Resident Forms Neighborhood Watch Group to Protect Neighborhood He's Destroying

Editor,

I was beginning to think that you had finally come to your senses and decided to stop droning on about the supposed negative effects of bagpipes, but I see that you decided to squeeze yet another anti-bagpipe rant into yesterday's edition. I don't want to get into an argument about the advantages and disadvantages of bagpipe automation; indeed, the very real threat to the livelihood of human bagpipers must be weighed against the enormous promise of modern mechanized production that could bring bagpipe music to every corner of the globe with such efficiency that it will be too cheap to meter.

No, I am writing today about the new neighborhood watch group I've formed in response to a problem we've had with people walking their dogs there and not collecting the unwanted deposits that their pets leave in our yards. In particular, many of my neighbors have reported glimpsing a grey-haired fellow who walks his little white dog down our street every day around 5 a.m., and has never been seen to pick up after it.

Whenever a member of the neighborhood watch group spots a dog owner failing to scoop up the dog's leavings, he or she will make a loud noise somewhere within earshot of the neighbors, who will then rush out with their cameras and cell phones, all of which I have pre-programmed to dial 9-1-1 simply by pressing the "Menu," pressing the up-arrow button three times until "SPEED DIAL" appears in the display, pressing "OK," pressing the down-arrow button four times until "9-1-1" appears, then pressing "OK."

Of course, the key to the entire scheme is equipping everyone with a device capable of making enough noise to rouse the entire neighborhood out of bed at 5 a.m., yet one that is melodious and pleasing enough to put everyone in a fine crime-fighting mood. Fortunately, I found something that fits the bill perfectly. I have issued one to each of my neighbors, and we've been practicing our neighborhood watch alert call in the nearest park early every Saturday morning.



Roy Avery

Editor's Comments:

The Alameda Daily Noose and I simply cannot condone this barbaric vigilantism; we only condone barbaric vigilantism against people we really don't like. This Roy Avery character has a lot to learn about dog ownership. He should try taking an energetic noose hound for a walk at 5 a.m. sometime and see if he feels like cleaning up after the little fellow every single time, even when he's absolutely positive that nobody's looking. The Alameda Daily Noose and I feel a lot more sympathy for the poor dog owner in this case, whoever he may be…especially when the alert signal itself is far, far worse than the supposed crime.

Reader Connects Dots to Reveal Deadly Triangle

Editor,

I have noticed your publication has been not necessarily obsessed with, but rather focused on Squirrels and Robots of late, with nary a mention of the ever-present threat posed by Bagpipes. Right-thinking Alamedans around the world thank you for your pioneering work on the link between Robots and Squirrels, as well as your earlier reportage on the complex relationship between Squirrels and Bagpipes. However, it appears that you have overlooked the crucial third side of this Sciurine-Scotian-Robotic Triangle of Death: the Bagpipe-Robot connection!



A vacationing friend of mine used his "Eye Phone" to shoot this shocking footage on the streets of another city that, thank God, is not Alameda…yet. It's all too clear that Robot Bagpipers are capable of unleashing sonic mayhem at speeds and volumes no human—or even Scotsman—could produce. Don't let our Evil Robot Mayor's apparent change of heart on the Secret Robot Base issue fool you. Just imagine what havoc her leagues of Robot minions could wreak upon our Treasured Isle if they were retrofitted with these fearsome mechanical Bagpipes!

Drake Census

This Just In! Reader's Property Values Under Attack

Roger,

As the month of October has gone on, I have noticed gradually that the homes in my neighborhood are growing more and more dilapidated, and my neighbors are becoming less respectful of our fair city. As I drive around my street and the nearby streets I see the same thing everywhere. It's as if nobody cares about how their house looks anymore, and everything is going to pot. And what irks me is that this means that it's sending my property values down, down, down!

Let me tell you some examples of what I have seen around town:

• People are leaving uneaten food, like whole squashes and pumpkins, around on their porches. Please people, if you have harvested something from your garden, I'm proud of you, but can't you store it in your basement where you are supposed to? Leaving them out front is just asking for vandalism — I see that a lot of neighborhood kids have cleverly drawn, or even cut, faces out of them.
• The spiders (or is that the squirrels?) have been spinning outrageously ugly webs on the bushes in front of many people's houses. I can't blame the owners for that, but at least they would have the common decency to clean up once in a while! A broom works wonders to whisk away cobwebs.
• This is unbelievably morbid, but I am pretty sure that the dead are being buried in people's front yards, of all places! Look, I know the economy is tight, so maybe you cannot afford a fancy funeral and cemetary, but if you grandmother passes away, at least bury her in the back yard so that her final resting place is not visible from the street!
• I've seen a few scarecrows put up here and there. Scarecrows? In the city? Unless somebody has come up with an ingenious way to scare the squirrels away, I really don't see any need for scarecrows, and it just creeps people out. Honestly!
• The windows in many houses are looking just terrible. Sometimes I see that the residents have put up a picture of some frightful creature, or maybe some words like "BEWARE" or "HAUNTED." Why in the world would anybody want to simulate a house that is haunted? There is nothing more that drives property values down than a neighborhood that has an allegedly haunted house.

Are my neighbors just trying to perpetuate some sort of scam, perhaps so they can drive down the property values to a point where I and other right-minded Alamedans, are forced to move out?

Please Roger, I hope you can help us get to the bottom of this nefarious plot to ruin Alameda.

