Maybe your neighbors are TWoP lurkers & read about themselves.

A girl in my dorm freshman year had a stereo and one record* (single) - Knights in White Satin. Her roommate hated her - guess why?

*Hey kids, records are what we used to call CDs and is pronounced WRECK-ord. Hey even younger kids, CDs are how we listened to music before the invention of the iPod.

OMG. Knights in White Satin. You have started to make me shake. It's not just the song, it's the damned dramatic epilogue!

"Breathe deep the gathering gloom/Watch lights fade from every room"

eek.

And hee on your * note. But how did you get the wreck-orrd to fit in the CD player? Or were car cd players bigger back then? (I've actually had that asked. Of course, it was the same kid that was hearing my 80s/90s mix cd as though they had almost never heard those songs before and commented that it was because they "[are] not really into oldies." gleeps.

You people are scaring me with all the talk of the crazy people in apartments, because I'm moving into an apartment building for the first time in a month.

Just recently I listened to the same CD repeatedly but that was because I had forgotten my CDs and I was going to London (3 hours round trip) so I borrowed a CD from my bf. It was Coheed and Cambria's In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 and I had only heard a couple songs off of it before, so I quite enjoyed it. Plus, I had headphones on.

Oh, yeah, that's totally different. When I was coming back from Boy Scout retreat (that's a whole 'nother story, but I will confirm I was then and have always been a girl in every sense of the word) in high school I fell asleep in Williamsburg listening to a Cranberries CD, which I inadvertently had on song repeat. I fell asleep listening to Zombie, and listened to it for 8 hours straight, until I woke up in the outskirts of town.

The difference between cd repeaters with headphones and those with surround sound? It is perfectly ok to subject yourself to insanity due to "song stuck in your head-itis", but thoroughly unacceptable to do it to someone else against their will.

That reminds me of a bit of obscure automotive trivia. Chrysler offered an in-dash record player called the Hi-Way Hi-Fi as an option on some cars back in the 1950s. You had to buy special, extra-thick vinyl records for it. It didn't go over very well and was only offered for (I think) two years. But yeah, at one time, you could play vinyl records in your car. (BTW, no, I'm not old enough to remember that option personally. I wasn't born then -- soon after, but not then. But I used to work in the Chrysler Historical Collection, so I've seen the brochures for the cars that offered the record player.)

Alas, I am one of those people. It started with the Monkees and the Beatles when I was about five and continues to this day. I just have an extremely high tolerance for repetition. This comes in quite handy with small children. I have about a 50 minute commute to work/day care, and we have “music appreciation” in the car. I’m introducing my five year-old to all the classics, as I cannot tolerate most music made for children. (Notable exception: Woody’s Roundup CD by Riders in the Sky) His current faves are Baby You Can Drive My Car and We Will Rock You. Yes, classics.

When I was in college, a girl on the floor above me played AC/DC Back in Black on continuous loop during exam time. Although I kinda like their other stuff, I cannot listen to anything from BiB.

My boyfriend in college used to dance naked every morning to his “psyche up” song: Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk. No idea how his roommates/neighbors felt about that, but I thought it was pretty funny at the time. I hear he’s a doctor now. Hee.

I'm very much a single song repeater. I blame it on the fact that I played a good number of video games as a kid, and the songs were always fairly short yet catchy.

If I'm in the mood for a song, I can just turn it on and let it loop for a while, and it just fades into the background.

Just my particular preference, though sometimes I do go for large, random playlists - even if I find myself repeating some of the random songs a few times before continuing along.

Well, things are better today, but we're still figuring out some things. The new word processing software is 100 times better (the old one sucked), but the new Quark (v. 6.1) seems a lot slower than the old one (v. 3.31 -- yeah, I work for a newspaper; they're cheap and won't upgrade). It's not been a big problem, just really irritating, particularly since it was supposed to be faster.

