K-Squared Ramblings

East/West, TV & Sudafed

• The East/West terminology always bugged me too: http://xkcd.com/503/ But then, living in California, I figure we’re also Pacific Rim. #
• What makes people think it’s OK to post insults/threats just because your old blog post isn’t what they wanted to find on Google? #
• You know, it would be nice if ABC would SAY things like “In 3 weeks” when they’re going to preempt Pushing Daisies 2 weeks in a row. #
• I like having (nearly) full movement in my arm again. #
• End of an era: Our last box of real Sudafed has expired. #

Cross-posted at LiveJournal.

More Pain

Arm still sore. Still not King. #

Orange Clouds (no rain)

Orange Clouds (no rain), originally uploaded by Kelson.

The sunset view as I left the office this evening. The clouds turned even deeper orange over the drive home, with streamers of pink running halfway across the sky.

Where Do I Start?

So, which one should you use first?

Sort of like being told, “These are all top priority!” when you ask which task is most important.

Pain

Arg. Shoulder seriously sore from tetanus booster shot. Typing hurts. Driving home’ll be REAL fun. Still, better than getting tetanus. #

Coming Soon! Or Not.

Clearly there’ve been a few delays.

This photo was taken in October. It’s November, and the place still isn’t open.

Best Ripoff Title Ever

Several months ago I was browsing the local Blockbuster video store for a movie to rent, and I stumbled across one that made me laugh out loud. It’s the title on the right, and you’ll see why if you compare it to the rather more well-known title on the left.

I mean, seriously, look how carefully they tried to match the source material.

• The title, Alien vs. Hunter, as close as possible to the original Alien vs. Predator, carefully using only descriptive names.
• The logo design, with the TLA (three-letter acronym) in large type and the full title in small type below it.
• The layout on the packaging, with close-ups of the two creature’s heads, one on each side.
• The monochrome design, using green instead of blue.
• The creature designs, one with an elongated head and nasty-looking teeth, the other wearing a mask.
• Even the font on the full title is similar.

I have to admit I haven’t watched either of them, so I have no idea whether this attention to detail pervades the actual movie. But I can seriously imagine someone not paying close attention picking up the wrong movie by mistake.

On the same trip, I found another video called Transmorphers — by the same production company, it turns out (big surprise) — but they didn’t try nearly as hard to match the packaging to anything Transformers-related. Still, for a good laugh, look through the titles of movies by The Asylum — I think Snakes on a Train may actually trump both titles.

Fall, Spelling, WPA2, Jokes

• Fall in SoCal = checking the weather report daily to decide between shorts or a heavy jacket. #
• I keep seeing pill spam with sensational election-related subjects. Oddly they can spell Obama correctly, but consistently write “McCane” #
• OK, chicken-and-road jokes are old hat, but this set using (mostly political) celebrities is new to me. #
• Time to upgrade your wireless network security to WPA2. #wifi #security #

Mercury

I have never seen the planet Mercury outside of photos. #

Making Every Vote Count

A few years back, some sort of registration snafu* left my name off the rolls at my polling place and I had to cast a provisional ballot. I remember being extremely unhappy that night when everyone declared the winner and I knew for a fact that my vote had not been counted. Sure, it would be eventually, but it felt like my vote didn’t matter.

Yesterday, I read that as many as 3 million mail-in and provisional ballots might remain to be counted in California. This morning, that estimate’s been refined revised to 1.6 million [edit: the official count is coming in at at least 2.3 million; see below]. There are a number of races, including Proposition 11, that are too close to call with that many votes still in play. It’s at least 3 times the current margin of victory for Prop 8 or margin of defeat for Prop 4. If those voters lean heavily one way or the other, it could flip the results once the final score is tallied. (It’s not likely, but it’s certainly possible.)

One thing that hasn’t been clear from the various articles I’ve read is which ballots are left, and when are they counted. Fortunately, the CA Secretary of State has a page that explains exactly that.

• Mail-in ballots that arrive before election day are verified against the voter rolls ahead of time, then counted along with the in-person votes once the polls close.
• Mail-in ballots that arrive on election day, or are dropped off at a polling place, are set aside until the rest are done, and are verified and counted along with provisional ballots.

This is all handled at the county level, which is why the state office doesn’t have solid numbers yet (there’s a PDF report they’ll be updating as data comes in, but all the numbers are still blank [Edit: as of Thursday evening, numbers for about 2/3 of counties are in, and they total about 2.3 million]), and they have 28 days to finish the task. I’m sure that’s a holdover from the days when it would really take that long to count everything. I imagine it won’t take nearly that long to sign off on the results.

