The Phactor tries to keep an open mind. New neighbors just moved in across the street so enough of the neighborhood must have thought them OK to have gotten through the rigorous screening process. All the best neighborhoods have them. But the large blue garden gazing ball that they are obviously proud of, because why else would it be in their front yard, does give one pause. Now blue gazing balls are not quite in the same category with ceramic ducks, a goose with clothes, or pink flamingos, but it is a GARDEN gazing ball and just does not belong in the front yard. It's just like clothes lines; they are fine in their place. So its tastefulness, or lack thereof, does deal with place. Things that are just plain tacky, can, if properly placed, transform from kitsch to funky. This topic was brought up with dining friends and the funkiest of them mentioned his neighbors bowling ball lawn sculpture! Things could be worse. Your opinions are sought.
AI is crying out for regulation, while virologists doing gain-of-function research take the opposite tack. Why?
1 week ago in Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
7 comments:
Looks kinda creepy, are you sure it's not a camera? :)
Gazing balls and orbs haven't been "in style" since before I was born.
"Your opinions are sought."
Well, since you asked, 2 things:
1) Your neighbors are crazy. Not that there's anything wrong with that; in fact they may well be quite nice. But they are crazy, and you should keep that in the back of your mind over the years ahead...
2) Something like that in the front yard is a cry for affirmation: they want you to mention it. You have 2 choices. If you don't mention/affirm/compliment it, they'll be very mildly slighted, which could come back to bite you years from now when you need their support/ approval on some neighborhood issue and they react with long-simmering passive-aggression. On the plus side, you don't have to listen to some long-winded mumbo-jumbo about it's significance/meaning/etc.
If, on the other hand, you acknowledge/compliment it, while you may be subject to a painful hour or so of self-congratulatory mumbo-jumbo, you'll leave with a small credit of long-to-be- remembered good will, which may some day pay you back in spades.
OK, Watcher, now you are scaring the Phactor.
It could indeed be much worse.
Seen up the street: brightly colored TOILET (painted yellow and purple, with pink flowers). Paired with sign: "FLUSH OUT HUNGER". I can only assume this is for a charity, similar to the folks who stick pink flamingos in your yard while you aren't looking, and you "pay" to have them removed... :P
.............and who says you can't have a gazing ball in your front yard? So they have the "garden" out front, maybe they're going to plant flowers around it, you never know.
I'd rather have a gazing ball than a garishly painted toilet, charity or no..... ;)
Putting aside the fact that "Flush out hunger" really doesn't make any sense (what, they want to scare it out of the underbrush?) things could be worse. It could be a gazing toilet.
get over it. it's a free country.
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