I still feel like sitting down with a tub of chocolate-chocolate-chocolate ice cream, though. (That's not a real flavor, just my term for the most chocolate ice cream I can find at the store.) I haven't quite reached the listening-to-country-music level, though, so perhaps there's hope. When I put in a Hank Williams CD (I think I have one somewhere since country, particularly old, is one of the genres I like), you'll know it's over.

Colin. Of Colin & Christie.

Now that's torture. I couldn't stand that song the first time I heard it.

I'm very anti-repeat. I always have my cd player (100 discs) on random. And I've got very diverse tastes, so it could be U2 one minute and Beethoven the next. My Jukebox software is on random as well. There is one notable exception though. Peter Gabriel's Passion. In college, especially after a night of drinking, I would put that on repeat and play it all night long. It's more mood music stuff, very Middle Eastern, and there isn't a single word on the whole CD. It often gave me some wild dreams when I fell asleep to it.

Very cool. I had no idea. I can't believe it wasn't a huge seller. Actually, I can.

I've had the same problems with newer Quark. I learned on older versions (and actually did more on Adobe PageMaker from back in the old Josten's yearbook days when we were first switching over to the scary world of computers), and I know I couldn't have been on much later than 3.31 when I graduated from college and got into the "real world" where companies are cheap. I run 5.0, and only have it because the one other person in my position in the entire southeast that used the program quit, so they could put it on another computer. Seriously. They would rather pay $thousands every semester for a company to do brochure revisions when one purchase of Quark - even if just for simple revisions that any monkey could do, nothing intense! - would be all it took. Anyway, I still haven't gotten used to this "new" Quark for importing stories and stuff.

As far as song repetitions? I can't handle it. I fear the day my child wants to watch the same show, read the same book, sing the same song over and over and over and over again. I heard that whatever song or story they hear in the womb will be one of such song/stories. I don't want to stifle my poor baby, but I read something different every day - yesterday Dr. Seuss, the day before Pearl S. Buck, the day before CS Lewis... I don't even want the similar sound patterns of Dr. Seuss across many books to become too familiar. I will sing lots of Beatles to the baby, but no more than one time/week of any given song. I'm afraid she's going to be too attached to my husband's video game song, as it's the one most repeated in the house!

Oooh! The Museum of Transportation in St. Louis has Bobby Darin's car on display. It has one of these- in the center console, between the front seats, right? That was a very cool car.

Hee. My freshman year next-door-neighbor did the same thing with "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls. I shit you not.

It only ended when my roommate and I knocked on her door armed with a shoe and a hammer. We were only half joking when we threatened to break her stereo, if she did not change the damn song!

"Again again! Again again again!"

The horror. The horror.

When I was a sophmore in college my roomates and I had a standard rotation of three or four songs that we played every morning upon waking up. Some days we played the song of the day once, sometimes it played over and over until we were all up and ready to leave. It actually worked out very well because we all had similar schedules so whomever was up first put the music on and woke up the rest of us.

Funny that college is the period of my life that I most associate with random music. Anita Baker, who my freshman roomate played until I swiped the tape and hid it in our room. "Jesus is Love" by the Commodores which was the last song played on the Donnie Simpson morning show in DC every morning and was the offical clue that you might as well not even bother trying to go to your 9:00am class. "Da Butt" by EU which was the first time any of us that weren't from DC could get into Go-Go. Ah, those were the good old days...

For one horrible spring while I was in either junior high school or high school (can't remember which), I was woken up every morning by my local radio station playing... wait for it.... "Electric Youth" by Debbie(orah) Gibson. Apparently, they had a single playlist they used every morning until they decided to change it. I had to change my freaking wake-up time because of that shit.

Bastards.

Yeah, as I recall, it either came mounted in the center console or on the dash, depending on what car you ordered. It didn't sell well because they could never figure out how to keep the records from skipping. It didn't matter how sturdy you made the records. You'd still hit potholes in the road.

I had no idea that Bobby Darin had one. That is cool!

