Category: Rant

So in my office today there are 3 or 4 guys from the company that installs all the heating and cooling and security systems here. These are the installation dudes, pulling wires through ceilings, testing amperages, adjusting thermostats, exposing butt cracks and passing needle nose and wire cutters back and forth. Not so different from what I spend some time in my job really. They are making strange noises as they dig around in our ceiling adjusting stuff for the new office they are setting up next door I assume. They are standing where my office mate normally sits (he’s luckily on vacation). It’s a mild distraction except…

Except for their topics of conversation. I guess since I’m the only one in the office and I’m a guy, it’s gloves off for topics. A short sampling – Why their nagging first wives divorced them for having too much material stuff and how they spent that last two years of their marriage in a living hell, with special advice for the youngest of the group who isn’t married yet along the lines of ‘Just give her everything you own now and leave’. Then… Talks about where strip clubs are between here and Boston, whether you can take pictures there … oh and even some not so tongue in cheek talk about a ‘parlor’ in Portsmouth, NH that the youngest should visit sometime, secret address available if he wants it. Then a several minute debate if the ‘golden banana’ is closed in Boston or not (It apparently is closed, according to ‘Pete’ the eldest of the group).

Now the subject has drifted over to where the best place to shoot geese is around here, who owns that cow farm where they always land and will he allow hunting? and whether a crossbow bolt is the same as an arrow in regards to hunting turkey as far as the law goes (apparently it is not). Also, apparently goose meat is very dark and ‘livery’, especially Canadian geese.

I think what interests me the most, like rubber-necking at car accidents, about all this is it’s such a different world than I the sheltered, middle-class, happily married, suburban raised, vegetarian computer geek live in. It would just never occur to me to wonder what Canadian geese tasted like, or how the state defines hunting laws, or for that matter where secret seedy parlors were in Portsmouth, NH. I feel like I’m watching some edgy HBO special 🙂

So that’s a glimpse of my morning so far. 🙂

So I’ve found a neat website that tries to be fairly even in combining various electoral vote polls at http://www.electoral-vote.com/ They seem to do a good job in the summary below explaining the latest polls and such. They also have an RSS feed for those of you who do that, I’ve just started and it’s been pretty cool so far (thanks Totally.

So their most recent map of the US gives Kerry a slight lead:

Interesting that Maine is a battle ground state.. who knew? (Well not me at least) They also mention that it’s possible that Missouri may be the key deciding state this year, so I e-mailed my cousin who teaches at Washington University in St. Loui a note saying ‘Please vote.. that is if you are voting for Kerry, it you’re not.. then don’t bother, it doesn’t make a difference anyways :)’

This website goes on to explain a really weird electoral scenario (all this from this page:

Several people noticed that using the new interactive maps it is easy to produce a tie in the electoral college. In fact, if you look at the map for Aug. 6 and Bush wins Missouri, you have a tie. What is supposed to happen next is described on the Electoral college page, namely, the newly-elected House of Representatives chooses the president, with each state having one vote. To make it easier to see how that would come out with the current House, I have colored the Excel spreadsheet with the state data to indicate which party controls which state delegation. Currently the Republicans control 31, the Democrats control 14, and 5 are tied. While the Democrats have a chance to recapture the majority of seats in the House, they have no chance in the world to capture a majority of the state delegations, especially since a number of the states in the West have one or two (well-entrenched) Representatives. Thus if the electoral college is tied and the House votes, Bush wins. However, all is not lost for the Democrats. The Senate picks the Vice President, so if the Democrats pick up the two seats needed to recapture the Senate, we get a hybrid administration: Bush-Edwards. And don’t forget, the Vice President’s one constitutional power is to cast tie-breaking votes in the Senate. It could get real dicey.

Wow. Bush/Edwards? And you thought the 2000 election was weird?

In browsing around the web I also found this AOL straw poll that gives Bush at 525 Electoral votes.

WTF? What world do they live in? That’s like every state except Vermont and DC.

Upon further inspection the reason behind this skewed map is apparent:

AHHHH… ok so that explains it.. anyone stupid enough to still be using AOL, and to actually use AOL as a their news source.. and to take part in their straw polls.. that’s gotta be a pretty select herd of idiots.. no wonder a majority of them vote for Bush.

[ducking from flames from my AOL using friends]

Actually.. for any of you who do use AOL still.. go vote in this silly poll and see if you can turn the tide 🙂 I notice some states are very very close.

Or better yet.. just snicker at the biased optimism of the Republican AOL users.. yeah guys, Bush has got it all locked up. In fact, you don’t even need to go out and vote. Don’t worry about it. 🙂

Ok enough partisan comments from me for the day.

-Matt