Not passive-aggressive, I swear

Twelve in12

Reading
Queen’s Play ~ Dorothy Dunnett
Myst: The Book of Ti’ana ~ Rand Miller
Finished
Mirror, Mirror ~ Gregory Macguire
Witchling ~ Yasmine Galenorn
Changeling ~ Yasmine Galenorn
Something Wicked ~ Catherine Mulvany
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ~ J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ~ J.K. Rowling
Myst: Book of Atrus ~ Rand Miller, Robyn Miller and David Wingrove
The Game of Kings ~ Dorothy Dunnett

I’m really not.  Although today’s events might speak otherwise.  I have no issue with hearing other people’s music and lives in my apartment complex.  These are relatively cheap apartments and we are in close quarters.  Now that summer is here, everyone’s windows are open and only adds to the noise.  It doesn’t bother me.  It lets me know there are other people around.  Especially since school ended and most of the apartments have been emptied, we’ve become a little community.  It’s nice and I enjoy it.

Until this morning….

The boys who just moved in next door are odd.  They spend hours a day (yes, I said hours a day) outside playing with fake swords and gladiator type things.  Not a big deal really.  Until the capes came out.  Then they passed from different into odd.  It doesn’t hurt me or bother me, and they seem to enjoy themselves.  Due to the last night’s drinking fun, I didn’t exactly get up on time or get to what I had planned.  Not a big deal.  I’ve worked hard all week, so an extra 30 minutes of sleep is not insane to ask for.  I got up and into the shower I go.  I was rinsing the shampoo out of my hair when the music started.  I swear, my first thought was someone turned the stereo on in my apartment.  With the high humidity and heat, I’ve been showering with the bathroom door open.  You can’t see into the bathroom from anywhere outside the apartment, and it helps keep the heat down.  So when that music started, I freaked a little bit, wondering who was in my apartment, how did they get in and what the hell were they doing?  I poked my soapy head out of the curtain and grabbed the towel, to get a look at my apartment.  I realized it wasn’t my stereo, but the boys next door.  They had stretched their stereo outside so they could blast music as they fought.  Not a huge deal, but it was a little on the loud side.  It was mostly German headbanger music but the stuff in English had a lot of cursing.   It annoyed me to the point where I wanted to do something about it, but not come right out and tell them to turn it down.  The evil little gears in my mind began to spin….

Have you ever heard of Wagner?  He’s written some pretty intense and loud pieces, which I happen to have all collected on one record.  So I popped that on and cranked my stereo to about 1/3 volume.  What’s great about Wagner is that he balances the loud intensity with soft intensity.  It wasn’t being quite as effective as I had hoped.

Have you ever heard of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture?  Here’s the ending snippet.  (A good full length – in 2 parts can be found here.)  The snippet is just the last 90 seconds of the piece, full with pyrotechnics.  My recording has actual cannons.  It starts off very soft with a beautiful choral melody and builds to that ending.  I cranked my stereo up to about 3/4 volume and went back to balancing my checkbook.  I’m pretty sure the whole neighborhood felt that ending.  But I made my point, because when the piece ended, the boys turned down their music to a more neighborhood friendly level.  Hee hee.  I win!

I talked to one of the other neighbors later who said he was pissed at the boys.  He has a little girl and he didn’t want to hear those words.  He felt there was no reason for their music to be that loud.  But then someone else started playing "that nuclear test piece" and blocked them out.  I was worried he would be upset with me too, but I fessed up to being the second music.  He thought that was absolutly hysterical.  The reference to the nuclear test is that video footage of nuclear testing is often accompanied by that little snippet’s theme.  He knew it was a classical piece and said he much prefered his daughter hearing that than those curses.

So: Headbanger Music: 0 – Classical Music: 1