Christmas Break
I've out of town right now, visiting family and enjoying the holidays, so I am unable to report on the antics of my stupid neighbour. I am also forced to post this via dialup (argh!). I am sure however I will have some updates when I return home next weekend. For now I will just mention that no, my neighbour never did pick up the string of christmas lights that were laying on his lawn. The cardboard boxes were finally taken away for recycling. And finally, he started parking in the middle of his lawn again, and once again got stuck the first time we had some melting snow. The tire grooves in his backyard lawn are so wide and deep it now appears that a dumptruck has been parking there. I can't wait for spring.

Flying Samosa?
I've talked before about how the kids next door sometimes throw their toys into my yard. Today I found a big Samosa. Seriously, what kind of moron throws a samosa into their neighbours yard anyway? I don't know what else to say. My neighbour did spend some time today cutting up and bundling the large cardboard boxes that have sat on his lawn for the last two weeks. He probably got some grief from his wife. Its a shame they have to sit on the front yard another two weeks before the next recycling pickup. At least they are now broken down so the municipal workers will have no excuse not to get it off the front lawn.

Boring Week
It has been a rather boring week. Nothing much happening. The Christmas lights are still sitting in a pile on the ground. The huge 52" TV and refridgerator box have also sat on my neighbours front lawn since last week. Today was garbage (and recycling) pickup but like I predicted they didn't take them because the boxes were not broken down and bundled up. Just in case you are wondering, the recycling truck that comes alongs this street does not have a compactor so it would make it pretty damn tough for the workers to load these huge boxes into the truck. Even if they did, they would immediately have to drive to one of the transfer stations and unload since there would not be room for anyone elses recycling. My neighbour had a big party earlier in the week. Thankfully it is cold so they didn't sit in the backyard listening to Salsa until 2 AM. I'm pretty sure he was just showing off his new TV. I can't say I blame him. I'd show of a 52" TV myself if I had one.

New Fridge & 52" Television
Well today my neighbour had a new fridge and a monsterous 52" projection television delivered. I noticed the Leon's truck pull up this morning. For those of you who don't know, Leon's is a Canadian chain of furniture and electronics stores famous for their "No Money Miracle". If you buy now you don't have to start making payments until 2004. If I am still around in 2004 perhaps I can look forward to the stuff getting repossessed. Anyway, they dropped off the new stuff, and sure enough now the two huge cardboard boxes the fridge and television came in are sitting on the front yard. It would take probably 5 minutes of work to break the boxes down flat and bundle them up with string. My stupid neighbour is probably too busy enjoying his new television to do that. I can now look forward to them sitting on the front lawn until next Wednesday when the recycling truck comes by to pick up cardboard. Even then they might not pick it up since boxes are supposed to be flat. I should stress that these are damn big boxes. The television box itself is probably 4 feet wide and 5 feet high. The fridge box is easily 4' x 4' x 4' as well. They take up his entire yard. If they blow into the street they will block traffic. I'm going to ask him on Saturday if I can come over to watch the Super Bowl.

Throwing Toys
Ever since I moved into my house about a year ago I keep finding toys and other strange things littering my yard. I knew they were coming from next door, but what I could not figure out was why. I remember playing in my backyard as a child, and sometimes toys would one way or another end up over the fence in the neighbours yard. We would run around and retrieve them right away, sometimes we would knock on the neighbours door to let them know, sometimes not. It depended on the neighbour. I assumed the kids next door would be playing, somehow the toy would end up on my side of the fence, and perhaps they were scared of me or something so they would not retrieve it. Then I got to thinking that perhaps the older kids were throwing the youngest childs toys over the fence because they were being mean to him. I got in the habit of tossing the toys back over the fence. Every couple days I would do a once over of the yard and find a few balls, an action figure, and perhaps a toy car. I'd toss them back over the fence and go about my merry way. Last Saturday I was in my yard and I see a small ball. I look next door (its a chain link fence BTW) and see the youngest child staring at me. I smile and wave and say "did you lose your ball? I'll get it" and I tossed the ball back over the fence to him. I went into my garage to get something out of my car, and when I walked back through my yard the ball was there again. I looked over at the kid and said "did you lose your ball again? I'll get it" and tossed it back over the fence. As I approached the back door of my house I looked over my shoulder and the kid and thrown the ball back into my yard. I didn't know what to do at that point so I ignored it and went inside. Now I'm thinking the kid just wants someone to play with, probably because his idiot father doesn't pay any attention to him.