Never fear, peanutbuttercup, we checked the batteries in the smoke and CO2 detectors and dug up the fire extinguisher (which I wasn't even aware that we owned) from the laundry room. I know everyone says it's never as bad as you think it's going to be but the idea of a virtual strangers going through all the rooms of my house to decide if it's fit for a child freaks me out a little.

Just remind me to turn off my "Sound of Music" cd before she gets here -- we've made a good impression so far and I don't want to ruin it!

That reminds me of a recent conversation I had with some pretty cool teenagers. We were laughing, joking, having a good ole time until my friend and I brought up Beta Max.

[insert quizzical looks here]

We were like "Oh. You have no idea what we're talking about do you?"

[insert quizzical looks here]

Us, feeling ancient: "Nevermind."

-----

"Sound of Music" on repeat does kinda seem like someone is trying to cover something up. Colin all the way.


My 10th grade year, I woke up to "All I wanna do is zooma-zoom-zoom-zoom in the poom-poom" every single day. For months.

I wonder what the meeting was like when that decision was made..."Ok, we need something sexually explicit, yet catchy, to play at 5:45 am. Ah, I've got it! How about 'Rump Shaker' by those classic musicians, Wreckx-N-Effect?"

I'm only prone to repeat songs when in the midst of heartache. What sucked was when that happened in college and my song of choice was on tape. It was a little inconvenient, and kinda killed the dramatic mood, to have to keep getting up off of the floor where I was laying in a puddle of weepiness to have to "hit rewind-wait-hit play" every three and a half minutes.

I think Donnie Simpson has been playing that song for like 57 years, rlb8031. And thanks for bringing Go-Go to the Meet Market! You really can get everything here.

Oh goodness. Song repeating is definitely tied to pathos and emotional wallowing. I can remember playing "Wild Horses" over and over and over until I'm sure my roomates would have liked to throttle Mick. Or, more likely, me.
The very first song I ever got attached to happens to also be the very first single I ever bought. It was one of them wreckoord thingies, and it was called 'Last Song' by a singer called Edward Bear. Has anybody ever heard of this tune?

It's the last sooong,
I'll ever write for you
It's the last time that I'll tell you
just how much
I really care....

I wore out the vinyl in that sucker. My poor family.

As I didn't get a CD player until I went to college (SkaMama: No, that fad isn't going to last), I hear you. The only way around it was a) cassingles or b) mixed tapes. Granted, I still haven't bought into mixed CDs, but damn if a mixed tape won't be played at my imaginary wedding.

The worst thing for me was the popular music of the week/year in the dorms. At any time, day or night, you could hear Beastie Boys (fine, but it was a nonstop loop of "Whatcha want" ... and you know what, I want you to let the next track play!), Dave Matthews (eh, it grew on me once I was worn down & defeated) or Hootie & the Frickin'Blowhards (grrr) any place in my frosh dorm. The women also had Jewel, so everyone was howling right along with her so that was dreadful. Approximately 4 of us were anything but that stuff & would get funny looks as we jammed to our walkmans to avoid the homogeny.

Speaking of repeating one's self, my frosh room was with six girls as mentioned previously (by choice. No, seriously.). One girl who we ended up hating (as you'll see) had this habit of sitting on her bed (the top bunk of our bed), blowdrying her hair (which was falling out so we laughed) and fastforwarding video tapes to parts she "felt" like watching. Not hearing, as her HEAD WAS NEXT TO A HAIR DRYER, but just watching. Favorite was the Star Wars collection but you know what, when she started to look like Jabba & lose her hair in big chunks, it was time to move off the bed & away from the dryer.

Another roommate watched "Anne of Green Gables," one of my least favorite things EVER, book or movie, continuously. And then she picked up the habit of doing the fast forwarding to random ass parts too in between classes to watch chunks of "Simply Ballroom." To this day I have never seen the movie in one piece, but am pretty sure I've seen most of it.

Of course I've heard that song - sensitive singer/songwriter type voice. I didn't know his name until now though.

