I guess this is why I couldn’t score a New York Times or a Wall Street Journal today. There was not a newspaper of any sort to be had in the Triad tonight.
Just had a lovely visit from Sister Betty and Burqua Boy (of air freshener fame) on the Winston-Salem leg of Road Trip 2008. There was much Mexican food, much gas station shaped like a giant seashell, and much happy conversation. As it came at the end of a very long day, there will now be much coma. Good night.
Whither California? Apparently straight into the cesspool.
It bothers me that a bond referendum or anything that involves taxation in California requires a supermajority, but a simple majority is all that’s required to amend the state constitution and deny a basic right to significant part of the population.
I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed watching a concession speech quite as much as I enjoyed Elizabeth Dole’s. She was obviously quite bitter, and I’m not sure if she was more pissed off at Kay Hagan or at whichever of her staffers suggested the “Godless Americans” campaign that backfired so completely.
And as I post, CNN and NBC have just called the election for Barack Obama.
It’s pretty historic, all in all. We have our first African American President, North Carolina has its first female governor, and one woman defeated another woman in our Senate race.
But whither California?
Either way, I’m going to bed now.
Apparently, early voting was not the way to go this year. On average, it seems to have resulted in about an hour’s wait. Based on these reports, I gambled…and won. The whole process took me about six minutes this morning. And it turned out one of my neighbors is a poll worker. That made me feel strangely local and at home.
…my lungs heaved a huge sigh of relief.
Let me just say that the week has been every bit as ugly as I promised on Monday, and it’s showing no signs of letting up until, well, mid-December.
That said, I’m now announcing that after seven years as a satellite household, we’ve made the switch back to cable. The primary factors were cost and customer service.We’re saving a little money, getting better internet service (by bundling and ditching the DSL), and we no longer have to deal with Dish Network’s special “once we install it, you’re on your own” brand of customer support.
I have to admit the Dish Network DVR interface runs circles around Time Warner’s, both in appearance and customization options. But Time Warner has some plusses as well, like the “start over” feature on some channels (I don’t really know how well this works yet) and the ability to watch one show while recording another. And it’s also nice that we can pretty much connect as many TVs as we want to ghetto cable at no extra charge.
The switch might have been more traumatic if I watched TV more than I currently do. The biggest drama so far was that the installer spent almost eight hours wiring our house, and then made me jump start his truck before he’d leave. Glad I didn’t have anything to do on Tuesday. Oh wait. I did.
There it was in Food Lion tonight, reminding me that after Sunday, Opus will be no more. I’ll miss him despite the fact that he was never quite the same once Milo and Binkley deserted him almost twenty years ago, ending the best comic strip that ever was. I wish him all the herring snacks he can eat in whatever future life he may have.