LONG OVERDUE

It has been a week since my last update. No excuse other then the job that pays the bills. We had a tornado sweep thru the area on Sunday which was a bit unusual as we don't really live in a "tornado prone" area. This isn't Kansas or anything. The family took refuge in the basement, there was lots of crying from the children, especially when the power went out. No damage to the house, a couple large branches snapped off the trees in my yard but none of them came down. A few large trees around town were down, only one across a road that I found (we did a tour in the car after things calmed down).

Only one thing I wanted to write about today, and it is hardly neighbour related. Folks everywhere but Canada will probably say "WTF?" and not understand what I'm talking about but here it goes. Big story in Canada this week is that the CBC lost the rights to the Hockey Night in Canada theme song after 40-years. The network, which has been using the song as the theme for every hockey broadcast since 1967, had been in tense negotiations with the rights holder, some old lady named Delores Claman who was born in Canada but now lives in England. For the last few years the contract paid this old hag $500 every single time the CBC played the song, which was pretty big $ if you consider they probably broadcast 50+ games each season.

The story is that Claman wanted to sell the CBC the rights to the song for $2.5 million, the CBC didn't want to pay more then $1 million and so both sides walked away. Claman promptly sold the rights to the song to rival network CTV who plans on using the theme for the hockey games broadcast on TSN (a Canadian all-sports cable network similar to ESPN).

I don't envy the CBC, who is now being roasted by the press and public. If they had spent $2.5 million they would be getting roasted for "wasting taxpayers money". It was really a no-win situation.

The problem now is that the CBC has announced a contest to have somebody compose a new theme song. The prize is $100,000 and obviously the CBC then owns the song permanently, avoiding any such royalty/licensing conflict in the future. The problem is the winning song will most definately be 100% crap and suck supreme because the idiots who decide the winner are neither hockey fans and will need to pick some bland and sugar-coated boring crap that is guaranteed to not offend anybody.

Enter, 'The Hockey Song', the 1973 classic by Canadian icon Stompin' Tom Connors. Connors has made it very public that he is more then interested in licensing the song to the CBC for use on their broadcasts. The CBC needs to jump on this. The song is a classic, it is already played at nearly every game at nearly every arena in N. America, and it is known by hockey fans everywhere. They can replace a classic with a classic, and nobody would miss the old theme music for even a minute.

Please take the time to write the CBC and ask them to enter negotiations with Stompin' Tom.

Hello out there! We're on the air,

It's Hockey Night tonight;

Tension grows, the whistle blows,

And the puck goes down the ice.

The goalie jumps, and the players bump,

And the fans all go insane;

Someone roars, "Bobby scores!"

At the good old hockey game.

Oh! The good old hockey game,

Is the best game you can name;

And the best game you can name,

Is the good old Hockey game!

CORNER LOT WOES

My house sits on a corner lot and I love it. I think one of the biggest benefits of living on a corner lot is usually just plain size. There are plenty of drawbacks obviously. If you live somewhere it snows you have at least twice as much shovelling. Mowing can also be a chore, at least for me. My lot is too small to justify a riding mower but large enough that I find myself prosrastinating whenever possible. Traffic noise can be a concern no matter where you live, but a corner lot can double the noise. You also have to consider the safety of playing children. Ideally at least one of the streets (if not both) are quiet and traffic is not a concern. One of my pet peeves are dog walkers who don't pick up after their pet, and having a corner lot effectively doubles the available area where this nasty business could occur. Since I have a dog myself I don't mind that much. Picking up the occassional mess from my side and front lot just becomes part of the regular cleanup that comes with owning a dog.

For some folks the biggest issue that comes from living on a corner lot is that folks will cut across your lawn in order to save themselves a few steps. This has never been a problem for me, mostly due to some strategically placed trees and a kidney shaped area of perennials that work together to create both a physical and psychological barrier that keeps people on the sidewalk. Not so for a resident of Annavile, Texas who was so sick of people cutting across his corner lot that he strung up 20' of barbed wire.

Last weekend was our bi-weekly poker night, and the weather was nice enough that we held the game outside. We setup a TV outside on my neighbours back deck and tuned into Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals. We probably made a bit of noise, but nothing serious. At least nothing that would result in an angry neighbour wielding an axe.

