The Vent and Rant Thread

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

Well ... she's gone missing again ... and we're NOT looking for her ...

On the other hand .... I chased a stray dog around our block yesterday. She took the path she must normally be walked. Then she went up one of the condo driveways, and up a set of stairs. I'm sure she thought she was home, and this strange lady would stop chasing her!

I slowly made friends and then picked her up -- only to find she WASN'T the neighbor's dog whom I thought she was. So I called the number on her tag ....

** They had no idea she was gone. ** She seems to have followed somebody who opened the garage door. They weren't doing a dog walk, but SHE wanted one.

When I phoned them, they still didn't know she was missing. They looked around, and no, didn't see her ..... so they paid attention to what I was saying on the phone. Came outside and met me with their dog (*such* a little sweetums). Turns out she ran up the wrong condo driveway (they are like spokes out of the center block we walk around) but other than that, she was precisely where she normally walks. Such a good little girl! It's just that mommy hadn't come with her, for the jaunt!

[Rumpelteazer]

Because my friends came home early today I was home around 4.30pm today, which means that I had the chance to "enjoy" the "music" (80+db) for four and a half hours.

We were very glad it was finally over at 9pm. I just went to bed to watch some Time Team and my neighbour students, who have no class this week, have decided to keep the party going . Very strange is that there are also hammering sounds. Last time after a party they agreed that next time to keep the noise down and the window next to my window closed. They seemed to have forgotten that.

We've decided to give them until 1am until we take action. Police won't come when you call them unless it's really bad. So I'm now thinking of creative ways of making clear that we do not appreciate this on a weekday. At this moment I'm thinking of using a baseball bat to refurbish their sound system, if the doorbell works and we can get in. If the doorbell doesn't work I'm thinking of testing out the new high pressure cleaner through their open window...

[wannabee]

I remember reading about a guy that was sick of their neighbours parties and had a good recording and hi-fi system. So he recorded the noisiest part of his neighbours party and waited until about an hour after they went to bed some time around dawn and let it rip with both speakers, straight at their house as loud as they gave it.

[Rumpelteazer]

In the past I would have gone over in the morning, the time students usual sleep, press the doorbell and wedge a toothpick in it and break it off so the bell keeps being depressed. However, I know that at the moment there also some non-students living in that house.

The music stopped abrubtly around 12.30am, probably one of the other residents who quieted it down.

If only they didn't party on days most people have to work the day after, or if they have a party notify the neighbours and try to keep the noise down. The students next to them do that, after my father disconnected their main fuse (he has permission from the landlord to do so when the students went on too long and too loud).

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by wannabee

I remember reading about a guy that was sick of their neighbours parties and had a good recording and hi-fi system. So he recorded the noisiest part of his neighbours party and waited until about an hour after they went to bed some time around dawn and let it rip with both speakers, straight at their house as loud as they gave it.

poorly played bagpipes are always extremely effective

[WT Sharpe]

Christian might hide. I don't know, because the only time I look for him is when the weather's bad. I don't like the thought of him outside in the cold.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Christian might hide. I don't know, because the only time I look for him is when the weather's bad. I don't like the thought of him outside in the cold.

That's the only time Kitty Girl is allowed out, that way she wants to come in right away,

The rest of the herd are afraid of the door.

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

poorly played bagpipes are always extremely effective

When we were plagued by some very noisy neighbors who would NOT reduce the levels even after several other neighbors also asked them to, I and the folks on the opposite side of them used 'polyplaner' speakers, which look like a thin coffee table book, placed flat against the wall facing the other apartment, placed 'between the joists' so that the hollow space in the wall actually becomes the 'speaker cabinet.' Then I put on bagpipe music. (The other neighbor put on drag racing records...)

Inside 'our' space the sound is rather muffled and soft, but inside the opposite apartment, it is booming. When they called the police to complain, the police heard the soft music in my house and told the neighbors there was nothing they can do about it, as I was actually playing my music softly, and it was just the building's acoustics that caused the problem for them. They only stayed another month.


