Bianca at Kiwi was nice enough to let me know that they’d send another mind teaser cube (better packaged this time), my CD, plus a little something extra for being patient. This is nice to know. I’d hate to have had nearly 15,000 points wasted.

As for our eBay plans, we’re going to list everything we think could possibly sell on eBay towards the end of next week after he’s had a chance to go through the crap in the shed. We agree that calling stores about the Tonners probably wouldn’t be a good idea with the economy being the way it is, so we’re going to list them as basics or nudes and then maybe list the outfits separately in case the outfits are the reason Tyler and Angelina didn’t sell.

I still worry that whatever’s up there that doesn’t want us having extra money isn’t going to let this new Tonner plan succeed, but we’ll see. The Apple keyboard sold for more than we expected. We expected $20, not $42. It’s on its way to D.C.

We have a new plan for the dogs, too. All was nice and peaceful till he zoomed out around 2:00, then sure enough, they barked in spurts till he came back. I don’t know exactly when that was since I crashed before he returned, but it couldn’t have been before 4:00.

I’m thinking it’s the puppy grown up to be no good, so to speak. When we first got here, one of the dogs was just a puppy. The last tenant’s shit probably prompted him to get another dog for security purposes. They didn’t just steal his motorcycle, they broke into his house and stole his gun.

Different dogs have different personalities, of course, and some bark more than others. Sure enough, and just as our shit luck would have it, the puppy obviously turned out to be quite a barker as clearly one of them is way worse than the other, and this didn’t start till a few months ago. So no, it’s not a case of which vehicle he leaves in. All he has to do is just leave, period, and off they go.

It used to be that one of those devices that emits a high-pitched sound that annoys dogs when they bark and shuts them up could only be used if there was nothing between you and the dogs. It had to be a straight shot with no trees or hills in the way. And you had to run outside with the remote every time they started barking to work the device manually.

Yesterday, however, Tom found a device that you mount outdoors, and as long as you’re within a certain distance, it doesn’t matter what’s in the way. As long as the device can hear the barking, the dogs can hear the frequency being put out. And you no longer need to run outside to operate it because now it has an automatic setting.

I thought we’d be too far and that the dogs were around 250’ away but when Tom checked, it looks more like it’s 150’ away. No wonder the fucking things are so obnoxious! At least to me, they are anyway. Tom’s more used to it having grown up in the west where it’s customary to throw your dogs outside 24/7. You really have to get up into the 400s footage-wise, if you’re like me, for it not to be so annoying.

The catch is that it’s $80 and it could be months before we have extra money. At first I insisted that Jesse should be the one to pay for it. After all, it’s his dogs we’re disciplining. But that’s just the problem. He wouldn’t want them disciplined. Remember? Their job is to protect the place (even though the likelihood of anyone coming by with bad intentions is next to nil) and to hell with anyone who may have to be stuck having to deal with all the racket.

So as long as whatever’s been cursing me with barking since 1992 doesn’t interfere, this looks pretty promising. We’d just have to keep it a secret and foot the expense ourselves. It may be worth it, though, in case we ever do decide to get our own dog someday. And we just might if all the rats in this state are going to suck. Also, if we get through this economy shit somehow, this isn’t the last place we’ll ever live where barking is an issue. Even if we end up in a retirement community, it’d be just our luck to end up next to someone who leaves their dogs outdoors at least a few hours each day like that nut at the duplex did, and I’m sure the front runners of the community wouldn’t do much about it other than maybe mention it to them. What could they do? Demand that they sell their house and get the hell out if they won’t get rid of the dog? All a retirement community would do would be to give us the convenience of city life without most of the city noise. We’d have regular trash and mail service and hopefully a place that was bigger and more modern. But car stereos and wild kids shouldn’t be an issue, and I would doubt they’d leave dogs outdoors around the clock. Car doors might be a bit annoying, depending on how often they have company.