I'm sitting here, listening to the hum of the air conditioner outside my window, on my balcony at University towers and I'm wondering the hell it has to be so damn loud. A better question would be why couldn't they attach it to another outside wall that isn't in the middle of my balcony. I've never felt so bittersweet about a single inanimate object in my life. On the one hand, I adore it because I'm from Chicago and am seriously freaked out by the hellish temperatures and hot wind here. If there was no air conditioning and I had to sit in the heat all day like the bums on the streets, which I've noticed an insane amount of, I'd flip out. Why are there so many bums here?  I don't really know what to do when I pass them because I feel really really bad and want to help, but it's irrational and not possible for me to guive change to each one of them and then there are the questions like what will they do with the money and why aren't they getting off their asses and getting jobs in the first place. I just don't understand why they are so attached to Austin Texas. True, it's an amazing city, much of the reason I am here attending this school. It has music and culture and so many amazing oppurtunities and natural beatuy with two lakes with serene settings and beautiful stars right near by. It just has the worst heat I've ever experienced and I don't see why the bums won't save their change for a bus ticket and go 300 miles north so they don't sweat to death in the heat because they can't buy water and I'm sure that's not what they'd buy if they could buy anything and I really don't understand how their bodies are still living. Which brings me back to my air conditioner which is still humming. It completely ruins the balcony. There is no other place I'd rather sit and have a nice conversation on the phone with my girlfriend at night when it's cooler out or just hang out and smoke and talk with my buddies or some girl I'm trying to hit on than the balcony with an incredible view, but it is completely inhabitable because of this airconditioner and the pigeons and their crap all over it and I sometimes wonder how they fly so high up here because they always look fat and out of shape to me. I think pigeons remind me of chickens or something and that they shouldnt be able to fly. I can't really say why, but it is definitely weird to me that they can make it all the way up here. The Tv's on, we just got digital cable and it's pretty slick except for my dick head roomate is too big of a loser that he can't get any real girls and is forcing us to pay an extra 15 dollars a month for the playboy channel which is completely worthless because all they show is tits and it's soft core. True the girls are prettier, but is it really worth it? I think not. He's a bastard. All he does is sit on the first seat of the couch and flip through the channels all day only to pause on an infomercial and watch that for a half an hour. The kid doesn't move, he's a;ways there and he just sits there and eats food which he has purchased none of and say over and over again no matter what the conversation at hand is,   no man, but it's cool, it's cool.   The only time he's not sitting there bothering me when I bring a girl back late at night and making a fool out of himself and annoying the shit out of us is when he comes back drunk at 3 on a week night and decides he's going to study the one night that I decide to try and get some real sleep. There are 3 rooms in my apartment and he chooses the one with my bed in it, which I am currently occupying and sleeping in order to turn on the lights and sign on the internet and read a book. When I inquired why he was doing this and let him know that I actually was trying to sleep at the time his only respeonse was,   No, it's cool man,   it's cool, I won't keep you up.   As if it's completely normal to sleep with blinding lights on. The time is up and though I wish   I could go on, which I easily could, I'd like to say one last time that my roomate's retarded and so are the bums and thank you for listening, Gentle Creek OUT!