The last one was on September 6th. It's the same deal again, though I can't find any similar triggers. This one hit after I had been in bed for a while, which is about the only similar feature since the last. It almost feels like I'm not fully awake, but I know better. :-/

The loud music problem started again this last weekend. I let it slide through Monday because of the holiday (I figured she may have had family in town, etc.), but I got on it right away after that.

This morning, on my way to work, I grabbed a copy of my lease from the leasing office. I read over it and saw that tenants were not to cause any disturbance, including loud music. When I got home from work, I saw that the neighbor's car was gone, but when I got up to my apartment I heard the music clearly.

I left it until 10:00, because I was watching movies and had some music playing as well. After that, I started down the list.

I first went to knock on the door and ask that they turn the music down because I was going to bed soon, but I got no answer.

I called the answering service and informed them of it, and they sent a security guard out. He knocked on their door for 5 minutes, but received no answer. He then left for a moment, but returned with someone for just a quick minute, after which they both left. The music is still playing.

I don't know what the situation is, but I suspect that the lady either forgot to turn her music off before she left for work (she tends to work 18 hour shifts at night from what I've noticed), or someone killed her, left the music playing, and left in her car.

It's now an hour later than when I first made an effort to put an end to this, and it's still going. I'll be heading to bed soon, and I'm going to be upset if I can't get to sleep because of it.

I've been on a kick of easy, quick, and yummy cooking lately. Last night was almost as good as the Candied Bacon I made a while back.

The ingredients: 1/2 Pack of cocktail sausages 1 can of Bush's Bourbon and Brown Sugar beans Crushed Red Pepper Chili Powder Mustard Black Pepper

Basically, just throw it all in a saucepan, cook for however long you want (longer makes the flavor better), and enjoy. I probably used about 1tsp of each of the condiments.

I put the leftovers in the fridge last night and pulled them out this evening. I remembered that I had a bag of tortilla chips (scooping style), and I put them together with the beans. It was a match made in heaven! I suppose it's good that I live alone for now. :P

Next time, I think I'm going to get a bottle of Bourbon and plain beans, making the sauce myself. :D

...and for the record, I don't fear the Democratic party. I just have no good impressions of McCain, Palin, Obama, or Biden. The only possible outcome of this election was fail, and that is exactly what has happened in my book.

My preliminary opinions may be proven as wrong in the coming months. I don't claim to be the one to decide how something goes before it goes. I'm just sharing my opinions and thoughts of the whole matter. If in a year this country is running better than it ever has, I'll eat my words. In the meantime though, I stand by my opinions.

Even though I didn't want either candidate to obtain a seat in office, I just wanted to (sarcastically) thank everyone who voted for Obama. I'll be enjoying my freedom while it lasts. :(

Since I moved in on August 1st, I've been getting mail and notices for the previous tenant from creditors. This evening, I had a visit from a repossession agent, looking to take the vehicle on which this tenant defaulted.

The repo-guy told me that he was required to tell me all about this girl defaulting on the loan, what her legal obligation was, and what the penalty would be if it were not met. He also told me that the next party to visit would be a police officer, and that I would only have to show him my ID to prove I am not this other person.

Part of me wants to say that I am not showing them anything because I don't know this person and I have no idea who they are. However, the other part of me says that they're just doing their job and I should help them out. Then there's this other part of me that is scouring Google, MySpace, and Facebook for the previous tenant, trying to give them something further to work with.

Blargh.

I need opinions.

My next door neighbors seem to enjoy listening to their hispanic music at all hours of the day, which includes the times I try to sleep. They appear to have some sort of subwoofer on their stereo system, so all I really hear is the bass.

Should I:

1. Knock on their door and ask them to kindly refrain from listening to the music at a loud volume between 10pm and 8am
2. Call the leasing office and complain
3. Break out the bass guitar and rock out to my own music (the bass amp is sitting right against their wall)

I'd be happy to hear your thoughts.

After Hurricane Ike blew through, the property management was quick to have all the units checked for damage. The building where my apartment is located just happened to be one of the (no so) few to have tarps strapped to the roof. This indicated to me that they may begin roof repair at some point, but I didn't sweat it as over a month went past with no action.

Last week, they started on some of the adjacent buildings and I thought "okay, they're going to tell me I'm next soon..." Wrong.

Last night I got home from work to find the driveway obstructed by piles of shingles and heavy machinery. I was able to get around all of it, but when I got to my parking space I saw that it was roped off with "CAUTION" tape. Since there was an open spot in the unassigned parking directly across from my assigned space, I just parked there and went about my business.

I began my stroll up the sidewalk, but found myself stopped by more "CAUTION" tape half-way to my apartment. I started to get frustrated at this point and just walked on through. But when I got to my steps in front of my apartment, there was more caution tape, ladders in the stairway, and piles of shingles laying everywhere. I pushed on through to get to my door, when I heard a voice come from the roof saying "Hey, you can't go in there."

I ignored it and went on in anyhow, and sat for the next 3 hours listening to the music sounds of hammers.

Tonight I got home and found more fun: My parking spot was being blocked by sheets of plywood and tool boxes, and the unassigned parking was full. Angry, I headed back out to the front of the lot and just happened to find an open spot on the street, but it's not where I wanted to park.

