Noise noise noise!

I like living in the city, but one of the downsides is the noise. The first night in our current house we heard drunk people arguing at 3:00 AM in our front yard. There are cars, motorcycles, annoying motorized scooters. Police sirens. Firetrucks. Trains. We hear construction sounds frequently and garbage trucks. And loud stoner parties. Mariachi music blasted from a neighboring garage all day. And airplanes!

I find myself extremely frustrated when one of these sounds, particularly a semi truck or an ice cream truck wakes up my one year old prematurely from a nap. Her room is at the back of the house and the windows are closed. We have what we call the "sound machine" that buffers outside intrusions with the constant melody of waves on a beach. Still, not enough.

When I went to Wisconsin this month I was struck at how quiet real quiet can be. It was initially unnerving, but then was darn relaxing.

It could be worse. I could live in New York. Or Cairo or Mexico City or Bombay, etc, etc.

Here's a short video on the noise of New York City from Salon.com:

Random Rant: Gas stations

This ain't a new thing, but it increasingly ticks me off. Why oh why do gas stations have to blare annoying radio music while I spend 90 seconds pumping gas? It's not like I'm going to be able to even listen to one complete song--on the off chance there is a song that I actually enjoy.

With rare exceptions, I've found that these gas stations:

1. Play music at 90-plus decibels
   
2. Have incredibly poor reception
3. Are at a commercial break about half the time you're there
4. Play top contemporary country hits

Having to listen to loud, whiny contemporary country with reception going in and out, interspersed with commercial breaks for crappy, American trucks would be my personal hell. This isn't probably true for everyone, but I can't be alone, can I?

I've become more sensitive to this as I've had to deal with having a sleeping baby in the backseat as I pump gas. I swear, even before parenthood I was pretty peeved with my gas pumping radio encounters. I don't go to stations that I know blast nasty music. It's my only real requirement when choosing where to go.

I've been to one station in St. Paul, that has video screens with commercials and short weather/newscasts from a local station. Methinks this is the wave of the future. Sigh...

Soon, there will be no escape from the constant onslaught of unwelcome auditory and visual stimuli. And this complaint is from someone who has attention deficit disorder who normally needs some level of external stimuli. If I'm being driven batty, things are really out of control!