Hee, I love when one person mentions something random and it turns out that we've all had the same problem [Cartman] I love you guys! [/Cartman]

My absolute worst repetitive song story is yet another traumatic high school experience. In my 9th grade gym class, we had this cruel teacher who just didn't feel like teaching some days so, several times a week, she would just make us run laps around the gym for the full hour. And she had this tape she would play while we ran that was just an endless loop of Aretha Franklin's "Who's Zoomin' Who"...over and over and over. She played that tape every single time she made us run laps. Still to this day, I can't hear that song without wanting to curl up into a fetal position and cry.

Oh, Rachel, that's just, well, horrific! I mean, gym class was always bad enough (could anybody actually climb that rope?), but to add repetitive music is just torture. What is it about high school gym teachers that make them sadists? (And I can say that because one of my oldest and dearest friends is a high school gym teacher. I love him anyway.)

...while the neighbors were saying to themselves, "I think it stopped. Did it stop? woo ho- Damn!"

One dorm song repeat that I always loved was when the two guys at the end of the hall got out of class on Thursday they would BLAST Iron Man by Black Sabbath. It was the opening ceremony of the weekend!

My personal guess is either several sexual confusion, or alcoholism, especially during the "educational" parts, where they are actually supposed to learn how to teach something other than the President's tests for physical fitness. Bleeech!

Song repetition is very, very, very bad. I say this as a music major who once spent 3 consecutive days listening to nothing but the "William Tell Overture" and having to write a detailed analysis on how it best fit with Italian Operas written earlier than it was, most notably "The Barber of Seville." (BTW this is the song from the "Lone Ranger" for you older folks, and certain "Looney Toons". Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd also have done a parody on "The Barber of Seville.")

Gotta say though that wouldn't have topped the horrors of "The Sound of Music Story" shared earlier. "Raindrops on roses.....these are a few of my least favorite things!"

That made me cackle. Loudly. At work.


I was just kicking myself in the head last night for not keeping a notebook in the car because I always seem to come up with the best random oldies while driving. Now, more than ever since my radio broke. It’s either sing or go crazy. And if you’re in the car next to mine, you’d probably think my singing is a sign of having already gone crazy.

Yesterday’s anthem? “All Cried Out” by Lisa Lisa. And Cult Jam. Did I mention that they were “Featuring Full Force”? (Honestly, is there a longer, more unnecessary, group name out there?)

I know that “All Cried Out” isn’t exactly a wedding song, but I’m more concerned with my friends having fun at my imaginary reception. It’s so, so cheesy to sing since everyone knows every single one of the background ad-lib thingees.


I've always been amazed at how the same reckurd could be released when I was 9 or 10 and then be popular again a decade later as if it were brand new. I danced to “Brass Monkey” in braces with Tiger Beat posters on my wall AND on a pool table, drunk, in a New York bar. See? Amazing.

I grew up in the ‘hood, but due to “dorm repitition”, I, too, became an unwilling fan of Dave Matthews, Hootie & N’em, and Jewel. It was easier just to give in. I still like Dave though.

Of course that could have been on the same weekend...

Just sayin'

See, I *had* to put the kabosh on Jewel. I threatened a number of times to take my roommate's souls and send them to Satan if they didn't turn her down. And then I'd be out and hear the songs & start singing along. It scares me how much music I hate but know all the lyrics to -- not just cheesy one hits, but songs I really didn't like that I'm all, "Wha?"

Hee. Hee hee hee. I was going to graduate school at the University of South Carolina, the alma mater of Hootie and ALL of the Blowfish, at the height of their popularity. I swear I had never even heard of them until I moved to SC in 1995. They all still lived in town then and it wasn't unusual to catch one or more of them in an impromptu jam at one of the college bars, which was the cool part of having a local phenomenon. The bad part? Hmm, hard to decide between the Hootie paraphenalia at the college bookstore, the INCESSENT playing of "Let Her Cry" on EVERY local station except for the hillbilly country one, or the time MTV invaded campus to film Hootie Unplugged. I still have nightmares about trying to get to class that day.

