the power...
No one thought to bury any power lines in Los Angeles, and they're tangle is everywhere all over the place. A bit to the south of us, down in Torrence or something, there's some some sort of industrial facility and the skeins of wire that reach out from it in every direction, together with their attendant towers, completely blight the landscape in a very depressing fashion. We don't have it that bad here, but with a glance out of my window here I can count 17 different lines attached to the two poles closest to our house, and an indeterminate number (it's dark out) strung along the next cross-street down. And on the corner it's even worse.
Not that I have anything against these sorts of lines (unlike the high-tension ones in Torrence): they have a certain interesting beauty to them, and they do give the birds somewhere to hang out. What I do object to is the noise the wires seem to be making lately. I say lately, though I don't know if they've always done it; but it does seem that it's getting worse. It's a sort of a crackling buzz, that you don't notice at first but once it gets a toehold in your awareness it soon expands its presence to a suprising degree, and drives you completely to distraction. Thats what I object to. Fortunately the freeway is so loud (amazingly loud, indeed) that it provides some competition, so I'm not insane yet. No more than usual anyways.