Apr 05 2005
Sharing the Misery
I woke up this morning to the sound of noise. From the guy next door blaring heavy metal through the walls, to the sound of construction outside my window, it never ends. The buzz from my refrigerator kicking in is liable to push me over the edge. I hear a constant rumble of dump trucks and bulldozers, and the beep-beep-beep every time one of those %$#@! backs up. I repeat, it never ends. It’s been like this since I moved here last August. I gotta get the hell of this city before I kill someone.
Here’s a live feed of the sounds outside my window. I’m webcasting it all day today on Mud Radio.
What sounds do you hear outside your window?
Update: I may continue to webcast the sounds outside my window from time to time, whether it’s birds singing in the morning or bulldozers, and will announce it in the comments of this post.
Nice. 5 minutes after I post this, the construction guys go on their lunch break. But trust me, they’ll be back. They always come back.
Right now, traffic. I live off the main road, which turns into the highway down to Toronto (eventually), so lots of traffic almost all day. I don’t notice it as much as I do the bar next door - I overlook their patio, so I get drunken revellers all night on the weekends. I’m almost able to tune that out as well.
A patio overlooking drunken revellers — now there’s a live feed for you.
You know, I think if it was human voices, even drunken, stupored voices (is stupored a word?), it’d be better than the sounds of clanking machinery. Voices are something I might more naturally be able to tune out… Or I might still want to kill somebody.
Seagulls! I can hear seagulls over the webcast now. Humph. That’s something.
The voices are annoying because it’s not always at the same volume - sometimes you get a couple of people yelling at each other (or, like one memorable time, fighting). Spring and fall aren’t too bad because it’s too cold to spend much time out there, but in the summer when it’s warm enough, they spend their whole nights out there.
I’m a pretty light sleeper. The beeping of my cellphone telling me the battery is low in my purse two rooms away can wake me from a dead sleep. It’s an unfamiliar noise, so the scared little animal part of my brain wakes me up to go investigate. Meanwhile, the part of my brain that knows what that sound is doesn’t stand a chance of making me go back to sleep.
Rebecca! Someone who shares my weekend sleep habits. I live in the downtown core of a small rural ontario town and when the weather warms up the wildlife emerges. I have noticed a disturibing trend to some of the noctural creatures, some are evolving and have established monetary means…yes they can obtain and operate complicated machinery…the dreaded BOOMBABOOMBA vehicles…you know the ones…the souped up Honda with an audio system with a greater cubic capacity than the engine…
I have considered archery. Take a course, join a club so that I can become proficient in the delivery of sharp pointed projectiles, this is so no one will be harmed by my proposed activity..once I have mastered this I would perch atop the building some friday or saturday evening, and I figure I could get four or five vehicles with flaming arrows before the authorities arrive…the compound bows and metal arrow heads produced today would easily penetrate the hood of a car, and since these people’s heart and soul are often linked to these vehicles there is no need to harm them just their annoying possesion.
Of course once the police arrive I would quickly surrender before some trigger happy OPP tactical squad member takes me out. Its the once in custody part that presents the problem…
I may have to postpone this fantasy until my children are old enough so that my forced confinedment as a guest of the provincial government will not be so tramatic for them..Hey but when I get out maybe I could run for municipal office, may not be able to with a conviction perhaps I could plead for a misdomener…keep my options open
Did I mention I work with small children…Hey Jody do you think if I mention fbi, osama, or oklahoma I may get some adult company…its beeen a long weeeek here in stay home dad land cheers
The bulldozers and backhows began working on the contruction site this morning at 7am. It’s now just after 8am and they’ve stopped. Why do that do that? If they’re only going to work an hour in the morning, why not wait until 9am when most of us are already awake? I don’t have to set my alarm clock anymore because of them.
Anyway, now that they’ve stopped (for now), from time to time I can actually hear birds singing.
I forgot to mention that some mornings, if I’m awake around 5, I can hear robins. I don’t hear them around when my alarm goes off at 6 because there’s enough traffic that it drowns out the sound of the birds.
Tommyboy - archery? It might work, but I’m too far from the street for it to work properly. What I’d like to do is get water ballons to toss at the bar patio :)
I just increased the bandwidth and the frequency of the webcast. The noise outside my window is coming through now in pure digital real-o-ramic stereo (except it’s in mono).
Later this afternoon (it about 2 hours), I’ll webcast some music in stereo at 96kbps and 44 kHz… just to see what happens.
You know you’ve run out of good ideas when you start webcasting NOISE.
BLUES, and some good blues, will be playing at 2 o’clock.
water balloons - I once worked in a hospital, if you want the atomic bomb of water balloons, surgical latex gloves hold a suprising volume of liquid(does it have to be water?) You may require a catapult ….