Although they DON'T sell silver polish!!!! Who knew?
***
ETA: Thanks, Rabrab, for the explanation!

Ack! You caught me.

But do I have Kirk Cameron and New Edition posters in my cubicle?...You'll never know.

I'm gone, y'all. Enjoy your evenings. I know things will go great, JenEx.

JenEx - It was utterly bizarre. And for the comments about it being for feeling melancholy or whatever, I find this no excuse for 9am, 11 on the volume dial repetition of 'I am sixteen going on seventeen..."

I would also sortof understand if they had a kid, though, like, way to blow out the kid's eardrums. But... days and days on end with the 'Doe, a deer?"

I even asked the super once, when we were both in the same hallway, and merrily was blaring 'the hills are alive...' and he was all, 'yeah, I have no idea, I just stay away.'

In other news, some conjoined twins who had been joined at the top of the head were separated in New York today and I'm gonna leap through the screen at the very next news anchor who says either 'they have never looked each other in the face (gee, you don't say, being, you know, joined at the top of the head and all),' 'until now, the twins have only been able to lay on their backs or sides (see above answer),' or what's come to be my very favourite - 'joined at the top of the head since birth, the twins...'

Since birth?! Really?! Because I was thinking their parents went a lil kooky with the staple gun and krazy glue at some point and... Since when the hell else you fuckwit news writer?

Stuck in your hea-ead! Your He-eh-ya-d! Zom-bay! Zom-bay! Zom-bay-hay-hay-hay-oh!

Yeah, that one's stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

I recently got a new car, and I sprung for one of the sattelite radio systems. And I'm addicted. The best thing is that if you don't remember that El DeBarge is the guy who sang "Who's Johnny?", you can press a button, and it will let you know who sang the song. And the aforementioned theme from Short Circuit was on the 80's station.

Right now I go back and forth between the 80's, the old-school rap channel, and the Christian channel, which plays a few awesome songs, a few bad songs, and many awesomely bad songs. So if you ever see a guy in the Detroit area singing Michael W. Smith's "Friends" at the top of his lungs, it may be me.

Alas, I too am a song repeater. Usually I just do it when I'm in the car. I'm really bad for doing it to 70s and 80s stuff. *mutters very softly* Like "Tusk."

The bad part, though, is that my daughter is already the same way. I never repeated songs with her in the car, but somehow she's decided that's what she wants to do. "Tom's Diner" was on continuous repeat for two weeks until I "lost" the CD. I like Suzanne Vega, but in small doses.

I might have done it to her in utero, though, when I was allowed to wear headphones at work and would loop songs for hours. If so, it's Yet Another Reason I'm going to hell.

Noooooooooo. That is my ultimate earworm. I had it stuck in my head for an entire month. I'm not even kidding.

One of my dorm roommates would download songs but click on like 6 different downloads just to make sure they got it. Then they would never delete them so the playlist that said 200 songs was really like 9, all of which were either Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" P. Diddy's "Bad Boy For Life" or Oasis's "Champagne Supernova". Don't get me wrong, these aren't bad songs. But every single day at 6am at full blast? Yeah, it's amazing we're still close friends.

I've had some doozies for neighbors. In Texas I lived downstairs from a pyromaniac. He was the handyman for the complex, and if I locked my keys in the apartment (which happened a lot) all I had to do was go upstairs and get him to unlock my door. One time though, before he'd come down to my door he went through his entire apartment making sure stuff was turned off and muttering, "I can't have another fire start. I can't have another fire start." I don't think I got a decent night's sleep after that.

In Hampton, Va., the police came to my neighbors apartment all the time. One time, with the SWAT team there, he shot his wife and dropped his baby out the window. Which would have been tragic if he hadn't lived on the first floor.

And two years ago, my downstairs neighbor died one Sunday afternoon before I had some people over to see "Six Feet Under." Good timing.

karatekate, there are probably some early childhood ed folks around here who can explain just why, but I believe that whole repeating thing--AGAIN AGAIN--is developmentally important. It has something to do with improving language skills and recognition. So you may have to give in and play again, mommy, when little spawnetta wants to hear it. It's only for a little while.

