is blocked by stuff in storage.)

School

Okay, here we are, smack in the middle of week 6 of this semester. After this Thursday, I'll be 40% of the way through the semester (for those of you keeping score at home, that's 15 weeks). Yes, I've reached that magical point in the semester where I've been in class long enough to be tired of it but not long enough to be able to see light at the end of the tunnel. This condition is made worse by the fact that it's the last semester of this particular degree.

Yeah, yeah, whine, I know. But it's an unpleasant feeling and I'm ready for a change now.

Fire!!!

A house a few blocks away is on fire. How do I know this? About five fire trucks just drove past the house and turned right at the corner. Also, it smells like smoke in here, and my eyes are becoming irritated and unhappy from it.

People, please, if you can't afford to pay your heating bill, find ways to lower it. DO NOT resort to setting the house on fire; that never works.

Oh Salesman, My Favorite

I had to go into a jewelry store today. I wasn't there to get anything of monetary value, I wanted to talk to the owner who had run the store since the 60's which is next door to the theater. I was hoping that he might have some information on the theater since he previously had mentioned to me in a phone call that he used to make his son go there when he was working.
Well I asked him if I could ask him some questions and he said, "Well you better hurry cause today isn't a good day." I said I could come back on another day if it would suit him better, since it was V-day, but he said to just hurry instead. (This was despite the fact that they had 10 sales people just standing around cause not one customer was in the store.) So I hurried and asked him a few questions, which he was rude and short about, and then... then he asks me, "While you are here, have you gotten a gift for your boyfriend yet?" I told him that my husband would be pretty offended if I got him one, which went right over this guys head. I just couldn't believe that this old man had the nerve to ask me to buy something after being so rude to me. (Plus he knew I was a student, which should give him the impression of a poor starving college student.)

The bunny rabbit (see below)

The bunny rabbit from yesterday's update is back on the lawn again. He's been out there for at least 20 minutes or so, nibbling grass and hopping around. I wonder why he likes our house so much? Also I've seen Kittenface a couple of times today, hanging out down the street. Wife tried to approach him and see if he would let her pet him, but to no avail. Her mutant cat-attraction powers must have been dulled today for some reason.

I wonder how easy it is to remove .22LR bullets from rabbit...

An unexpected guest

Just a short one today--it's been a long week at work, and I'm excited to just sit here and read the second Harry Potter book for a while. But I did want to mention that when I got home tonight, I scooped the cat's litter box and took it (the poo) outside to the trash. On the way out there, I happened to notice something unusual sitting on our lawn just a few feet away.

It was a small bunny rabbit, sitting motionless, looking at me. I tried to take a picture of him with my cameraphone, but those things are crap and it didn't even show up. Anyway, a neighbor drove by and scared the bunny away a few minutes later. I don't know where he went after that; it's too bad, too, because I sure could go for some hasenpfeffer.

The Tale of the Cats

Our neighborhood, like most neighborhoods in America, has its share of stray animals that spend most of their time here. For the last several months, we've known about two stray cats that live in the area--I named them Kittenface and Meowdude. We can sometimes see them slinking into the drainage culvert across the street or dashing down the gutters in the darkness. My wife, of course, has a soft spot in her heart for cats, and there have been many occasions in which we've spotted one or both of these cats, out there in the cold, and she's asked me if we could please bring them in and take care of them. (I think she's maybe 30% joking.) No, I don't think she asked our cat what she would think about a couple of friends, either.

Of course we don't do that--feral cats wouldn't even let either of us get close enough to them to pet them, let alone bring them inside, or adopt them. Not to mention what our cat would think of this. But she just can't stand to see poor animals be alone and miserable outside, and I can handle that.

Anyway, the last few nights we've heard cats fighting outside, and last night we heard them right outside the den. We decided to break them up, so Wife got the flashlight and ran around the side of the house to chase them off. When she got around to the side of the house, I saw a small cat run from her, and of course the fighting stopped. But I watched as Wife pointed the flashlight toward the side of the house, and I saw a funny look on her face.

Turns out the cats have managed to dislodge one of the little vent covers that keeps animals out of the crawl-space. That's right, the cats were fighting over who got to spend the night in the relative warmth underneath our house. Wife said she saw the other cat tucked away down there, and I suggested that perhaps she'd gone under there to give birth or something, but we saw no kittens (or evidence thereof).

This is, of course, unacceptable, kittens or no kittens. We can't have feral cats coming around and fighting over who gets to live underneath the house; nor can we have other critters finding that opening and setting up shop down there. So today we found the vent cover (they'd pushed it inward and it fell inside) and put it back--but it wouldn't stay without sticking a small twig into the opening to jam it shut.

So, Wife sort of got her wish to give Kittenface and Meowdude a nice warm place to stay, for at least one night, anyway. I'd better not hear 'em fighting over anything tonight...

As Promised, Pictures of Snow in Carolina

Not that most of you who are quite sick of snow and cold will care, but for those of you who don't see it this time of year regularly, here are some pictures of snow in Carolina last week.

How Rude and Life Imitating Art

I had to go to the grocery store today, I will get to why later, to pick up two small items. I was on my way to the register, mere feet from the belt when this woman and her cart jumped right in front of me. Her cart was filled with items, and I only had two. Would it have killed her to let me go ahead of her? It didn't help that I have been reading Talk To The Hand, which is about how society has lost its manners. While I was waiting on this woman, I thought of some clever prose that could be used in the book.

*******

Now on to why I had to go to the grocery store. Ever see that Seinfeld where Jerry drops the toothbrush into the empty toilet? Yeah, I did that. Straight into the can and off to the store.

Amazing research finds

I am back to researching through microfilm, which means lots of funny ads from the olden days. This time I found an ad for something that must be simply salt, but they say it is concentrated and that will make you thin (by removing water and bloating.) The ad focused on three captions. The first showed a fat woman with her super skinny friend, and she was complaining about being overweight. The friend tells her about this great product, yada yada yada. (A few weeks later...) Lastly you see this absolutely toothpick of a woman with her spouse/boyfriend who is praising her to the moon for being so slim and attractive and how it saved their relationship. One of the captions underneath said, " Unsightly fat melts away - the charm only a the slender person has, returns."
While I was reading this I was thinking, "Gee people were so gullible back then." And then it dawned on me that we aren't any better off today. Look at all the stupid supplements, diet pills, herbal junk that will fix "everything." Missing a limb, take some root of gahugafluga. Have erectile dysfunction, take what ever the Smiley Dude takes. (Or at least that is what I think they are trying to imply.) They aren't FDA approved, but they must work cause that guy Kevin Trudeau says so. (I had to look his name up just to get it right.)
Ah, humanity. Will you ever learn? Advertisers don't care about you. They just want your money.