Instant knowledge, instant gratification and instant action.

EVERYTHING is getting quicker.  Cars, trains, commuting and travel are getting quicker.  Communications, computers, and the internets are getting quicker.  Nearly everything in our increasingly busy days feels like they it’s getting quicker.  We are living in an age of instant knowledge, instant gratification and instant action.

This being the case, why does it seem those new fandangled fluorescent light bulbs we are all being encouraged to switch to didn’t get the memo stating the general public’s expectation of instant action?  For some reason those asinine fluoro light bulbs seem to be on a go slow.  I had one of those Smart house/electricity audits done at my house quite a while ago and they went through the place replacing tungsten light bulbs with fluorescent ones, ostensibly because they last longer and use less power.

incandescent bulbs redundant fluro bulbs slow

But no body mentioned that those fluorescent light bulbs suffer from shutter delay – you know, the lag between the time when you press the button on your digital camera to take a picture and the time the shutter actually activates and takes the damn picture?  How friggin’ annoying has that been for the last ten years or so on point and shoot happy snapper cameras?  Well, for some reason many of my fluorescent light bulbs seem to suffer the same malaise.  You flick the switch and there’s a ‘shutter’ delay before the light comes on.  And when it does come on, it takes its sweet time ‘warming up’ before it actually becomes bright enough to see.   So, if you have the stupid things in your bathroom, it’s just about bright enough to see your hand in front of your face by the time you’re finished peeing!

Now I ask you, if everything around is getting quicker and quicker… why on earth are light bulbs getting slower?   :S

Wish Q-Build would come fix MY shit.

Okay.  Owning your own home can be awesome.  You can paint the walls any colour you want. You can paint your front door red if it takes your fancy. You can invest in radical stuff like curtains and carpet, permanent fixtures like fancy light fittings and wardrobes and shower heads and decent kitchen appliances, oh my!. You can put holes in the wall to hang your artworks and pictures where ever you want to.  Put stickers all over the place if you like, hell you can even paint a trompe l’oeil in your entry hall if you have the skill and inclination… because well, they’re your goddamn walls !

However, it can also be a right royal pain in the arse.  The hot water system will die, and likely in the middle of winter and likely when the bank account can least handle a sudden unexpectedly large infrastructure bill.  Tree roots will start destroying a fence or cracking some paving requiring an expensive tree surgeon.  Your fly screens/security screens need replacing and you have to find the coupla thousand dollars required to get new ones. The motor in the roller door in the garage will die in the arse just after you’ve paid your ever inflating power/rates/insurance bills and you have to find the dosh to replace it.  Then for some mysterious reason your house will start tripping every time you turn on the microwave and the electric kettle at the same time and you will have to call an electrician to come and investigate who won’t even have the decency to bring his own lube!

BUT, if you’re living next door to Azerbaijan and any of these things go wrong… you can just call Q-Build and they rock up in their little white vans and come and fix it for you. I can’t describe how depressing it is to see those Q-Build vans in the driveway next door and know that all their homeowner woes are being taken care of by the government at the tax payers expense.  Sigh.  Sometimes it feels like the harder you work to get ahead, the less help you get.  The less work and more hand outs you get, the ever increasing help you seem to get.  Where’s the balance in this situation?

Well, here goes nothing…

4th April 2012

The Residents
21 Previously Peaceful St
Placid Heights Queensland

To whom it may concern,

We reside in the property adjoining to your back fence. We have several concerns that have arisen over the past several weeks that we would like to bring to your attention.

We have noticed that you are avid gardeners and have completed significant work along the fence line between our two properties. Recently a snowflake shrub of mine that is situated directly beside the fence and a red ground cover plant that surrounds the shrub’s base has been dying. We believe this is the result of herbicide use on your side of the fence. We would like to request that you are more judicious in the use of herbicides near our fence line, as we wish to keep these plants healthy, they provide some privacy between our two properties and we wish them to continue doing so.

Secondly, we observed yesterday (Tuesday, 3rd of April, at approximately 10:30am) that someone from your property pushed dog two large dog biscuits underneath the fence with the intention of feeding our dog. I have verbally requested that this not reoccur and we would like to reiterate our preference that no one from your residence feeds our dog in the future. Could you please raise this issue with all members of your household and remind any children in your home that it is inappropriate to feed a neighbours pet.

Lastly, we have been frequently disturbed by loud language containing many expletives that we believe to be inappropriate for the ears of small children. As there are minors on our property, we would like to respectfully request that you refrain from using foul language at a volume that may be audible to people outside your property. Obviously you may address each other however you choose within the privacy of your home, however we are displeased that our child is being frequently exposed to obscene, profane and abusive language that we deem inappropriate for his consumption.

I thank you for your kind attention in reading this letter and should you have any concerns of your own, please feel free to reply to the address above.

Regards

Mr K & Borys

_____________________________________________________

Now to deliver it and hope that no repercussions arise from our resorting to communicating with them – though in truth I fear, they may need to find a dictionary or an interpreter to comprehend it…

There went the neighbourhood…

So… the Daleyacunt and Fuckin’ Fuckhead saga continues.  Yesterday, Mr K was forced to call the police again because he was punching her around and she was screaming and crying enough to wake the dead.

Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed that some of my shrubs (we call them Snowflakes but I don’t know what they are really called) have started turning yellow and dying in one section of my garden, along with the pretty ground cover that was growing all around the base of it. It’s obviously been/being poisoned and I can only assume that it was Daleyacunt’s little way of getting back at us for ‘interfering’ in their business.  And while I’m annoyed that they’re doing this, I was not going to allow myself to be provoked into accusing them of anything as I believe Daleyacunt and Fuckin’ Fuckhead are volatile creatures capable of turning on me should the mood take them.

Anyway… this is Oscar.

Huge puppy takes on neighbor's pig dog through six foot fence

Oscar is about 1’5″ tall, has brown eyes, a black and tan complexion, and a long pink tongue.  He is an Australian Terrier with an excellent lineage, has been microchipped, desexed and duly registered with the Council.  While he’s not the brightest pup I’ve ever known, he’s certainly friendly and happy enough most of the time rarely would get his bark on without cause (like a snake clinging to the wall of the house or something).  This morning, Daleyacunt was stirring up his pig dog (a whole male dog with an aggressive temperament and a bark that I am sure is every bit as bad as his bite) and Oscar, aka Puppy-Guts, was investigating all the noise by running back and forth and pressing his nose up against the fence.  I saw this out of my kitchen window which is barely 6′ from the fence in question.  Unexpectedly, I saw what appeared to be a stick being poked through the fence at Oscar and I raced outside via the laundry and saw to my horror that it wasn’t a stick, but that someone from Daleyacunt’s residence had pushed two large bone shaped dog biscuits through the fence for Oscar to eat.  I quickly grabbed the clueless Oscar and grabbed the side of his jaw forcing him to release the ‘treat’.  I picked up both of the dog biscuits and without saying a word threw them back over the fence, so they would know that I was aware that they had tried to feed them to my dog.

So, what now?  Well, I have spent the day worrying that they are going to try and bait my dog because they are pissed off with us for meddling and calling the police – when, silly me, one should obviously be allowed to beat their partner in without worrying that the neighbours might object, right?  I’ve spent the entire day on the phone trying the BCC to express my concerns about the alterations they have made to the fence, the poisoning of my garden and the potential baiting risk to Oscar puppy.  I’ve also consulted with Legal Aid to ascertain what one’s rights are when dealing with the neighbours, and while there are processes in place, they sound slow and involved which means poor little Oscar remains at risk (and will be largely kept indoors) until we can file a Peace and Good Behaviour application and hopefully grounds will be found to have an order issued.  A little digging has  also revealed that the property is very likely to be a Housing Commission home which means there is recourse to that authority and the extensive expected standards of conduct for tenants too.  But the whole thing is going to take time and a lot of pushing around red tape.

Now, nearly everyone who has heard some or all of these particulars has suggested that I approach these people and talk to them about my concerns / disquiet with the domestic disturbances we have witnessed. Today there have been suggestions that I ought talk directly to him about the feeding my dog issue as well.  And ordinarily, I would indeed follow what is considered a standard grievance procedure and address my issues with those persons involved directly and expediently.  BUT… this man is demonstrably temperamental and prone to violence, and I therefore believe he poses a potentially dangerous risk to myself, my family and now my little dog too.  So why would I go and poke the lion through the cage?  They have been here for not quite eight weeks, and we have been compelled to call the police four times already due to extremely aggravated violence and sounds of excessive distress and suffering going on right outside my kitchen window.  As such, I have avoided saying ANYTHING at all to this volatile man, as I simply can not risk him him turning his full anger and aggressive tendencies onto us.  🙁

Smack my bitch up! :(

Ah, Monday morning.  Wake up.  Stretch a bit . Grab a heatpack.  Make a cuppa.  Listen to Daleyacunt hurling abuse and smacking Fuckin’ Fuckhead around.  Again.  Call the cops.  Again. *sigh*… this is getting a bit repetitive.  Fourth call in total, third one on a Monday morning.

It would appear that Monday mornings are quite the stressor for Daleyacunt. This is the third Monday morning smack upside the head for Fuckin’ Fuckhead that has precipitated a phone call to the Police.  Mr K’s turn this time to do the honours.  It seems very likely that Daleyacunt’s Monday morning stressor stems from long term unemployment and his inability to deal the frustrations associated therein.

Monday, the kids are getting ready for school, everyone has somewhere to be, but not him and for some reason this guy feels the need to take his frustration out on his partner. I’d feel sorry for her, but to be honest, she is just as annoying with her constant foul mouthed phraseology as he is.  Nope, she’s got some agency in the situation, regardless of how limited she believes it may be.  It’s the three little kids next door that I feel sorry for, growing up in that environment and absolutely no choice in the matter.

It’s weird you know, I have these stereotypes in my head of the sort of guy who smacks around his wife – he’s a Irish Catholic alcoholic living in South Chicago who comes home drunk every Friday night to his family that haven’t had any dinner because he drank all his paycheck.  Or he’s a big fuck off Maori fella that can’t control his temper and starts wailing on his woman because she’s ‘too bloody lippy’.  Or maybe he’s the mild mannered impotent professor type who no one would ever suspect would harm a fly, but his wife is mighty accident prone.  Well done there, Hollywood.