August 5th, 2022:

It's been a busy couple of days.  I was finally able to mow the lawn last 
night, it had finally dried out enough after nearly two weeks of rain.  
I'm always a bit leery of mowing a wet lawn with an electric lawnmower...

The lawn's not perfect, but it's enough to fulfil the unspoken Suburbanite 
Social Contract:  "Keep grass length 2" or less, keep election signs the 
proper blue colour[1], and report all unauthorized poor people to the 
authorities for proper disposal[2]".

OK, it's not *that* bad, but certain (older) people in my neighbourhood 
tend to scrutinize everyone else's yards, behaviours, etc, with little 
regard for their own.  We've had the City called on us a few times for 
supposed by-law infractions (most of which were determined to be 
baseless), as have my neighbours in our duplex.  It's usually reported 
anonymously, but we suspect we know who it is... an old busybody, and her 
husband who is one of those "a man's lawn is an extension of his SOUL!" 
types who is out mowing or weeding his lawn daily, even in the rain.

Both my neighbour and I have attempted dialogue with them (sometimes as a 
team), but to no avail.  Since we have no *real* proof other than strong 
hints and half-overheard comments made about us, we're unable to have them 
charged with harassment.  So, we're waiting for them to finally piss off 
the city by-law enforcement officers with these baseless complaints.  
We've recently welcomed a family from southeast Asia to the neighbourhood 
(about time we got some diversity!), and I'm worried they'll be unfairly 
scrutinized by this couple.  Suppose all we can do is look out for our new 
neighbours...

In other news, I've updated my iBook G4 to MorphOS 3.17.  The wireless 
card still won't connect to our ISP-supplied cable modem, and I haven't 
gotten around to implementing a workaround.  It's on my to-do list, will 
get to it when I get to it.

I've upgraded to the latest versions of AmiSSL, AmiGemini, and Wayfarer, 
and am looking forward to using the iBook as my main interface to the 
smolnet.  I need to find a different newsreader, though - Newscoaster was 
great on an actual 68K Amiga, but it doesn't work correctly in MorphOS.  
Keeps crashing, newsgroup names keep getting corrupted, the tearoffs don't 
work... and so on.  Will hit MorphOS-Storage and/or AMinet to see what 
else might work better.

Duty calls, gotta run.

  

[1] Refers to the Conservative Party of Canada, whose trade dress is blue.  
We live in a predominantly Conservative area, to our perpetual annoyance.  
It ain't easy being Green.

[2] Our city has experienced an explosion in the homeless population over 
the past two years, and *gasp* they've popped up in the forested areas 
near the affluent sections of our community.  Police are always seen 
"clearing them out".  See [1] above.