The Wilhelm.

Apparently every Lucasfilm action movie contains a stock sound effect of a man screaming known as the Wilhelm. It's apparently in the LotR movies, too, but dates back to 1950s Westerns.

Crash

My dad sounded panicky about my plans to drive to -- or, rather, back from -- a party tonight. I note that the invitation noted people could sleep there if they were worried about badCrazy motorists. It didn't occur to me to worry, but it rarely does. Well, we'll see what happens.

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Tangentially, Sunday's hit-and-run (which, indeed, did not seem to damage the gas tank or anything else so obvious that I would have noticed it on my three-hour drive back home) has made me and, a little surprisingly, my parents more cynical about life in the ol' Kennebec Valley. We agreed it was most likely that the hitter/runner was probably yet another dirt-poor slob unable to afford insurance, which makes up a significant chunk of the local population.

This got my mom talking about how the landlord life isn't what they thought it would be. Their tenants are all unemployed, middle-aged social stragglers who can barely scrape together the few hundred dollars of rent per month, and my parents dread having to soon raise their rent $30 to cover increased costs. When they bought the house a few years ago, they predicted that Waterville/Fairfield was due for a influx of new business and young, moneyed people, but this has largely failed to occur. They sound very tired, and disappointed. So when my car got punched, they let some of their recent cynicism about the area show. I suppose that I figured they were still as optimistic and idealistic as they were when I left, so it came as a worrying surprise to me.