double drat - know your place, shut your face!

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whats new is old

asked someone today "whats new?"

she said, "nothing."

i asked her "whats old?"

she said, "everything."

the party of the first part

the drama over here continues. seems little miss second floor has been making trouble for the landlord over her rights as a tenant and with two lawyers for parents she is not missing a wherefore. for the most part its very hard not to have sympathy for her concerns as i live in the building and more or less have had to put up with the issues which plague her. the money she spends on rent is not insubstantial despite what the landlord believes is the "true value" of the space. for it to approach the true value, yaknow, would require more than the minimal work outlays she is requesting. and yet he has rights too, particularly because the number of units in the building gives him greater latitude on setting rental rates.

now to a degree her troubles are spilling over into my kitchen and im not anxious to deal with the mess, with anxious being the operative word. already some housing officials have made us clear the hallways, so my bike has to take up space in my apartment and supposedly we are to be monitored on this more closely. she claims this was not her doing but the landlord while shaking the five enveloped citations within his enraged fist was adamant that they cited her as the source. this is, of course, ironic because she has been the worst offender of us all, leaving all sorts of detritus for months on end outside her door waiting to be removed. if she did complain it was about the state of the garbage at the doorway which is an eyesore, but more so, a nosesore, and as it turns out, not surprisingly, a violation. again, more irony, as the landlord was eager to show me the notarized letter with the well researched violations she had presented him with, and none of which i was in any disagreement with but nonetheless had essentially made my peace with.

so ive made my modest effort at peacekeeping but both sides have encroached on the neutral zone and im getting my blue-hatted ass out of the dmz although i may make one more effort to have her accept the merits of moving rather than unleashing the dogs of war. ive heard all sorts of horror stories about collateral damage and i have no desire to become a blameless statistic.

as my tete a tete with the landlord ended, a congress in which i had unilaterally engaged, he began crooning "que sera sera" and i endeavored in a final note of conviviality to name the artist who made it a hit. he, of course, had no clue and was not interested in playing along but a captive and attentive audience suited him just fine. in the end, i settled upon rosemary clooney and after little thought he agreed with me. i was pleased with my depth of knowledge although not convinced of my certitude by any measure but wanting to end it on a high note stretched out my hand, unclenched my jaw and secured future good will for the third floor for the foreseeable future. as it turns out it was doris day that charted with that mouthful of wist but between you, me and the broken doorbell it will be scented with rosemary for one red-nosed sharp-tongued landlord.

(unedited at publication)

i can see for miles and miles

they are tearing the soul out of my apartment right now. well, actually the windows to the soul. out go the old antique wavy glass sash weighted windows, in come some unremarkable aluminum monoliths. but they will have their advantages. no more draftiness, no more rattling, and hey, i can clean them without fear of impaling on the sidewalk below some tourist from omaha (thats where they all come from, right?). so im coming to grips with their inevitability, actually its beyond that as they are all but installed. i offered the old ones up to the tenement museum and there was some initial enthusiasm for them on their part as the ones they currently have are inauthentic (or, at least, that was my addled understanding) but it turns out mine were probably too authentic, i.e. crumbling to bits. they were bemused by the way theyd been jerrry-rigged with (lets call it) translucent acrylic out of necessity to keep nature in abeyance and suggested they belonged in a different museum. i cant recall the exact name, something like the new york museum on a whinge and a prayer, or maybe it was the ny center for tight-fisted landlords. ultimately i think they were underwhelmed by my contribution to history though im sure they appreciated the thought behind it.

currently (no pun intended) the mitre box is whirring away as unfinished moldings are being fitted. there is the distinct smell of epoxy but i wont question their methods. i might suggest that this is the result of being overcome with fumes but as i am famously lazy i should bear at least some of the burden for having no answers in my toolkit. as for the "currently" pun which was not a pun, i keep expecting each violent spin from the toothy wheel to ultimately bring misfortune as this building is notoriously underpowered. the light in the bathroom was straining credulity as i was, um, performing abolutions so i quickly flicked it off (ok, yanked the chain, im not proud) and even am going so far as to unplug my computer intermittently. i happened to notice on my last trip downstairs to ponder the fate of the disenfranchised windows (id considered keeping one for decorative purposes) that my landlord has closed up shop at least for the moment so as fates favorite chew toy i was sure the power outage would take place in his absence. but all is well for the time being. the smell of rice is wafting from the "dining room" as the asian workmen take their lunch and figuratively, if not literally, chew the fat.

at one point earlier i did attempt to make a joke with one of them as they cursed in english after dropping the saw somewhat abruptly. i said to him that was the one thing theyve said that i did understand. but as you may have guessed, he didnt have the slightest idea what i was saying. all things considered, ill take competence over communication any time.

byzyness

byzantium history podcast

im an apeman

Ardi, of course, is short for Ardipithecus ramidus, one of the earliest hominins found to date. Her skeleton (see image below), as well as bits and pieces of other skeletons of the same species, were described this week in a special edition of the journal Science. While a close relative of Australopithecus afarensis (made famous by "Lucy"), Ardipithecus ramidus is about half a million years older than the earliest Australopithecus afarensis and is a bit closer to the last common ancestor between living chimpanzees and humans.* As such the remains of Ardi and her kind give us a closer look at how some of the earliest humans evolved.

cat scratch fever

just a reminder about how brutal and corrosive psoriasis is, ive just run across a death metal band named after the disorder. rub it til it bleeds, bitches!

patton pending

bill simmons chats up comedian patton oswald.

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