I want a clean me

I logged on to the City of Woburn’s website yesterday to pay the excise tax on Super Lumina, and was greeted with this cheery bit of news:

Boil Water Notice Issued for Woburn:

The public is advised to boil all water for drinking, food preparation, ice, brushing teeth, etc.

It seems that one of the city’s water storage tanks was showing high levels of E.coli bacteria. Typical. Just when the comments about Woburn’s water had started to taper off (after 25 years), the supply gets contaminated by a germ associated with human feces. I wish I had read the message before I brushed my teeth yesterday morning.

Fortunately, it wasn’t a case of someone taking “Water and Sewer” too literally, but that some animal remains had ended up in the water inside the tank. While I was relieved that I had only rinsed my mouth out with carcass broth and not fecal stew, it does raise nagging questions about what an animal was doing inside the storage tank in the first place. My first thought was that the city had set up a secret catfish farm in the public water supply as a means of offsetting budget overruns, but the real reason turned out to be that “portions of the tank’s roof and fencing were compromised by wear and tear.”

It’s nice to know I live in a city where preventative maintenance concerning a basic essential service is given such a high priority.

The Standells – Dirty Water (from Dirty Water, 1966) – Just swap out “Charles” for “Aberjona,” “Boston” for “Woburn,” and “muggers” for “Juggalos,” and you’re good to go. I still think The Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner" is the definitive song for this region, though.

Throwing Muses – Soap and Water (from The Fat Skier EP, 1987) – On the way home from work last night, my wife and I stopped at a supermarket the next town over to pick up some bottled water for the pets and ourselves to use until this idiocy blows over. The shelves were nearly bare, and there were a bunch of folks loading up shopping carts with jugs and bottles of Dasani and Poland Springs. My wife asked “Let me guess, you’re from Woburn, right?” and got several weary nods in response.

Human League – Being Boiled (Fast Version) (from the remastered edition of Reproduction, 1979) – The biggest problem about this whole experience has been making sure our rather large extended family of pets doesn’t get exposed to contaminated water. My wife spent yesterday afternoon boiling their various water dishes and bottles to kill any potential bacteria. It’s a time consuming process, and no amount of gorgeously bleak synth music (such as this lovely track) can make it less arduous.

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I was checking the site’s logs today, and I noticed a couple of referrals from a place that provides a searchable database of hotlinked music files from various mp3 blogs while trying to sell an overpriced “membership” to store said files for people. I certainly didn’t give this place permission to profit from leeching my bandwidth, which is paid for out of my own pocket. Armagideon Time is about love, not money.

Music blogs have an uneasy enough relationship with the powers that be. They are grudgingly tolerated because of their relatively limited reach and their willingness to act as unpaid publicists for labels and artists. Sites like the one I mentioned above are trying to make a quick a buck off by exploiting mp3 bloggers, and are going to be what ends up killing the scene.

The immediate problem, though, was easy enough to resolve with a little .htaccess magic courteously provided by the very wise, very helpful Dave Lartigue.