My apartment manager is non-existent. There's a house up front with a Korean family who are there about 40% of the time, and three units in back; I'm in one of them.

I located the owner of the apartment with the freakin' Chihuahua and called his phone number every time the dog was barking late at night. It was just an office messge machine, but he got the message. Then he called to tell me he couldn't control things and I had to talk with Animal Control.

I just previewed the Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA and he's the first person I've seen who really knows how to draw and depict the full evilness of chihuahuas.

As for the neighbors next door with the pit bull, the little I've seen of them, they've just scowled at me. Something about them being black and my girfriend (not me) being black seems not to sit well with them. Hey, this is not a politically correct forum -- we need to speak the truth here. So anyway, I doubt I'll get a welcome or an understanding hearing at their front door.

Thanks for the gallows humor regarding extermination, but I'd never do that. At 3:00 AM, or when I'm in the office for three hours listening to barking, it does briefly fly through my imagination, though.