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Have you guys seen The Parking Lot Movie? It's the best documentary I've seen in a long time. I highly recommend it. It's a great look at good and evil and how to be a better human being. Also, it's just plain hilarious. And if you are living in exile from Virginia, you'll love the accents.

I went to UVa, and I used to park at that lot all the time. I wonder how I rated in their cosmology. I had a beat up, small car and I'm not the kind of person who pinches pennies, so hopefully I did not invoke their ire. On the other hand, I had a car, so, there's that.

I love that a lot of them were anthropologists. These are my people, and why I ended up majoring in that field. Useful? Not in a monetary sense, not at all. But in other ways? Oh, yes.

Neighborhood gossip: live blogging

Wow, two of my neighbors are having a huge screaming match right in front of my living room window. I have to laugh: it's all about whether one of them did or did not throw snow in the street. We have an OCD neighbor next door who never seems to go to work and who is often out there shoveling snow off his roof, his long driveway, his sidewalk and yes, even the street in front of his house. It's annoying as hell to me, since when I'm home during the day I have to listen to him for hours and hours at a time and he doesn't just shovel it, he scrapes the asphalt dry. I'm kind of impressed with him right now, though. He's kind of a quiet kind of guy but right now he's not backing down, and the other guy is your typical foul mouthed Boston brute who is yelling at quite a high octave. They are still going at it. Apparently OCD guy put the snow back on the other guy's car or something, because he was so offended by the other guy throwing it in the street? Or maybe it was on his pristine sidewalk? I can't tell. One of my other neighbors-one of the students who lives upstairs- is standing on our porch as a silent witness so I'm just waiting for the first blows to fall before I call the police. The argument is a wave of noise, it grows and falls in volume. Ooh, I just heard the brute say, "OK, so let's try to make some peace here..." Maybe it's winding down. Wow, they've gone from threatening each other with blows to now negotiating to get to their mutual satisfaction... Nope they're yelling again. "You can't do that, IT'S WRONG!" These idiots are way too old for this kind of argument. One of them is going to fall dead from a heart attack soon. "Don't fucking throw snow against my car!" "He's a fucking idiot!" Oooh, a lady has gotten involved now. I can't hear her, though. His wife? "I'm not an unreasonable guy." Now one of them is shoveling again. "We're not playing a game or something here you know." Oh, great, now my other idiotic neighbor with the mad dog has gotten involved and the argument is getting louder again.

Man, staying home sick is supposed to be relaxing. It sounds like four people are now arguing out there. [10 minutes later] It's winding down. The student has gone back upstairs, but they're is still yammering out there. Oh! That's because the COPS are here. Woah. The brute is getting a stern talking to. Hey, Brian, it turns out the "brute" is the guy who lives on the corner who wouldn't let you try to save those baby birds that were in his yard. And, huh, his wife IS still alive.

Ah, at last, they're all gone. I wonder what the aftereffects of that afternoon will be.