It's been too long...

Yes, I've been away. Been busy with um...well, life. Life tends to do that to me - take over. Even took over the StarLizard this time, surprisingly. I've been busy riding the Old Virago, aka the Stinger (aka Andy's motorcycle), playing Rock Band (yes, I DID get that platinum status!! - more in a future post), riding AWESOME cars (mine and, well, thanks for the rides in your sexy prelude, Dan) and, well, having fun. Which I really think I needed.

I also was sorta responsible in that I checked on the hole in the roof. My friend Andy helped with that, seeing as he just HAS to help, even though I'm too proud to ask (thanks Andy). So here's how this story goes.

After almost killing myself one too many times slipping on the puddle of water accumulating on my bathroom floor, I decided there must be a reason and the water had to come from somewhere. Yes I know, it takes me a while to get out of zombie mode, but hey, I did. Turns out I figured the water was coming from the bathroom vent, and turns out the puddle always magically appeared the morning after it had rained. Hence why I didn't see it (morning zombie mode is the worst ever) and almost hit my head on the tile floor that morning. Thankfully I missed the floor and hit the bathtub instead. Replacing cracked tiles is a drag.

I was determined to fix the issue, but of course too lazy to really think about it until one windy day, I heard sounds coming out of the vent. Now don't go thinking I go all bezerk at hearing sounds in the house. It IS an old house after all, and I've become quite used to all its creaks and moans - and let's not go into the noises that do NOT originate INSIDE of my house (took me a while and many sleepless nights and the police telling me to stop calling to realize that racoons in heat sound like a 5 year old being murdered). So with this said, I wasn't really alarmed with the sound, but I did find it odd, because, well, it was coming from the vent and it was, well, random. Not like a 'squeak squeak' or a 'ting ting' but rather like a um...'scratch rattle bump - silence'.

Now I'm not squirmy, nor am I afraid of bugs or pests or most things that could have been stuck in my vent. But I also did not cherish the thought of pulling the ceiling grid and having whatever critter dumb enough to fall in the pipe fall on my head and rearrange my hair in tangled knot of protection. So I did the first thing that came to mind. I called someone else so they could do it instead. And it went like this:

ring ring

Andy: Hey, what's up?

Me: Um, not much. You know that hole in the roof?

Andy: Yeah, the one I've been trying to convince you to let me fix for the past month?

Me: Yeah, that one. Um, there's a um...noise?

Andy: On my way.

click

And that was that. He must of been really keen on fixing that thing because 20 minutes later he was standing under the grid in the bathroom. Only there was nothing to look at other than a lot of cat hair because the noise had stopped. He figured it was just the wind, and I figured whatever was in there had scrambled back up the pipe, and either way it didn't matter. I pulled the grid and almost fell off the toilet in anticipation of the evil squirrel that was undoubtedly just crouching there waiting for the first opportunity to go all ninja on me but nothing happened. The squirrel didn't jump and I didn't fall and I cleaned the grid and the whole thing was really anticlimactic.

But there is a reason I'm writing all this. First because I haven't written in forever and this post has been a draft for over a month and I just had to finish it, and second because there IS more to this story.

Of course, now that Andy was here, he was intent on fixing the hole. Cleaning the grid was just not enough, because that would only allow MORE water onto the bathroom floor. So in the attic we went. Now THAT was fun. And for any of you wondering, no, I did not find the ring in there. Poo for me. We did find the hole, and later fixed it with a nice little cap, but that's a story for another post. What I was really excited to find was this:



This my friends is a 1984 copy (albeit not mint, as you can clearly see) of our local French paper, Le Droit.

There is much to be said about the contents, and I may one day have the patience to photograph and post pictures of the very good deals on the latest 1984 fashions at K-Mart, or the new and exciting electronics on sale at Atlantique Électronique, but this is what really caught my eye:

For those of you who do not speak or read French, this is an ad for a contest the paper is having. Make your Choice is the theme, and all you have to do is fill up the coupon and you might just have your pick at any of the excellent prizes pictured here. I want that Honda Nighthawk 650 cc. I really, really do. But if that's taken, I'll settle for the Doge Charger (1984 model, no less) or that big ass microwave oven in which you can fit not one, but TWO whole turkeys. It might mean a redesign of my kitchen because I currently have no place to fit that, but what the hey, it's free. And I mean a contest that is giving out $28,866 (not 865, not 867, but 866) in prizes is pretty awesome. So that's it, I was entering. Lucky for me, I had until April 19 to submit and I found this on April 12. One whole week (yeah, I told you this had be in draft form for a while).

Now for the tricky test question. This is #4, I can't imagine how hard the other ones must have been. ''Alexander Graham Bell invented...'' a) the VCR b) the telephone or c) the tape recorder. Tough one. I thought it was the space shuttle, so I'm going to take a wild guess and go with b. Hope for the best.

...Only I'm a sucker for small print, and unfortunately, I read it.

They just had to put a year in there, huh? The contest ends on April 19, 1984 and all contest slips have to be in before that date. Damn it. There goes my Charger.

Mind you, I might still submit next year. They might write something about me. And hey, you never know, they might send me a consolation prize. I'm hoping for a beta system. I think my grandfather still has some tapes lying around.