I'm voting for John Kerry today.
I feel Senator Kerry is a candidate with exemplary credentials.
He earned a Silver Star leading soldiers in the Vietnam war.

If he is elected president today, I'm sure he will make some mistakes in the course of his term, and he will certainly do some things I disagree with, but it won't be because he isn't strong,
and it won't be because he isn't brave.

Whatever the outcome, I'll be glad when the campaigning is over. I will try to forget this chapter of acidic politics in the US.
I'd like to start working together again.

Update : I'm going to stay home and watch world events role on by. Earlier today I went to the store and bought a pair of very nice, 1" rib-eye steaks and took them home to grill on the griddle. A little salt and some garlic powder, and some fresh steamed broccoli, and Denise and I were well fed and ready to go. We voted darn it, we earned this.

At this point Denise went bowling, so I played with Mike for a while and watched the Wiggles. Much more entertaining than election coverage. In fact, the only election coverage I will watch tongiht is the Indecision 2004 Special on Comedy Central, hosted by Jon Stewart. I figure if anyone can make tonight funny, it's him.

So now I sit while somewhere, somebody is figuring out how to count electrical bits of data that are our votes, while I play Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. They have lawyers looking over their shoulders, I have boats shooting bombs at me. It's a good life, and I'm privleged to live it. Whatever happens, by tonights end, I will have at least 5 pieces of the triforce.

I finally put into production my section on lists. I've got five sections I'm currently keeping track of, Movies, Music, Books, Food, Events, and WebSites. I'm sure I'll grow this area fairly quickly. I have been reading a lot of books and thanks to Netflix, watching a lot of movies. Given the volume, I'm not having the time to reflect as much on each item. Writing about them will give me that time. The extra 10 minutes I spend writing down thoughts on the movie or book will help set in my mind what I thought of it, how I liked it, what I liked about it, and be able to look back and compare to other events I've experienced. I've been wanting this for a while, and I'm really glad I've finally put it out there.

Have I mentioned how much I love my sidekick? So much so that I just traded it in for the sidekick II. I took advamtage once again of CompUSA 2 year replacement policy, and after some working with the folks and the manager, got my new phone for nothing more than the cost of a new two year replacement policy. $475 worth of phone goodness for $40, and that includes the two year replacement warranty. I love CompUSA, very friendly store.

Anyhow, enough gushing about phones and stores, it's time to return to watching The Great Mouse Detective from my Netflix list.

I just had a strange thought that I want to pursue later.

Pennies are the entrophy of the financial world. That is, all currency in my pocket eventually turns to pennies. Almost every transaction I perform results in a net gain in pennies, and it takes a large amount of pennies to gain anything of higher value.

Strange.

Update : A penny is to money as entropy is to thermodynamics. When you spend money, you get some useful work (the stuff you bought), some useful left over energy (large change), and some energy lost to entropy (pennies). Sure, if you get enough pennies together, you can make most of them useful, but some will always be lost to the pavement, cracks between the cushions, and not having quite enough to fill a roll of pennies.

Just as you can't get rid of entropy in thermodynamics, I don't think you'll ever be able to get rid of fiscal entropy; the most you can do is turn nickels into the new unit of entropy.


http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/003815.html

After much time, Denise and I are going on a date. Denise lined up a baby sitter for Mike, and we are going to do things tonight without him. Two problems (1), Mike just threw up as we were leaving, and (2) We don't know what to do. I want to do something 'interesting', that doesn't involve a movie theatre, and we can't agree on anything else. What's good to do when you are alone?

Update : Well, we ended up going down to Channelside for a nice evening of listening to music on the balcony, then seeing the movie Shall We Dance. I'm really glad we saw this movie, because not only was it a really good Miramax production, but the movie we were originally going to see was Surviving Christmas. Once Denise explained the premise for the original, I laid down the foot, and we settled on the latter. Good movie. Not terribly cliche, good development of characters, no significant lying, cheating or other distasteful behavior, and a satisfying end. The ending was a big drawn out however, but I think that was it's only sin. Otherwise a good movie. Denise and I then went around the block for a nice cup of tea to round out the cool night. It was breezy, and the warm tea felt good as a stop between the theatre and our car. it's too bad Denise has to work tomorrow, or we might enjoy staying out a little longer. Our new babysitter Meghan seems to be quite able to handle Mike, which is not saying much as Mike is such an easy baby to attend to. I think we'll use her services again in 2-3 weeks.