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

Mad neighbours always add a certain something to life, don't they? I'd quite like a house without neighbours - there are plenty of them out there, in the middle of nowhere...

i mentioned something along the same line to a friend in estonia

she told me of some guy who lived in the middle of nowhere and played music at max level so he could even hear it when w*rking in the yard - or even in the field!

sadly his next door neighbour - living several hundred metres/yards away - could also hear it

so much for peace and quiet in the middle of nowhere

i am living in the middle of town but so far i have never had any trouble with my neighbours

this could of course have something to do with the fact that the ladies in question are 97 and 87 respectively - and seldom play anything louder than metallica or the like

My curren neighbour regularly accused me of playing loud music at all hours, and got quite nasty about it, until I pointed out that I'd actually been 400km away on at least one of these occasions. She hasn't spoken to me since, which suits me just fine.

i understand!

i chose to buy a house where i could play loud music whenever i wanted to. not because i did not want to be annoyed by neighbours (of course i did not want that!), but to prevent neighbours from being annoyed by me. so far i have had no complaints

My one neighbour used to blast his music at all hours, but especially on Saturday afternoons when he had his breakdance group over to practice.

The elderly woman below him used to invite her sister (a nun) over for tea on Saturday afternoons.

It lead to a lot of shouting matches that annoyed me more than the music

I now have a mental picture of a shouting nun doing some breakdance.

That would sure have been something to see

i'm thinking of the salvation army girl in the w.c. fields movie 'the fatal glass of '

"Once upon the sidewalk
He met a Salvation Army girl
And wickedly he broke her tambourine

All she said was, "Heaven bless you"
And placed a mark upon his brow
With a kick she'd learned before she had been saved"

Having said in this Journal just how dry the countryside was, I should now note that much of the area covered, including Orange, is now on flood alert. There's never a dull moment in the weather here. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/25/2780746.htm

All this is the side-effect of Cyclone Laurence, which hit the north-west coast of Western Australia a few days ago.

It's been raining in Canberra for 18 hours now; not heavily enough to cause flooding, but certainly enough to help gardens along. As it happens, this is exactly what I wanted for Christmas.

That's one Christmas wish come true!

I just checked the weather readings. We've had 28mm since 4am. That's more than an inch. I can't remember when we last had a decent fall like this.

we had a white xmas yesterday for the first time in 14 years (apparently there are rules for this: 90 percent of the entire country has to be covered by at least some centimetres of snow on average at 4pm) but today most of it rained away

We had the traditional brown Christmas; the rain was a nice addition to it.