Pleadingly,

James V. Wherdonfield

Green Living by Janet Marchant: Greening Your Halloween IV: This Time, It's Environmental

If you're like me, you're ready and waiting for an exciting night of green trick-or-treating, with recycled costumes for your kids, all-natural decorations, and organic spirulina candies to hand out at your door. But wait! Before you fire up your Halloween jack-o'-lanterns, have you made sure that they are as kind to the planet as they can be? Until recently, when I plugged in my Halloween jack-o'-lanterns, they flickered to life with the white glow of compact fluorescent lights. Of course, when I realized that those light bulbs are made with some kind of dangerous chemical or heavy metal in them (I forget which), I immediately switched to all-natural incandescent bulbs.

Now my rows of festive pumpkins are guaranteed not to leak anything that is dangerous to children. And as an added bonus, they have the warm, orange glow that you can only get by using those incandescent bulbs.

SunCal Opposes SunCal’s Alameda Point Revitalization Initiative

Citing concerns that have emerged since he initially endorsed it, Pat Keliher, vice president operations for SunCal's Northern California operation, announced that SunCal has dropped its support of SunCal's Alameda Point Revitalization Initiative.

"We like our plan for Alameda point, but we're just not convinced that we're giving the City of Alameda a sweet enough deal in our initiative," Keliher stated at a hastily arranged press conference, "and with so many people changing their position from support to opposition lately, frankly, we were beginning to feel a little bit left out."

Keliher added that although he had hoped that the City and SunCal could come to terms before the election, he has realized that the initiative should have been worded more vaguely, to allow the City room to negotiate a risk-free deal that will minimize distasteful developer profits. "I was walking down Park St. and this gentleman from Inaction Alameda…no, that's not right…Save Our Sandwiches! Alameda? No, I think it was Save Our Sock-Puppets! Alameda; no, no, wait, it was the Coalition of Sock-Puppets United In Inaction! Saving Our Sandwiches! for a Better Alameda…or was it What's the Point? Well, anyway, after talking with this guy for five minutes, I agreed to remove my signature from the petition and withdraw my company's support for the initiative, and I can say with 95 percent confidence that everyone else in Alameda would do exactly the same thing. He's very persuasive."

The announcement comes on the heels of a series of high-profile reversals that have left Councilmember Lena Tam alone as the only person in Alameda who does not yet oppose the initiative. However, given that Ms. Tam has been known to stroll down Park St. herself, it is most likely only a matter of time before she is buttonholed by a concerned citizen and convinced of the error of her ways. When that happens, Alameda will finally be left with the perfect plan for Alameda Point, the only plan that will never disappoint anyone: a plan that will never be implemented!

Lon Geddoff Warns of Gigantic Acorns

Editor,

Now, I never read those sorry excuses for "newspapers" that claim to compete with the Alameda Daily Noose, but a piece of one of those worthless things was blowing around the street the other day and plastered itself to the windshield of my car just as I was getting in it. As I peeled the offending paper off my car, these words caught my eye: "…gigantic acorn…."

I knew there must be some mistake, because if there had been any incidents with a gigantic acorn, I would have read about it in the Alameda Daily Noose. Well, I looked more closely at that darned paper, and it turned out it wasn't even from Alameda. It makes no sense, but someone must have brought a newspaper over here from San Francisco, where they printed a letter from someone in a completely different town that is having a problem with gigantic acorns, and consequently with fat Squirrels.

The amazing thing, though, is that this letter writer has discovered that Squirrels control the weather. There's no explanation of how this works, but when Squirrels eat gigantic acorns, they get fat, and that causes a colder winter.

We'd better make sure there aren't any giant acorns growing in Alameda, because our winters are already cold enough! And with global warming, our summers are too hot, and I suppose that Squirrels (maybe extra-skinny Squirrels) are to blame for that, too. The bottom line is that all of our problems are caused by Squirrels, and whether they are increasing in number or just increasing in size, they are clearly working to collectively outweigh us.

Lon Geddoff

Schedule of Classic Movie Playing at the Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates

Following are the schedule and synopsis of this week's classic movie playing at the Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates, 2317 Central Avenue (all times are a.m. except for those shown as p.m.):

Vampires' Couples' Retreat Citizen (R), 11:10, 1:35 p.m., 4:20 p.m., 7:25 p.m., 10:00 p.m.

It's 1941, and newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles, who also directed and co-wrote the script) is dead. The opening shots show Xanadu, Kane's vast, elaborate, now unkempt estate in Florida. Following failed attempts to conceive, Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell) are close to getting a divorce. In an effort to save their marriage, they book a vacation to Xanadu, which they have mistaken for a couples' therapy retreat.

Interspersed with segments of Kane's newsreel obituary are scenes of swimming with sharks and yoga sessions with an amorous instructor Salvadore (Carlos Ponce). Most puzzling are Kane's last moments: clutching an orange, he mutters, "I vaahnt to saahck your blaahd."

A young newspaperman named Darren Shan (Chris Massoglia) digs into Kane's past, seeking the meaning of his enigmatic last words. He meets a mysterious man at a freak show who turns out to be a Vampire. After a series of events, Darren must leave his normal life and go on the road to Xanadu and become a Vampire. Darren meets Jason and Cynthia, and, seeing that they have worked out their problems, frees them from the therapy and tells them to go jet skiing.

Soon Jason and Cynthia return to Darren, informing him with great disappointment that jet skiing will not be invented until 1965. As an apology and consolation, he invites them up to his room for a little drink.