So we received  a notice week before last that S & N Contractors would be here “upgrading” the fiber optic network in Henrico County.  It was a notice, not a request.  They said they’d be digging on county easement that was “on or off private property.”  I thought for sure that couldn’t mean that they would be digging in my yard.  Wrong.  As it turns out, any private property within 8-10 inches of a county road is considered “easement” property – meaning that the county can come dig up your darn yard any old time they want to.  So they’ve dug three large holes in my front yard (and to be fair, the front yards of my neighbors) in order to “upgrade” this fiber optic network.  I’m all about improving technology, but come on, guys.

Somebody asked us, “Well, are you getting Verizon Fios?”  Thing is, we already have it.  It’s been working just fine.  So I need to be patient and understanding that with this new, “upgraded” fiber optic network things will be better for more people.  That’s great.

But here’s the thing, Folks.  I work from home.  I am in graduate school.  My office (on the front of the house, facing the front yard) is my high-productivity place of awesomeness.  So how am I supposed to be awesome with this going on outside my house?

And this is the infernal noise it makes.

Dreadful.  As a result, I’m unable to get any reading or writing done.  And yes, I did try going to a different part of the house.  No better.  The dining room is on the same level as the noisy drill, and the family room is underground, so the whole room is shaking like a dog pooping razor blades.   I hope it doesn’t hurt the large TV.

So, since I luckily have some work to do that does not require my whole brain, I’m submitting articles (and of course one of the article submission sites is being an utter pain in the patookis) and watching horror movies on my office DVD player.  The kitty is hanging right in here with me, curled up in the circle chair in my office.

I started with the original Halloween, which is (as far as I’m concerned) one of the most awesome horror movies of all time.  It has the right amount of terror, a strong heroine, and a horrifying bad guy.  Halloween II was next, which gives us a little background on Michael Myers, and shows us that he is, in fact, invincible and evil.  Invincibly evil.  Evilly invincible.  Is fantastic.  My favorite parts are when Laurie’s wanna-be boyfriend finds the nurse that Michael Myers had drained all the blood out of, and he totally does a slapstick-type slip up and lands flat on his back in all the blood, and when Michael gets shot in the head and the blood runs into his eyes, making it so that he can’t see and therefore just swipes blindly at Dr. Loomis with the knife.  I know.  I’m a weirdo.

I skipped Halloween III, because it’s completely unrelated, and I don’t have IV, V, or VI, so I skipped straight to Halloween H20:  20 Years Later, because it pretends that those other ones never happened, either.

I haven’t seen the Rob Zombie remakes.  If someone wants to send them to me for free I’ll review them.  Otherwise I have to wait until they cost less than $20 each.  My horror budget is depleted.  I also bought Nightmare on Elm Street I, II, III, and IV all in the same little package.  I don’t like those as much as the Halloween movies, but the third one is quite fun.

More about that later.  Back to the work I can accomplish with this infuriating noise going on, and when they finally stop maybe I can get some copy written and some schoolwork done.  Or, I might have beat my head against the wall until I’m blissfully unconscious by then.