h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

from the pollution might have something to do with it.
Stuff that would normally blow away gets to stick around.

Air conditioning and carpet don't help much, either.

Well there sure is a lot of pollution here.

We do have a/c too - in the summer it would be unbearable without it. I don't know how people managed before it was invented, and I'm at a loss to understand why so many Germans settled Texas - European settlers who came to America usually sought out climates similar to their own, which is why so many Scandinavians ended up in Minnesota for instance, but Germany isn't known for its 100ºF temperatures for three months of the year

I used to live in an un-airconditioned house on Jean Drive, just off Applegate, near North Lamar.

The secret was shade trees, cross-ventilation, a pier and beam house, and no neighboring homes painted bright colors.

Oh, and avoid ice-cooled drinks.

Actually, I do quite well without air conditioning. It is air conditioning that dries my sinuses out and exposes me to milder variations of Legionnaire's Disease.
Carpets make me weepy and wheezy, too.
Natural light, even the sun, doesn't bother me as much as flourescent lighting, which can make me sick.

Many of the Czechs, Slavs, and Bohemians who ended up in
Texas did so as part of land swindles, religious movements, and just a general distaste for the politics back home, most around the time of the 1848 era reforms in that part of Europe.

And Austin didn't used to be as bad after they drained the swamps and before the population and the cars became so pervasive.
It's gotten worse in the last decade.

Cross ventilation I can do - and I'm doing as I write , but since we live in an apartment complex (on south Lamar ) I have no control over the other factors. Of course, the high number of shade trees could be a big part of the allergy problem

Having the windows open was quite an eye-opener for Mrs Gosho She grew up in what some may think of as a typical American background - everything artificial. Her mother keeps all the windows closed and the a/c turned up full blast. Before I arrived Mrs Gosho's average electricity bil for the dog days would be upwards of $150 - for an efficiency! After we moved to a one-bedroom, that dropped to around $90

"Of course, the high number of shade trees could be a big part of the allergy problem."

With an apartment complex you also have those insane grounds crews who don't use mulchers and are addicted to those obnoxious blowers.

Speaking of blowers, Shnooks and I were driving around the other day and two separate braindead lawn-butcherers were playing with their blowers, blowing their grass clippings into the street. One idiot even blew some in my open window...


My brother lives somewhere in that area.

For some reason, South Austin always seemed hotter to me...

My stepfather, who lives in Southern Illinois, is a great believer in air conditioning, closed windows, and central heating.

A closed house is actually more dangerous to you than a drafty one.
All the crap from the drywall and the carpets and the vents gets trapped. And vacuuming only makes it worse, as it drives some dirt through the weave and other stuff becomes airborne. Change your bag every time you use it, as there is a bounce-back effect from the junk left over from last time!

Landscapers (what we call 'gardeners' where I come from) are a bloody nightmare, as is the concept of trying to have temperate climate horticulture in a borderline desert environment Mrs Gosho and I visited the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Centre about this time last year and saw a presentation about using local plants (xeroscaping?). I've put it to the complex management that it would save them a fortune in landscaping fees and water bils, and that it would be good for the environment, but of course they won't do it because it would cost far too much to rip up all the current horticulture and replace it

I hate gardening day They show up around 9am, and spend the next five or six hours mowing everything to within an inch of its life and blowing the detritus from one end of the complex to the other. Tell me honestly - which do you hate more... leaf blowers or car alarms There are flower beds in front of each ground floor balcony and residents are allowed to plant in those beds. I've lost count of the number of times I've done just that, only to come home on gardening day and find that it's either been buried because they dug the bed over and didn't see it, or it's been trampled because they didn't see it, or it's been chopped in half by the trimmer they use to cut the grass with

Vacuuming... no, you've lost me there

"And vacuuming only makes it worse, as it drives some dirt through the weave and other stuff becomes airborne. Change your bag every time you use it, as there is a bounce-back effect from the junk left over from last time"

Most carpet is machine woven through a backing that looks like burlap, only with bigger holes in it.
When carpet is laid, they usually put down a cheap chopped foam cushion, or, if you're lucky, a whole foam cushion underneath.
When you spill wet things or try to soak out dry things, detritus from the spill gets pushed through the backing into the foam. When the foam dries and you walk across it or vacuum, the dried detritus puffs back up in little clouds.

You should change your vacuum bag after every use because the stuff you sucked up will sit and molder a bit. If you keep the same bag in for every use until it gets full, then you will have several months worth of crap in there. Most simple vacuums have a cheap one-way valve that allows the stuff into the bag, but when the new stuff hits the old stuff, microscopic dust escapes back down the pipe, particularly when you turn it off and start dragging it back across the floor.

Ahhh, Car Alarms.

My main argument against "gardeners" is that they are often hired by people who never look at the place. Thus, their robotic and uncaring behavior gets rewarded regardless. Many of them make their money by doing as many places as they can per month. So efficiency is time, not actualy accomplishment.
I'd put up a sign in my garden, in Espanol, asking them please not to mess with it.

My comment about vacuuming was an allusion to the fact that it rarely gets done here

Me don't read minds... of higher order mammals...
Mostly and and ...

We solved the vacuum of vacuuming situation by pulling most of the carpet up last summer...

a luxurious option you probably don't have, living in a people hive.

