I personally have no desire nor inclination to go see The Grinch. If I want to go to Who-ville, I’ll head up 29 to Charlottesville (the original Who/Hoo-ville).  § “”

When I was a kid, I used to love winter–everything seemed crisp and clear and there was an intangible spark in the air about things. That intangible electricity to things has become anything but recently.

Although technically still autumn until the 21st, the slight annoyance of winter static electricity, manifesting itself around the house and work as “ z a p ! ”, has become a major pet peeve for me this season. I can barely make it from the car to the door without seeing arcing bolts from my fingertips like I was Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi. It was kinda cool the first couple times, but then it actually hurt once or twice. I kept looking at my fingers expecting to see black singes.

Rolling brownouts in California?

Too bad we haven’t the technology to harness the energy from static electricity yet. Just imagine: warehouses full of people rubbing balloons on their heads and people sloughing across shag carpet. Oh, the potential.  § “”

I will stop, I will stop at nothing.
Say the right things when electioneering
I trust I can rely on your vote.

When I go forwards you go backwards
and somewhere we will meet.
When I go forwards you go backwards
and somewhere we will meet.
Ha ha ha

Riot shields, voodoo economics,
it's just business, cattle prods and the I.M.F.
I trust I can rely on your vote.

When I go forwards you go backwards
and somewhere we will meet.
When I go forwards you go backwards
and somewhere we will meet.

— Radiohead, “Electioneering”
OK Computer  § “”

Welcome to the morning after, folks. Looks like we get another Bush in the White House, but a severely pruned Bush at that (more later).

With the 5-4 decision in the Supreme Court issued, and little further recourse, there was but one course of action for Al Gore. I didn’t concur with the findings of the Supreme Court, but I thought they were justified—in principle—about halting the recount Saturday. However, I did believe that there was sufficient time to recount the votes by the 18th.

Recounting ballots without an agreed-upon standard is pointless until a standard is realized. It’s like trying to count without knowing your numbers. When/if they would have come to a concensus on hanging, dimpled, tri-chads and their ilk, the counters would have needed to restart the whole process anew in order to determine (the buzz phrase) “voter intent”.

One of the issues also being brought up is that in halting the count, the U.S. Supreme Court only gave the officials only an hour to recount the ballots, then stated in its decision, the constraints of time as a factor. This again goes back to the previous argument about ballot standards. Why recount when everyone’s using different measures for intent?

The Supreme Court should never have become involved in these cases. The tarnish of partisan politics has spread from the president-elect to the Florida state courts, and now to the U.S. Supremes. This should have been decided in a state court as it was a state issue, but nonetheless here we are.

Then there’s good ‘ol President-elect Dubya (and I use that title loosely). The man reminds me of an amalgamation of his daddy’s tenure as Chief Exec: the brain of Dan Quayle in Bush, Sr.’s body…I sometimes swear I can see the strings during press conferences.

Cross-reference: Bobo.

Prove me wrong. Please.  § “”

— Justice John Paul Stevens, 12.12.00
Supreme Court Decision 00-949  § “”

I turn the heat back on, turn on the computer and wait a good 15 minutes as it downloads the three-day backlog of 800 email messages, mostly from Nancies (mailing list for the Dave Matthews Band), yet I still have zero mail from Vibes (mailing list for Agents of Good Roots), which has been the case for several weeks now, despite me still being officially subscribed as the list manager says. [Yes, that was all one big sloppy run-on sentence.]

So I go to re-subscribe, using another address to see if I had been blocked or removed for some reason. Nope. Instead, I get an error message from the bounce-back email. Fantastic! No info on the band and one step backward. Lists…bands…oh yeah, Nancies. I was talking about Nancies.

I finally get through the 800 messages and pick up the phone to make a call, only to find I have voice mail. So I call up and check my voice mail, and who does it turn out to be but my little sister (only by 2 years) saying that she's in town for the pre-holidays and was over at my dad’s house. For those of you unfamiliar with my family, I'll let you in on a crucial detail: my sister lives in Oregon, yet this is the first I’ve heard of it period.

So I call her back over at dad’s house, and arrange to meet her and the rest of the clan for dinner. Could this have been any more out of the blue. It looks like my parents did an “Oh, I thought you told him” deal. I had no clue whatsoever that I'd be joining my sister for dinner tonight…. Stranger things have happened, though not recently.  § “”