NEIGHBOUR HEADLINES

Tokyo, Japan - A bachelor, suspicious after food began disappearing from his fridge, installed security cameras in his apartment. He was shocked to discover a 58-year old homeless woman had moved into his closet and had been living there undetected for a year.

Tracy, California - The community of Tracy is under seige... by Peacocks! It seems the birds first showed up over 25 years ago but the population has grown over the years and now somewhere around 60 of the birds roam this suburban neighbourhood. Some residents believe they are a nuisance and others love the birds, causing some friction between those who shoot them when they enter their yards or have trained their dogs to chase them away against those who encourage the birds to remain in the area by feeding them.

WEEKEND

This weekend I hired my wife's cousin to shingle my porch roof. I did this for a couple reasons.

1. Give me tools and I am a disaster waiting to happen.

2. He is a professional and family, so I know the job is done right and I know I got a fair price.

3. It freed up my afternoon for golf.

I've managed to hit the links the last three weekends in a row. June has not even started and I've already played more golf this year then I did in the previous 3 years combined.

Unfortunately the Wardsville course we have usually been playing was booked solid with two separate tournaments. There was also a big tournament at the Ridgetown course. We could have played the Black Creek course in Oil Springs, but instead I booked a tee time at Gentleman's Creek.

I have not played the creek in 4 years, and frankly my last experience was not all that great, but the place is under new ownership & management this year. I had heard that there was a lot of improvement planned for the course, but I guess things are still in the planning stage. The fairways were in rough shape, covered in weeds, patches and generally just shabby. The rough was a jungle. I lost more balls today then in my previous 4 games combined. The final straw was no beer cart.

I ended up shooting my worst game of the year, but even a bad round of golf is better then shingling a roof.

NEIGHBOUR HEADLINES

Fleetwood, U.K. - Charles Hart was upset that his neighbour built a rooftop deck because he felt it interfered with the privacy he previously enjoyed in his garden. So he built a very attractive 16' high wall of cement blocks. Not only is his garden private again, but his backyard looks something like the no-mans land that separated East and West Berlin. Local bylaw inforcement officers informed Hart the wall was a violating, but he built it anyway. Now both neighbours get to spend months and lots of $$$ as they fight this out in the courts.

Bacalod, Philippines - Image your neighbour's dog bites or attacks your child. Smart people would file a formal complaint with the authorities, perhaps try to have the dog put down for being a danger to the community. If your child was not seriously hurt you may have a heated discussion with your neighbour, demand he keep the dog leashed and under control, or at least in his own backyard. What you probably should not do is march down to your neighbours house and shoot him 6 times in the chest. Especially if you are a Police Officer.

THE STRANGERS

Over the years I have posted lots of stories about neighbour relationships gone wrong. If I was to review them all and try to find some universal truth I suppose it would all come down to patience, respect and communication. I think the best thing about starting this site is that so many people were able to share their own stories with others. I've lost track of the number of emails I received with comments about people being glad to have found others who are experiencing the same types of neighbour headaches.

Quite often the stories shared make you realize that you don't have it so bad after all, or that they could be a little bit unreasonable in their expectations.

I've even posted a few news stories I stumbled across about people who have attacked, tortured, or in some cases killed their neighbours over some perceived insult or offense. I am very glad I have never had (and none of my readers have ever shared stories regarding) any direct experience with something like that. The horror stories I found while surfing the web and posted here at least made my own neighbour pet peeves seem pretty insignificant. In most of these stories at the very least there was something that set the whole horrible event off, a loud stereo, a barking dog, a fence, etc. Perhaps there is some comfort in knowing that the acts themselves were not completely random. When something has no meaning at all, it becomes that more distrubing...

One such grim tale has inspired one of this summers possible sleeper hit movies, The Strangers (starring the always gorgeous Liv Tyler). The film claims to be 'inspiried by' a true story, most likely the famous Manson Family Murders from 1969 or the 1981 murder of the Sharp family in the California resort town of Keddie Cabin. In the film a young couple plan on spending a quiet and romantic week at a remote resort but instead find themselves under siege from a gang of psychopaths. The Strangers opens May 30th.