Copping out

Was bored and channel surfing and ended up watching an episode of Cops. Caught 2 main incidents that involved the police in the US of A, and was rather concerned about them.

In the first, a wife had to call in the police after her estranged husband turned up at her place to harass her. There was nothing to aid in his case, as he was loud, rude, very angry and seemed a little slow on the uptake (could be alcohol impairment). However, as loud as he was, he did do as the police officers said, as they had asked him: "do you want to walk away or spend the night in jail?" As he was walking away, the police arrested him, which i thought was a strange time to do so, since they had plenty of opportunity to do so earlier. Not sure why the change in mind, but it seemed like an odd time to do so (television program editing did not help). Funny thing the guy did was after he was arrested and cuffed, he started banging his head on the bonnet of the policecar, saying "why are you hitting me?"

The second incident was more disturbing for me. Basically a bunch of detectives in New Orleans left a bicycle in plain view, unlocked, on a street corner (in front of a church i think). The bike itself belonged to one of the detectives and looked pretty new. I had thought that entrapment was not allowed in the states. The amusing things that the detectives said when questioning the various suspects included "so who gave you permission to touch the bike?", which just reminded me of primary school mentality.

Still, watching the program reminded me of the various procedures that are required (on the part of the police) when trying to detain or arrest a suspect. =)

car troubles...

So after a long period of repair due to my accident, i was told to pick up my car yesterday. Happy days! Or not.....because driving home from the workshop, i stopped at a traffic light at Fort Road and found that the duologic gearbox was stuck in 4th and wouldn't shift down. Tried switching between "manual" and "auto" modes but it just wouldn't budge. In the end i tried restarting the engine, but it would have none of that as well. Had to call the workshop for a tow back as well as let WW know that she'd had to find her own way home (was gonna pick her up). Bugger!

Overall the repair job looks done well and i'm amazed they managed to make everything look decent. However, i noticed that my seating position, steering wheel and mirror adjustments have all been altered which means someone had been driving it, and probably screwing up the logic in the gearbox. It is a finicky gearbox, granted, that was why i took care of it, but i guess those guys managed to mess it up for me in a short stint. Gargh.

music and more

Quite a few things to say about this actually, 'cos we are a musically inclined family. We both play the piano and WW sings as well (i just croak, according to my music teacher lol) and our combined CD collection is the envy of many, although it will be our offspring who inherits this (although CDs will be out of date by whatever time). Actually, we are hoping that she inherits more than just our CD collection and it has been evident lately that she is quite particular about her music.

We were watching Happy Feet one day while she was just lying quietly nearby, and we noticed that she was thumping her feet to the music during the scene when Mumble Happyfeet was leading the penguin mass dance. =)

She is also quite picky about her music as there are certain types of music where she will frown and show her disapproval, then there are others where she'd listen and then fall asleep. So far, she does not like jazz (i assume because of the dissonant chords) but loves pop music. So she'd frown at Michel Camilo, but falls asleep listening to the Eagles. Only exception is Eliane Elias, whom she just listens quietly (yes!) and lately i've been informed that she likes Dave Koz as well. =)

I think the spookiest moment for me was when she started singing along (wordlessly, of course) to one of our recordings we did at Sacred Heart. Could not imagine that she really has a sense of timing and is applying it by using her voice, and she's not even 3 months old?!

Speaking of Sacred Heart, this coming Sunday is going to be a day of music as i have to play for 2 masses and canteen duty at the same time.