So the lesson is this: If you want your vote counted in the first wave of votes that everyone sees, you must either:

• Send in your mail-in ballot early enough that it arrives before election day.
• Vote in person.

*I never did find out what caused it, but my best guess is that after I moved, my registration got lost in the mail and I was left on the rolls at my old precinct.

Election Fallout (and Conan)

• Going to bed. Very glad to see Obama elected. Disappointed that Prop 8 looks like it might pass. #
• Wait… 3 MILLION mail-in & provisional ballots remain to be counted in CA? Why on earth are they calling ANY race yet? #
• Surprised to find no jokes online using the pun “Anvil of Cron,” just typos. There’s always S*P’s Google Crom. #
• More on the 2.6-3 MILLION mail-in & provisional ballots still to be counted in California. #

Sending the Wrong Message?

I figured I’d wait until after the election to post this one.

Insert your own joke about renting politicians.

(Sorry about the image quality; it was across an intersection, so it was pretty small on the original image. I didn’t even resize it. It’s just cropped. Yeah, my camera isn’t that fantastic once you get down to a 1:1 pixel view)

Thoughts on a Post-Election Morning

First, I’m very happy that Barack Obama won the Presidential election. This was the first time since 1996 that I’ve actually liked a candidate for the office. While I did vote for Al Gore and John Kerry, their main qualifications in my mind were that they weren’t George W. Bush, whose policies and leadership style bothered me as soon as he stepped into the ring in the 2000 primaries. It was very nice to have someone I could vote for this year, and not just someone to vote against — and even nicer to see him win.

Second, John McCain gave an astonishingly gracious concession speech. Where was this guy during the campaign? Or during the last two years? This was more like the McCain I voted for in the 2000 primary.

Believe it or not, I think it’s a good thing that the Democrats didn’t pick up that filibuster-proof 60th Senate seat. One of the worst problems with the current administration is the way that a single party just rammed their policies through over all opposition during the time that both houses of Congress and the Presidency were controlled by the same party — and it cost them in the 2006 mid-term elections and in this election. With luck, Obama’s victory speech [edit: linked to the wrong article*.] will set the tone for a somewhat more cooperative government. At the very least, it was a nice change from the sort of “We won, now f— off” attitude that I remember from Bush, Cheney, and Republican supporters in 2004. (Personally I think 53% to 46% in the popular vote is still relatively close, but 4 years ago we were told that 51% to 49% was a “mandate” to do whatever the hell they wanted with the office.)

I’m disappointed to see that California voted to ban same-sex marriage. Gee, too bad about the 18,000 marriages you just invalidated in the name of “protecting” marriage. On the plus side, the margin for Proposition 8 was a lot smaller (52% to 48%) than the last time (Proposition 22 in 2001, which won 61% to 38%) the state voted on the issue, and younger voters polled as overwhelmingly rejecting it. This implies that CA society is, over time, coming to the conclusion that maybe it isn’t such a threat after all.

Also worth noting: Prop 4, the parental-notification requirement for abortion, is trailing 52% to 48%, the same spread as Prop 8. Since I’m sure proponents will try again in a few years, these numbers should forestall any grousing about how the people have already made their will clear when someone floats the idea of amending the state constitution to remove a discriminatory clause a few years from now.

*When I first posted this, I accidentally linked to the article on the transition team instead of the speech transcript. The URLs were very similar: 11/04/obama.transcript vs. 11/05/obama.transition.

Election Day

• It’s like raaaaaain/on Election Day. #
• Voted! Shorter line than expected. #
• This morning’s voting experience. #
• #votereport #good Only 30 minute wait, no problems with machine around 7am in Orange County, CA. No idea what it’s like now, though. #
• Voting freebies: Might hit Ben & Jerry’s, but don’t see much point in a plain coffee at Starbucks. Maybe if they offered a mocha. #
• Ah, this would explain the 4-hour delay on my “I Voted!” tweet. #
• Wow… 38% of registered voters in Los Angeles County had cast ballots by noon. #
• Deep pink clouds at sunset. Camera turns them orange. #

Election Ramp-Up (and Changeling)

• Saw “Changeling” last night. It was good. #
• WTF? Saw an ad saying “Support marriage rights” that’s in favor of Prop 8, which ELIMINATES marriage rights! Someone’s got things backwards. #
• Incredible drop in blog traffic after Halloween, as all the searches for “joker costume” and “harley quinn costume” dried up overnight. #
• Last-minute review of ballot propositions. Are we there yet? #
• Naming proposed laws after people whose cases (a) inspired or (b) are used to promote them has jumped the shark, #

Cross-posted at LiveJournal.