Oh, poo.

The nice installer man from DirecTV has been and gone. And I don't have DirecTV. Because my neighbor won't cut down his big ol' grove of 50-year-old, 70-foot-tall pine trees. Selfish bastard. The DirectTV dude and I walked the whole property looking for a place he could site the dish and get the angle and direction he needed to get their satellite. No place. 2/3 of an acre, and not one spot that it would work. He said Dish Network has their birds in a different place, so they might be able to do us.

So how's Dish Network? Service? Customer handling? They're nowhere near as quick on the phone as DirecTV was and their website is much harder to navigate.

Poo.

I'm back! And all caught up. Thanks for all the well wishes on the engagement. I was pretty much on Cloud 9 for all of last week! I have a picture of the ring and dress if anyone is interested in that sort of thing. Most likely a planned elopement with just the two of us on a beach in Maui with a big reception/party/bbq later.[/wedding talk]

CO has a law/ordinance about not leaving a car running without someone in it. Supposedly the reason is two-fold; to prevent someone stealing a running car but just smashing a window and also environmental concerns. Which is why I made sure I had a garage when I bought my townhouse; sitting in a cold car on snowy morning is NO fun.

Let's see...I don't think I ever put one song on a continuous loop. The same cd on a long road trip...yes but never the same song over.and.over.and.over.

I think living in the dorms is just part of the college experience. Although I swear, the weirdest ass people I have ever met in my life....I met my first year in the dorm. Including the amazon goth girl who dropped out mid-semester to follow The Cure on tour and sell t-shirts, plus my RA who was on a mission to sleep with every member of the football team. I have NO idea why...it wasn't even like she was a famewhore by association because the team went 0-9-1 my freshman year. That is a bad record, yo!

A little psa from me to you....always, always be nice to the make-up counter girl. I use Lancome mostly and get everything from the same sweet southern sales girl because I know they work on commission yet she never pressures or tries to upsell me. I picked up my pre-sell order for the free gift today and she had put an extra sample mascare and eye cream in the bag for me. That's on top of giving me a handful of free samples last week when I placed the order. Whee! What a nice lady.

No kidding. Don't marry someone seriously younger than you unless you want to have earworms of songs you've never even heard, like this freakin' one. Hubby also knows all the words to "I like big butts and I can-not lie....." Oy.

I once shared a ski condo with a bunch of guys who loved Frank Zappa. They played Zappa continuously, loudly, and until 3:30am. True story, the condo caught fire and burned to the ground one morning about 6:00am. Due to faulty wiring, not a last-ditch effort to rid the world of Zappa.

Rabrab, did you try your roof?

Catching up after a couple of days of barely having time to read, let alone post.

First, to complete the "poetry" (I say that very generously):

"Bedsitter people look back and lament.
Another day's useless energy's spent.
Impassioned lovers wrestle as one
Lonely man cries for love and has none
New mother picks up and suckles her son
Senior citizens wish they were young
Cold-hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colors from our sight
Red is grey and yellow white
And we decide which is right
And which is an illusion?"

Okay, I have to confess that when the Moody Blues first re-orchestrated Knights in White Satin back in the mid-'90s, I went to see them perform at the Hollywood Bowl with a full orchestra. Under the stars. It was magical. Yes, I am a sentimental fool, why do you ask?

When I was in high school, one summer we sat on my friends' John and Janet's porch and put their parents' stereo speakers in the windows facing out towards us and listened to Tommy by the Who. Every single evening. All evening. Over and over. I honestly don't know how their parents put up with it. But they were really cool parents; they never said a word. (My dad's reaction to the music I listened to? "TURN THAT CRAP DOWN!")

