Car Alarms Suck
Mood:  don't ask

Car alarms suck. So do the Boston Police. I called them at 11: 53pm tonight to get one of these damn car alarms shut off that had been going on for an hour. Right next to somebody's house - undoubtedly keeping them awake too. No action for an hour. So after an hour I notice a squad car sitting outside my window just a block away from the alarming vehicle. So I called again. Well after about another hour still no solution. The car alarm is still going, and I can see two police cars sitting right in front of the damn vehicle. So 2.5 hours after the initial call, the alarm quits. Dunno if the cops did anything about it or if the battery just went or what.

 Car alarms are a most insidious curse. They are a true curse on the people of the inner city urban environment. At night you can hear these damn things for blocks away even with the windows closed. And when you think about it, you can't help be get even angrier because you know one thoughtless loooozer's F-in' car alarm holds the whole neighborhood hostage to his stupidity. The whole neighborhood has to endure that noise! These things go off so much it's not so much a question of how often do they go off as how long will be the next interval that there is not one blasting. And worse, try to get the cops to do anything about it. Look at this video here, see how much quality of life matters to Boston's Finest -

South End Car Alarm Symphony

I think car alarms even top the tumbleweed trash blowing around for annoying - and that's bad.  

 Slade's is really noisy too - and it's gotten worse in some ways since Frank sold it. Generally it's quieter now because far fewer people are going there these days, but when they do have something going on, the music is much louder. You can hear the door vibrating on the above video. But at least Slade's is culture, it's people partying. There's some charm to that, and even when it's annoying, at least it's forgivable. Car alarms on the other hand, is nothing but the bellow of poorly installed systems misused by the most ignorant bad neighbors.

  Of course when I speak of noise I can't forget to mention our lovely neighbors. Although they are nice people, well, some of them - our ceilings and floors are wafer thin. After many years of boom booming music rife with expletives for our 3 years old to enjoy and then the wild parties till 3am with the Doom Tournament game in thrilling Dolby 5.1 surround sound, well let's just say it gets old. 

   I guess the thing is that we are just so inundated with noise here that it eventually can become a nerve breaker. I think that's the reason everytime a car alarm goes off that I want to scream. Even when there are no cars alarming, our neighborhood is rife with many many other high volume torments.

- Days into weeks into months of jackhammers starting at 7 or 8 AM sharp! And you just can't help but think "How many times do they have to dig up the same pipe or wire to get it right?"

-And if that's not enough, throw in the honking suburban drivers who apparently always think they have the right of way and never even notice people live in the neighborhoods they race through. Imagine if we all went to Milton and blasted our horns up and down their streets like they do ours.

- Then there's the ignorant loozers who think there is nothing wrong with driving up in front of a building and blasting the horn to let their retarded friends on the third floor know they are here to provide their charming company.

- Oh, we can't forget the boom boom cars! But at least I can forgive them because at least those kids are blasting their music in their cars instead of in the apt directly above me. It does get a little harder to deal with however when it's shaking your furniture from a block away.

- And let's not forget junior High school dropouts mimicking animals calls, or drunks and thugs barking expletives.

- All this ignorance leaves little room to tolerate the legitimately necessary but countless ambulance, police, and fire trucks sirens. 

 And if that's not enough, we always have other surprises. Just while I was writing this at 3am, right outside my door I get this charming visitor: 

  Another Fine Contribution

 All this makes the roar of the traffic seem like a comfort.  

OK, 4am, things have finally quieted down, I'm going to get some sleep. 8AM comes really damn early.