True, there are many things we can't do or have no control over.

However... F50359?thread=380988

We lived in a fourplex in Georgetown that was an utter hellhole.
We could hear all the plumbing activities of everyone else in the building.
Since the concrete pad over our heads was connected to the stairs in front of the building, we could hear every foot step and every bounce of the basketballs that the kids in the other units liked to slam off the stairs in an odd game of bouncing catch.

Once, the lady upstairs rented a shampooing machine and spent most of the day running that thing. We could hear it downstairs as if it were amplified.

Never again.

A leaky trailer on forty acres of repossessed VA/FHA land is our dream.
Somewhere away from the people hives and the freeways.

I used to live in the Hyde Park area, just off 38th and Speedway, in the Act III apartments, just across from the blind school.

That apartment wasn't too bad, although, again, sound traveled.
Of course, the fact that I have a condition called "super hearing" doesn't help.

I lived just a few blocks from the Hyde Park Baptist Church, a glaring example of zoning favoritism that never ceased to irritate me.
Although they had a multi-storeyed parking garage, the neighborhood was inundated with cars parking along the curbs every Sunday.

I saw many ancient homes that dated to the dirt boulevard era bulldozed to make room for more people hives.

It ain't what it used to be.

I used to like KUT.
The music used to be much more interesting, with blues and big band and even nostalgic punk.
I can't get it anymore out here, except during weird weather.

KUT... The only time I listen to it is for Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Car Talk. I send them a cheque for $20 (half the minimum necessary for membership) each year along with a letter complaining about the lack of national programming, and a rant about Eklektikos and John Aielli - the worst bloody radio show and presenter in the world You know that if want to, you can listen to KUT on the web?

We lived in Hyde Park when I first arrived here - on Avenue B, almost opposite the Avenue B Grocery. I miss the area. Living on a road like Lamar is a nightmare. I often used to walk around the neighbourhood in Hyde Park, but I never do that here.

We've only had one bad neighbour in this complex. There was a woman who lived above us for a while and who was a waitress at... I forget which downtown restaurant. She'd come in at 3am and wasn't particularly light on her feet. She'd then get drunk with her boyfriend, play loud music until 7am, and frequently fall out of bed with a loud *THUMP*. I had to talk to both her and the office about it after too many nights of trying to go to work on four hours sleep

We loved the Avenue B Grocery Store.
We were going there when the original owners sold out and they turned it into a deli.
They had good gumbo.
There used to be a beat up old orange tabby cat that hung around the picnic tables.
He'd let me pet him, but not the store employees.

John Aielli... the guy that sounds like he had his throat ripped out?

Nah. that was another guy.
I can't remember his name, now.
I used to talk to him when I worked nights.
He would play weird requests that I would come up with, like Spike Jones' "My Old Flame" and Madelaine Kahn singing "I'm so tired"

Oh, I remember John Aielli. He was the guy that recorded the spot that Shnooks and I did for KUT during a fund drive when she was about four. White haired guy with the intelligence of a wet brick.

Boy, do I miss Dan Del Santo.

Dan del Santo? Must have been before my time

My... old flame, I can't even think of her name. I'll have to look through my collection of human heads

http://www.narconews.com/gotlieb1.html

http://entertainment.msn.com/artist/?artist=142611

http://www.pbs.org/klru/austin/artists/program253.html

Nope, I'm not familiar with him at all, and that's after 4 years of working in the used CD store with the biggest selection in Austin. He must be one of those artists who people hang on to, like Tom Waits. There are a handful of artisits like that - artists who we never had in stock used. The quality stuff

That's okay.
When I was in Austin, people kept going on and on about the Armadillo World Headquarters... and the old Antones... and the Broken Spoke...
and the days when you could wander down to Ray Hennig's Heart of Texas almost any afternoon and see a hungover SRV whanging away on their guitars... because after the first few minutes, you couldn't hear him, or anything, anymore...

Yeah, Austin is that kind of place. There was a letter to the Editor of the Chronicle last year decrying Austin's claim to the title 'Live Music Capital of the World' (which IMO is way overblown) and pointing out the incestuous and repetetive nature of the Austin music scene - that you'll only ever see the same names playing the same venues week after week, that so many Austin musicians have been in each others band, and that big tours often pass Austin by.

I couldn't agree more.

Ah, but where else could I have gotten a ride home from the airport with Jimmie Dale Gilmore because I once waved a TV camera in his face at the Ritz, or sell gasoline to Eric Johnson, or buy a hamburger from Daniel Johnston?

I got to see Mike Nesmith in the Austin City Limits studio.

At one point, I don't think I knew more than 3 or 4 people who weren't in bands or actors. That was about 1986.

The SxSW stuff and the Live Music Capital crap is for the tourists.
I used to live just up the street from one of the busiest recording studios in the state. What did I see? Cadillacs and Hummers?
No. Vegas, Toyotas and beat-up vans.

I used to know one of the finest autoharp players in the world, Lindsey Haisley. He used to live out in Cedar Park. Real down-to-earth fellow. He got tired of all the promoters and club owners.
Even Kerrville wasn't the same.

At any one time, at least 50% of the employees at the CD store were in bands and asking for time off to rehearse or play a gig or... something