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Trash Can Watch 2005 was a success!!

The mystery is solved.

Sort of.

The camera caught this kindly old fella moving my can.

Arlo and I both recognize the culprit. He’s “that old guy” we see walking around a lot. He’s friendly but we’ve never exchanged more than a hello.

So now we know who, but we still don’t know why.

I went out into the yard to see if any other cans on the block had been moved, but as usual, it’s just mine.

Here are two views from my driveway.

To the left
Note how both of the cans in view are still in the street.

And to the right.
That’s my can on the grass, but the two houses past mine have cans in the street.

I have to admit, I’m even more puzzled than before.

What gives, trashcan-movin’ old guy???

It’s on.

Trash Can Watch 2005, week two.

I rolled out of bed at 6:45am and fired up the cam.

Latest Konfabulator Widget can be downloaded here, but it still may have some problems for some people. If it’s not updating, try going into the Preferences and UNCHECKING Use Safe Images Only. If all else fails, use the web page.

I woke up with a horrible sore throat and it’s waaaay too early for me, so I may go back to sleep. Let me know if you see anything happen, will you?

Tomorrow is trash day. Trash Can Watch 2005 will be in full swing again, and the cam will be on.

Don’t miss it. It’s sure to be exciting.

Or not.

We’ll see.

I had a bizarre dream last night that involved Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Stephen Sondheim.

We were all at a party. I don’t remember much else, except Sondheim wanted me to go with him to pick up something and bring it back to the party. Some sheet music, I think.

Odd.

Anyway, I started thinking about how the dream would have been even better if there were a few more Steves there.

Like Steve Martin, dreamy comedian and banjo player. And Steve Guttenberg, star of the Police Academy movies. Or maybe Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man

The possibilities are endless.

Every Wednesday is trash day. Plus, every other Wednesday we also put out our recycling trash can and our yard clippings trash can.

We are supposed to put the cans in the street, against the curb.

Each Wednesday, sometime shortly after the trash is picked up, someone moves the trash can onto our lawn. Not onto the sidewalk, no, they put it all the way onto our grass. What the hell?

Here’s what it looked like last week. Sometimes it’s even closer to the house, in the middle of the lawn.

If it’s a recycling/yard clippings day, they move the regular trash can into the yard, but not the other two cans. Those they leave in the street.

It’s bizarre. Truly. It doesn’t seem to be the trash collectors, because one guy puts the can on the automated thingy on the truck, the truck lifts it, and then the guy puts it right back where it was. And the mysterious trash can mover doesn’t move anyone else’s trash can. All the neighbors on either side still have their cans in the street, and yet ours ends up sitting on our lawn.

Is someone trying to be helpful? If so, how is that helping? I just don’t get it. The whole thing is just odd.

So this week I set up a webcam.

Trash Can Watch ‘05

Arlo wrote a special Trash Can Widget for Konfabulator for the occasion.

I even convinced a huge group of people on an internet forum I frequent to watch with me for hours.

Nothing happened.

The recycling guys came and went. The regular trash guys came and went, leaving the can in the street. The mailman came and went. Joggers. People with strollers. Nothin’.

There was a flurry of excitement when the gardener from next door made a surprise appearance in the bushes.

Oh, and a DHL truck stopped outside the house, but didn’t deliver anything.

I’m trying again next week.

For the last few years, I’ve been intrigued by the growing popularity of Boba Tea. Or Bubble Tea. Or Milk Pearl Tea. You know, the festive drinks with tapioca blobs.

Now, I have a hard enough time with thick pulpy juices, like the Odwalla Superfood and Mo’ Beta smoothie juice
things that Arlo loves. Seriously, they make me gag…partly because of the weird thick fuzzy texture and partly because of the story of his experience a while back with a Mo Beta that seemed to have “extra bits of juicy peach” which instead turned out to be slugs. Yes, slugs.

Slugs.

Anyway, I don’t like drinks with stuff in them, and yet the allure of the bubble tea was finally too much to resist. The stores are everywhere! It must be good, right? Yesterday we ate lunch at a restaurant directly across from Tapioca Express, one of the many many pearl tea places in town. I was facing the window and I watched the continuous stream of happy customers, exiting with their colorful cups and oversized straws. After lunch I decided it was time to try it.

I moseyed up to the counter and ordered a Peach Milk Tea. “Do you want pearls?”, the counter girl asked. “Yes!”, I said, excitedly, and she ladled a scoop of what looked like big black fish eggs into a cup.

She added some other stuff out of various pumps and then used a cool machine to seal a foil lid onto the cup. She shook it all up, handed me a giant straw and sent me on my way.

Oh my god, the horror.

I’ve never been so repulsed by a food texture, and yet strangely intrigued at the same time.

The big straw was fun. Mmmm…suck up some interesting sweet creamy peach tea - tasty, a bit too sweet, but tasty - but then…

THWOMP!

I had sucked up the first blob. Hmmm.

Chewy.

THWOMP! THWOMP! THWOMP!

It took me a full minute to chew through those.

It was at this point that horror won out over intrigue, and I was done.

Goodbye, Bubble Tea. I wanted to like you, I really did, but it’s just not going to work out between us.