I too have a high repetition tolerance, obviously, but even so my kids managed to find my threshold and push well past it. With my daughter, we wore out three copies of Good Night, Moon before she finally outgrew it. I can only be grateful that my kids were pre-Barney. Mr. Rogers was my daughter's favorite, bless her heart. But before that, there was this horrible cheap recording someone found at a garage sale and gave her of the story of Thumbelina, with frighteningly horrible music, that to this day still makes me shudder. That and the Care Bears Movie. ::shudder::

The most annoying neighbors I've had were the folks who lived in the nice house across the street and a couple of houses down from us here. Now, this is a nice, quiet, middle-class neighborhood of single family homes, mostly older folks. This young couple had two small kids, and a lovely home that they took great care of, but she had an interesting way of earning her income: She dealt drugs. Out of her jeep parked in the driveway. With her kids there. The whole neighborhood knew it. I told the #1 Snoopy Neighbor, Joan, who knows everything about everyone at all times, that I could write down license numbers from my desk in front of the window, and she said, "Don't bother, someone already is."

People complained and complained to the cops. Our next-door neighbor's brother is a police captain in Orleans Parish. HE complained. It took two and a half years before one day she finally disappeared. He sold out and moved on shortly thereafter. Clearly, she's currently a ward of the State of Louisiana in St. Gabriel (which is the women's prison equivalent to the men's prison, Angola, which I'm sure you've heard of, considering its lovely reputation). We all cheered. The traffic on our street has dropped by at least 90% since she got busted. Thank heaven.

Edited because "suckling her sun" would be difficult, methinks

Look, I know this shouldn't have made me bust out laughing, macaddict, but it totally did. I've had a stressful couple of weeks, ok? Just no one tell our social worker that I laughed at babies being dropped out of first floor windows.

Yeah, so it all went fine, and, bonus -- the house is cleaner then it has been in years. I mean, I scrubbed the bathrooms and she didn't even LOOK. I wanted to point out how sparkly our tile is, but I refrained.

The repetition thing: I'm no expert, but I'm currently reading all sorts of info on toddlers and child development in preparation for instant motherhood. Part of it is seeking reassurance and predictability; apparently at that age kids haven't made the connection between things being not immediately visible and still existing, which is why some kids can't let Mom even go to the bathroom by herself. So it's reassuring for them when, say, the Care Bears Movie (hee) ends the same way every single time. Because you never know, it might have changed and that would screw with your 3-year-old's entire worldview! Talk about scarring!

So now off I go to bed, with Sixteen Going on Seventeen playing merrily on repeat in my brain...

Mama Tiger, you mean:
"Thumbelina, Thumbelina,
Tiny little thing.
Thumbelina dance,
Thumbelina sing..."

I'm so sorry.

Hexele yes, we did. From the outside wall of our house to the base of the first trees in the grove is less than twenty feet; probably more like fifteen. and we've got a flat little one-story. (The roof is maybe ten feet above the ground at the eaves and fifteen at the peak.) It's a really narrow, deep lot; we've only got 120 feet of frontage, max. Even if he'd put it at the farther end of the roof, it would have to aimed way too high to see over the trees. He had to be able to get a point 205 degrees west, and about 20 degrees elevation, and even from our northern property line the line of sight over the very tops of the pines is about 35 degrees.

We did find one place that the dish would be able to see the bird. But the county won't let us dig a ditch across the road for the wires. Selfish bastards.

I'm going to talk to one of the guys in the neighborhood who installs for Dish and have him come and take a look before I even start getting my hopes up again. I really wanted to watch the fencing and the equestrian events during the Olympics <pout>

Rabrab, that was eeeevil!

Is it possible to build a tower, kind of like ham operators have, to put the dish up higher? It would cost a bit, but it would certainly enhance your TV experience. And with good TV, who needs real life, right? I mean, otherwise, why are we all here?