Stitchawl

[orlok]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

poorly played bagpipes are always extremely effective

You mean there's another way to play them

[wannabee]

Our town is surrounded by hills. We had a music festival a few years back and it was kicked off with bagpipers playing from the hill tops covered by fog. It was very eerie, almost haunting but definitely not bad. I'd love to hear that again.

[Stitchawl]

I love bagpipe music. I put it on when I have housework that needs to be done, and I march around the house in step with it, sometimes even getting the work done! My parents refused to let me take bagpipe lessons when I was a child. They gave me just about any other lessons that I ever asked for (even drums!) but drew the line at bagpipes. One of the first things I did when I was old enough to get a place of my own was to buy a chanter and teach myself the basics. I'm sure my neighbors weren't so happy, but at least I didn't have a full set complete with drones!

Stitchawl

[orlok]

Your parents sound like wise and sensible people.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

I love bagpipe music.

There's a great bit in Chapter 25 of Kidnapped about pipe playing.

[...] and then, after a great number of civilities, Robin took the pipes and played a little spring in a very ranting manner.
“Ay, ye can blow,” said Alan; and taking the instrument from his rival, he first played the same spring in a manner identical with Robin’s; and then wandered into variations, which, as he went on, he decorated with a perfect flight of grace-notes, such as pipers love, and call the ‘warblers.’
I had been pleased with Robin’s playing; Alan’s ravished me.
“That’s no very bad, Mr. Stewart,” said the rival, “but ye show a poor device in your warblers.”
“Me!” cried Alan, the blood starting to his face. “I give ye the lie.”
“Do ye own yourself beaten at the pipes, then,” said Robin, “that ye seek to change them for the sword?”
“And that’s very well said, Mr. Macgregor,” returned Alan; “and in the meantime” (laying a strong accent on the word) “I take back the lie. I appeal to Duncan.”
“Indeed, ye need apply to naebody,” said Robin. “Ye’re a far better judge than any Maclaren in Balquhidder: for it’s a God’s truth that you’re a very creditable piper for a Stewart. Hand me the pipes.”
Alan did as he asked; and Robin proceeded to imitate and correct some part of Alan’s variations, which it seemed that he remembered perfectly.
“Ay, ye have music,” said Alan gloomily.
“And now be the judge yourself, Mr. Stewart,” said Robin; and taking up the variations from the beginning, he worked them throughout to so new a purpose, with such ingenuity and sentiment, and with so odd a fancy and so quick a knack in the grace-notes, that I was amazed to hear him.
As for Alan, his face grew dark and hot, and he sat and gnawed his fingers, like a man under some deep affront. “Enough!” he cried. “Ye can blow the pipes—make the most of that.” And he made as if to rise.
But Robin only held out his hand as if to ask for silence, and struck into the slow measure of a pibroch. It was a fine piece of music in itself, and nobly played; but it seems, besides, it was a piece peculiar to the Appin Stewarts and a chief favourite with Alan. The first notes were scarce out, before there came a change in his face; when the time quickened he seemed to grow restless in his seat; and long before that piece was at an end, the last signs of his anger died from him, and he had no thought but for the music.
“Robin Oig,” he said, when it was done, “ye are a great piper. I am not fit to blow in the same kingdom with ye. Body of me! ye have mair music in your sporran than I have in my head. And though it still sticks in my mind that I could maybe show ye another of it with the cold steel, I warn ye beforehand—it’ll no’ be fair! It would go against my heart to haggle a man that can blow the pipes as you can!”

[HomeInMyShoes]

Aaaaiiiiieieeee! Pipe lovers. Run for the hills!

In other news, is there any chance books on my wishlist wiil be affordable in my lifetime?

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by orlok

Your parents sound like wise and sensible people.

I didn't think so at the time, but odd thing... the older I got, the wiser they became!


Stitchawl