Fire works.

Jesus. You can READ by it, for crying out loud. When the hell are they going to run out of bottle rockets? Where the hell are the cops? Oh, right ... we're off the books. Never mind.

Another late night here at the previously abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in upstate New York, our adopted squathouse of longstanding and that of a pack of crazy people with a fondness for pyrotechnic displays. Our upstairs neighbors appear to be celebrating some obscure personal holiday this week, marking the occasion with obscene displays of fireworks over the mill every night and raucous drinking, dancing, fist-fights, etc., in the afternoons. At least they're quiet for a few hours in the morning, when they are apparently sleeping off the previous night's bender, but that's short-lived. And here we are again, at 2 in the morning, blinded by the rockets' red glare, deafened by bombs bursting in air. (And strangely, the flag was still there ... their family flag, with some strange runic symbols on it. Very creepy.)

Actually, our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee has a plan to oust the new squatters. He's starting to get annoyed, and that's never a good thing with Mitch. We've been asking him to formulate something ... anything that might, I don't know, calm them down or something, make them civilized. For weeks, he kept giving us the same old bromide about it being far easier for us as civilized men to behave like savages than it was for them as savages to behave like civilized men. (Mitch gets philosophical at times, but only to the extent that it may be expressed in terms of Star Trek dialogue.) Then they dropped a cherry bomb into his bedroom, and sophistry was out the window.



I think it's fair to point out at this juncture that Mitch has a lot of tricks up his sleeve. Granted, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was one of those tricks, and as such, is not terribly impressive by automaton standards. Still, this is a guy who can make whole continents disappear. Not real good at making them come back again, but then half a loaf is better than no bread at all. We are encouraging him not to go too, too far. Most of what he's suggested thus far is fire-related: atomic flame throwers, combustible gases, etc. He has taken up residence on the second floor, in the room right under their master bedroom, so .... if there are any vacancies at the mill in the next week or so, we'll let you know.