When I lived in Eugene 25 years ago, I had a party trick that worked every time. Basically, I'd start to tell people at parties about this very weird, very bad, very dishonest roommate I'd had in a group house. We'd then have a conversation about the various attributes of bad roommates, and I'd mention a few of this guy's that were always winners. Short list: we think he stole things from us (his own roommates), he lied about going on mountaineering expeditions to get free supplies and gear, he used the excuse of a grandmother, a brother, and then himself undergoing leukemia treatments to get out of paying rent or working, and then later with new roommates in a new house, he told them the rent was a lot higher than it really was so that their "shares" of the rent meant he lived rent-free with a little left over to eat on.

At a certain point in the game, their eyes would get big and the stories of their worst roommate's exploits would start to sound familiar, so when I'd get to the "his roommates paid for his rent" part, I'd know I had 'em. The game ended when I would pause and say significantly "And his name was ____ __ _____" and wait for them to supply the name.

Worked like a charm every single time.

Of course, everyone always knew everyone else through at least 2 or 3 circles of friends, but still, it wasn't that small a place. And now that I've told this story here, maybe I'll get an email from someone telling me his name.

Hey, I just figured I'd share the fun, Mama. 'Cause the moment I read your description, that damn song started in my head. I had it in a music-box wind-up doll when I was a kid. It must have been from a movie of something.

Anyway, a tower is a possibility (I asked him that, too, after he said that he couldn't put it on the antenna pole that we have,) but would have to be a heavy tripod-style, and even then, his installation company really hates to do that because if the weather kicks up and the tower sways at all, the reception goes to hell as the dish goes off and on line with the satellite.

I know I'm bitching a lot; but he really was a very nice, pleasant, professional fellow. He was also honest enough to tell me that he didn't see any way to make it work, given the specs his company has to work to.
And I really do appreciate that -- I told the rep that when I called back to check that the order had been cancelled. I'm just disappointed.

I feel your pain Rabrab. I have kind of the opposite problem though. Now, with TiVo, and with NBC saying 72 hours of Olympic programming DAILY (but Telemundo and HD don't count for me), how do I decide what to TiVo? And when do I watch what I HAVE TiVo'd?

And it is fencing and equestrian that are on my special wish list, too. I used to know some of those horsey folks, but am long enough out of the loop that I don't any more (but I know some of their parents!). And I loved fencing when I was in college. So good for the thighs.

I'm one of the freaks who got TripleCast for Barcelona and loved every minute. It was great seeing competition in real time. When they cut and paste the events you lose any sense of the natural rhythm and pace of the competition. And I remember the NBC version of the men's high bar made it seem Tim Daggett was the last guy up, when in fact it was the Chinese gymnast. Daggett's reaction to the Chinese guy's scores showed on prime time as his reaction to his own. Just not the same thing.

And, of course, I like to see all of the athletes in a final, not just the U.S. ones. I love seeing preliminaries because you see the huge difference sometimes between the first and 30th best person in the world at something. It's nice to have the perspective.

A friend of mine reworked a Monopoly board to create Booze-opoly (greatest invention ever, I'm telling you. The playing pieces are beer caps with names taped to them like 'bitch', 'pimp', 'manwhore', 'player' and stuff like that.) Anywho, one of the squares is The Iron Man, in which the player who lands on that square has to take one drink of their drink and everyone else's while everyone sings Iron Man and pounds their fists on the table.

I'm looking forward to the Olympics as well. I'm hoping to see gymnastics, softball and diving. And when will rugby become an Olympic sport? I just really hate soccer, so I'd like an alternative.

It's funny that you mentioned rugby, mel42024...I just was looking up the rules so that I could impress an Irish guy I met a few weeks ago. Sigh...the lengths I go to.

But rugby would be a great Olympic sport. I'm excited for gymnastics, swimming, and SOCCER!!

That was weird. You said swimming and I remembered thinking that was why I hate Colin's version of coaching so much. I swam in high school and college and the in your face crap he pulls really doesn't work with what is essentially an individual sport.

Okay, now moving on from the idiocy of bringing a racer into the thread, I'm am someone with a very low tolerance for repetition. Another reason not to have a kid. I use to play The Wall whenever I had calculus homework. But since the whole thing was basically 2 hours it didn't have time to repeat.