I'm thankful that I'm getting a new roof, don't get me wrong. There's nothing that I like about the thought of snow and slush dripping through in the winter (if that happens here anyhow), and the roof was in questionable shape anyhow. But the fact that I'm being blocked from my place with no previous notice is simply absurd.

I'm going to move my car this evening after they leave. If I find that my spot is still being occupied by tools and building materials after the workers are gone, I'll be moving stuff to the middle of the driveway, followed by a very angry call to the leasing office.

Since Wednesday or so, I've been fighting this ugly headache. It hit bad Thursday night and has been nagging ever since. I'm hoping that it'll subside before this week gets very far, but given the last couple of days I'm not so sure. If anyone is wondering why I haven't been around to do much of anything, that's why.

For a while now, I've had this itch to coat some bacon in brown sugar and fry it. I finally got around to doing it tonight, and it's one of the most amazing things I've had in a while.

The process was pretty simple:

• Cut a pack of bacon in half length-wise
• Throw 4 of the half-strips in a gallon Ziplock bag with about 1/4 cup of sugar
• Close the Ziplock, making sure to leave some air
• Toss for about 5 minutes, making sure each strip gets a "healthy" coating
• Throw the coated strips in a frying pan on medium heat, adding about 1/4 cup of water
• Cook uncovered, making sure to flip the bacon every once in a while
• When the bacon has curled to a normal "cooked" shape, pull it out of the pan and set it on a paper plate or cooling rack to, well, cool!

How you use the candied bacon is up to you. I personally just ate it straight off the plate. Be careful with this though; it's really easy to eat too much of it, which can really give your cholesterol a kick.

I don't remember if I mentioned it or not, but back when I was without power from Hurricane Ike, I got a new laptop. I got a Toshiba (I couldn't tell you what model it is) with a dual core Athlon 64, 3GB of RAM, and Vista Home Premium. My first reaction to it coming with Vista was "ew!", but I decided to give it some usage and see what I thought.

So far, everything has gone well. I turned off Aero and all the "this app wants to make a network connection - are you sure?" nag dialogs. This has made the experience pretty enjoyable, and I've not had any complaints thus far. However, I found a couple things that annoy me about it today.

1. Vista Home Premium doesn't support joining a network domain
2. There's some issue with the graphics driver (ATI) that causes Eclipse.org to redraw certain panels every time the mouse is moved

While the second issue isn't so much a Vista issue, and could be related to Java, the graphics drivers, or Eclipse itself, the first issue is very annoying.

I got the itch a while back to set up a roaming profile server, using Samba from my Linux box, and just have one profile to use on both of my machines. I figured this would also make OS reloads on my workstations less painful, as well as making it easier to get started with a new computer. It appeared to be pretty simple to configure on the Linux and Samba end, but when I tried to join the domain from the Vista box I basically was told "no way, Jose!"

So now my dream of having roaming profiles at home is gone, and Vista has one bad mark against it. I'll keep using it though and hope that no further issues come about.

If the subject isn't enough, let me just say this:

About a quarter of the way through the new Heroes tonight, the digital signal dropped. Another quarter of the way through, the analog signal dropped.

I can't see spending money on cable just for one or two shoes, but it would sure be nice if I could pick up the broadcast stations.

I've had a "Fantasy Stock Exchange" account for the last 10 months or so, and I just decided to have a read over the user-submitted comments. This one is a classic:

IMO F is worse off than GM. If they don't receive any help from the Fed. they should probably merge or re-structure.

If you're not familiar with your acronyms or ticket symbols, IMO means "In my opinion", "F" is Ford Motor Company, and "GM" is General Motors.

While restructuring may not be as huge of a deal, for these two companies to merge would mean a major shakeup in the automotive industry, and would likely not happen.

I just made a trip to the kroger store down the way. I have spent the evening feeling miserable due to the heat and my stomach revolting at all the not-home-cooked food. I figured that getting out would make me feel better, but shortly after hitting the road I felt nausious again. Determined, I went on to the kroger, oblivious to what would await me in the checkout.

I made a quick trip to the aisles that had just what I needed, the made my way to the cash register. Half way through the checkout lane, it hit me (and likely everyone else in the area). Someone had soiled themself.

Now, I have a hard time making comments about the misfortune of others, but this time it was too much for me to shrug off. I can understand that this poor soul may have fought tooth and nail to get some supplies now that the storm has passed, but jeez... If I were inconvenienced by such an embarassing event, I would much rather salvege my dignity than to get another box of pop-tarts and another candle.

I think the odor affixed itself to my clothes, as I can't seem to shake it from my nose.

I'm sure the karma will come back to me on this, but ugh!

Well, the most recent estimate is that power will be returned to MOST of the area, so I'm keeping myself positive about that. I figure I can try to get through the weekend with little to no bathing, and when the power comes back on burn up the shower.

I got last month's utility bills while I was gone this weekend. It was pretty nice to see that having let the air condition run all the time, with 2 computers, it only ran me about $45.00. Water and sewage together were only $8.00 for the month. I'm worried that this next month will be more for the electric though, just for the simple fact of all the damage and repair that is being made.

For tonight, I'm staying with a co-worker - Josh - since he stayed at my place when he first got to Houston. It's nice to have a light, internet, and a place to do laundry. More importantly though, it's nice to have a place to shower.