Norwood

I returned to The Commonwealth this weekend. What would posses me to drive 380 miles each way, back and forth a week before spring break? And what would posses me to leave CNY when Turning Stone has a tournament weekend?

Well, it's my mother's birthday today. And my brother went to basic training on Wednesday. He's going into Military Intelligence for the Army as a linguist...or so he says. I mean, if he really were going to become some sort of Intel operative, changing Central American governments, rigging elections in Southeast Asia, and hiring terrorists as contract agents; what more perfect cover would there be as a guy supposedly translating Arabic?

So anyway, my mother has never had a birthday during which one member of the family wasn't around. When my brother was at college, I was at home. When he was at home, I was at college. so I thought it'd be nice.

I got her The Departed, which she hasn't seen yet. She asked for the full screen version. I prefer wide-screen, but full-screen does kind of seem like you're not using your entire television.

I haven't been home since early January. The weather is fucking nice. It's 58 degrees and sunny. I understand that it is nice in Ithaca, weather.com says it is 41 degrees out. That is nice for Ithaca. But my weather is better right now.

I forgot how many Dunkin Donuts there are around here. I went to Best Buy earlier today. I passed by one near Park Place. About a mile down the road, I passed another one attached to a Citgo. Then there's one by the East Street bridge about 2 miles up Route 1. Then another mile and a half down the road is another one. Then across from Best Buy is another one. Best Buy is just under 7 miles from my house, and I passed by 4.

Because I'm bored, I went to Dunkin Donuts web-site and did a little legitimate research with their store calculator. There are 15 Dunkin Donuts locations within a 5 mile radius of my house. There are well over 30 within 10 miles. There are 7 locations in Norwood alone. That's about one location for every 4,000 people. That's a good Dunkin Donuts to people ratio.

I was smoking a cigarette on my front porch, and heard singing. My neighborhood's pretty quiet, very suburban, very little out of the ordinary goes on outdoors. About the only oddity is that my neighbors across the street have a bit of a quasi-farm. They have chickens, a rooster, lots of dogs, a few horses, and a donkey. The donkey is extremely loud at times. So anyway, I hear singing coming from down the street. But it doesn't sound like English. Then I see this guy, about my age, walking down the street, singing the refrain of "Du Hast" by Rammstein. Willst du bis zum tod der scheide, Sie lieben auch in schlechten tagen...Nein! I noticed he was wearing the white headphones of an iPod, and I figured once he realized I was standing on my porch, he'd probably quiet up. Nope. He kept signing. And he wasn't even singing the entire refrain, just those two lines from it. It was Ithaca weird, but in Norwood.

Last night, the drivers on 128 were an embarrassment to Massachusetts drivers. They'd tailgate, OK so far, then pass, doing fine, then slow down in the middle of a pass! I was doing 67 on 128, a decent clip, but hardly deserving of the fast lane, and these fuckers to the side of me would pull up, then go the same fucking speed as me. Then I'd have to manoeuvre like the Red Baron on speed to get around slower traffic, using 4 lanes when there were 3, using all the driving skills in my arsenal. Really, fucking shameful that these guys had Massachusetts plates on their cars.