It's That Kind of Neighborhood

I meant to write last night— in fact, my goal is to post every day— but something happened next door. A couple times late yesterday night I heard loud reports from down the street. They sounded like gunshots to me, but they could have been anything loud. The first one was from quite a distnace down the street, and the second one, an hour or so later sounded like it was a block or two away. Then, sometime after midnight, I was playing WoW and I heard a car idling what seemed to be a few houses away. Since I frequently hear cars idling to drop off or pick up people at all hours of the day and night, I didn't think anything of it. But, after a minute or so of idling there was a another very loud report coming from very close to my place. It was followed by the tinkling of glass, and my first thought was that someone threw a bottle at one of the street signs nearby. Immediately afterwards I heard the car speed off.

Since these kinds of random events happen a lot in this neighborhood and are impossible really to track down, I rarely see the deputies come around afterwards. I don't even expect to see them any more. But, last night, about 15 minutes later I heard another car pull up and idle on the side of the road. Expecting another 'attack' I made myself go outside so I could grab a look at the car and maybe catch the license plate. To my surprise, however, there were two county deputy cruisers parked along the street in front of the house immediately behind me. (It's the house I used to share with Dale a long time ago.) Over the next hour a few more cops and deputies arrived and departed, but there was no overt activity. I heard voices, but couldn't make out what anyone was saying. (I stayed in my house the whole time.) This morning when I left my house, I was going to drive around the corner and take a look, but I forgot. My guess is that a car window got shot out or something.

That is what passes for excitement these days.   :/

Yesterday morning I spent about two hours configuring my new laptop. Those of you who know me through work may be surprised to learn this, but I fucking hate configuring new computers. It's so slow, and I have done it way too many times. To the manufacturers' credit though it's much easier these days than in days past. Of the two hours I spent, one hour of that time was just letting the virus checker complete an initial scan. Everything else went quickly. I added a wireless laser mouse because I hate laptop touch pads. I also added a few utilities, such as Google's Chrome browser. The official Vista rating is 3.0, which is not that great, but I have no problems with it yet.

Today I did some Christmas and birthday shopping. Thankfully I have the opportunity this year to hit the stores while most people are at work. I was able to get everything done quickly. The worst part of the shopping was picking a couple cards out at the Hallmark store. Hallmark seems to have abandoned the non-singing, non-gimicky cards. I spent more at the card shop than on some of the gifts.

By now the newness of my blog has worn off and the mundane-ness has worn in. I doubt there's anyone reading anymore so I won't exhort for comments.

"Win or lose, we go shopping after the election."— Imelda Marcos