Happy Gluttony Day, y’all!
And here: a couple hours of background music, should you need it.
Category: House & Home
Change Of Season, Change Of Mood
We’ve had our first cool days here in north Texas — not the cold snap of a week ago, but that gentle cool of autumn. So I had to change the wallpaper on Ye Olde Laptoppe, from this:
…to this:
Unlike the earlier pic, I know where this one is (because I took the pic myself; open in new tab or window to embiggen, feel free to copy).
It’s just outside Belfast, Maine, looking out over the Passagassawakeag River (yeah, I know; stupid Indian name, they could have just called it the “Belfast River”, but noooo).
I wish we had mist here in the Dallas area… or decent rivers, for that matter.
Cultural Ignorance
Last night I had to call 911, because I heard gunshots outside my apartment — first there were two shots, evenly spaced, and then three in a row, very fast. Sounded like a small-caliber pistol, I told the operator. (This being Texas, she didn’t bother to ask me how I could guess the caliber.)
Anyway, the cops arrived, and then a fire engine.
Not gunshots: fireworks.
Of course, “fireworks” never occurred to me as a choice because I’m culturally ignorant, and had no idea that it’s Diwali Time, here in Little Hyderabad, Plano (that’s what they call it, because there are so many people from that city living in the area).
That would also explain why so many apartment patios are festooned with light strings — they’re not premature Christmas lights (which is what I mistakenly thought) but Diwali lights, which is apparently a whole ‘nother thing. So instead of living amidst a large number of Christian folk, I’m surrounded, so to speak, by Diwali devotees. (Okay, I knew that already.)
Anyway, I felt a bit of a fool for calling 911 just about fireworks, but I guess that’s what happens when you don’t get the appropriate memo from the Ministry of Cultural Assimilation. And honestly? these were loud bangs, so my confusion is quite understandable. (I had the 1911 in hand while peering through the curtains and making the 911 call.)
Anyway, the morons who set off the fireworks got their pee-pees whacked both by the Fuzz and the Apartment Lords, as setting off fireworks in these parts is Streng Verboten. (We have an extensive forest on both sides of the nearby creek, surrounded by empty grass fields that have somehow escaped the attention of property developers, hence the fire risk and prohibition.)
And by the way: the cops were on the spot in about three minutes: nothing like “Shots fired” over the old 911 to get the donuts dropped and the engines running. But of course if there had been gunshots, three minutes is far too long.
This is Kim, your local Cultural Ignoramus, signing off.
Avoiding The Stink
Pigs stink! News at 11.
Here’s one that made me chuckle:
A farmer has been paid almost £1.5million of public money to stop rearing pigs to allow 5,000 new homes to be built.
The deal is part of a move to reduce the amount of harmful nutrients flowing into waterways in Norfolk and to get house-building moving again, in what is the first deal of its kind.
The pig farm is on either side of the A47 bypass south of Norwich. By closing it down, the reduction in pollution means that officials will be able to grant permission for 5,000 homes elsewhere in the county.
Never mind the reduction in pollution; just having a pig farm within a mile of a new housing development would render the houses either unsellable, or else priced so low as to be unprofitable to build.
Farms are noisome things, to be sure, and it’s not just pig farms either. Fully a third of Mr. Free Market’s country estate is almost unusable (well, for my citified nostrils anyway) because of a neighboring cattle farm. And speaking of city slickers:
Well said.
NIMBY, But With Reason
Here’s something I agree with, but not for the reasons you might think.
We’re furious as monstrous new super prison is being built behind our home – it will put our lives in danger
But quite apart from the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) sentiment, my argument against the “But we have to put the prisons somewhere!” statement is simple:
There are literally dozens of uninhabited islands scattered around the shores of Britishland (e.g. in the Outer Hebrides or even the Shetlands) which could easily support a supermax prison. Why, I ask, should a prison be built in a quiet country locale when it would be easier — not to say more secure — to dump the nation’s most reprehensible criminals in a place which has shitty, cold weather, as opposed to in the relatively-mild climate of Leicestershire?
Yeah, the construction costs may be higher in the middle of the ocean — but offset those against the long delays and added costs involved with overcoming local opposition on the mainland? Not so bad.
“What about power and water?” How about a couple of windmills and a few solar panels (for those few hours a year when the sun actually shines) to provide electricity, and a small desalination plant if necessary?
It’s not like these animals deserve coddling, after all.
Lottery Dream #14
If I had the dough, I might buy this place:
Up for sale, this near-8000 square-foot property has five bedrooms and six bathrooms. It was custom-designed and built in 2016 and sits on nearly 400 acres of rolling countryside.
The Arkansas house has a huge warehouse for parking cars, with more car spaces than bedrooms for people. But the most amazing feature is a 1.2-mile race track that threads through the countryside around the property.
…as long as there was room left on the property for a 100-yard rifle range. And I’d convert one of the larger garages into an indoor pistol range.
But that’s just me.