I Have Way Too Much To Worry About Today

So, the closing took basically all day because the seller complained about the heat pump. Again. They also complained about two very piddly items that were not on the home inspection, which made me really angry. I had to escrow what turned out to be 10 TIMES the repair cost. Luckily, the HVAC guys were nice enough to come out today and do the whopping $80 of work to go around a relay that was causing the "problem".

Understand that this was a nitpicky item: the outside fan did not shut off in Emergency Heat mode. That's it. It heated, it cooled, but that fan was still spinning. Ironically, it does this in our brand spanking new heat pump, so we're still really confused as to why this is bad, but it doesn't do it now.

Once I heard the guy's loan rate, I got a better idea of why he was freaking out about anything possibly breaking on him. Basically, he can't afford to buy that house. His ridiculous initial offer should have told me that, I guess, but I just thought he was a cheap bastard. Now that I've met him, I know it's his realtor who is the asshole. He's just clueless and paranoid about buying a house...because he's never done it before and he's barely got the money.

I was worried about that dryer and that heat pump too, and my worries were ultimately for nothing. Everything that broke was small and repaired for under $100. And the dryer never gave me a lick of trouble.

I understand him better now, but none of that is supposed to be my problem anyway.

I have to wait for Wednesday for my pay-out (the deed must be recorded before funds are disbursed, and this little debacle today caused that to not happen), but at least I know that I'm getting it. Earlier today, this was all up in the air.

Again or still, I am annoyed by the election.

It occurs to me that all these random people saying that a dimpled ballot shouldn't count may have never voted on a punch card system. I came of age in Illinois where this ballot type is wide-spread. You don't actually have air behind the chad -- there's a rubber guard thing that you hit. There is no satisfying punch.

Furthermore, you're going through a metal hole first. You could easily push the chad and not actually tear it off and have NO IDEA that you didn't mark the ballot clearly enough for a machine to read. You wouldn't have to be particularly stupid or inept to do so -- it's just a matter of luck on how exactly your ballot was loaded into the binder.

And about that binder: seeing the West Palm ballot not inside the holder/binder does not give you the real picture. I assure you that it was much more confusing to people in the ballot booth than any of those photos would indicate.

And you know what? If I did something dumb like punch two presidential candidates, I wouldn't even have *known* that I could ask for a new ballot. I bet alot of the double-punchers didn't know either.

I mention this because the partisan Republican demonstrators keep saying that Democrats are too dumb or inept to vote, and I highly doubt that have any fucking clue what they are talking about.

I'd also like to know why a dimpled ballot counts if you cast your vote in Texas but not in Florida. It's not as if Florida has some statute that says they don't count -- the law says nothing specific. What's better poetic justice than to make the candidate adhere to the standards that he personally signed into law?

Oh yeah. Then Big Baby Bush might not win.

I think we're going to be stuck with that idiot anyway, but I hope some good comes out of all Al Gore's legal wrangling because it's kind of painful to watch.

I really don't want a president who goes on about the rule of law except when it has an adverse effect on him. Let's review:

• When Bush does it, drug use is a "youthful indiscretion". Never mind that he was over 21 at the time.

• When he does it, it's OK to lie and say that he'd never been arrested after 1968. And drunk driving is also a "youthful indiscretion"...even when you're 30...if your last name happens to be Bush.

• When he has something to lose, dimpled ballots don't count. When Ann Richards has something to lose, they do.

• When he has something to lose, hand-counting, the method that even the people who make the ballot machines say is more accurate than their machines, is subject to "mischief" and inaccurate.

• An absentee ballot can be counted if it's unsigned, undated or lacking a postmark...as long as it's for Dubya and not Al Gore.

I ask again: how can anyone respect this man? How can anyone be chomping at the bit to make this guy the leader of the free world? We should all be shaking in our boots that someone so slippery will be in charge of so much that is near and dear to us all.

Koogle's entry today is all about Urban Decay make-up, and I would like to be the first to point out that the woman behind Urban Decay is also 50% of the force that brought you Cisco Systems. She and her husband built routers in their living room, and after she sold her stock, she started that company.

Talk about a change of jobs -- wow. Could that have less in common with building and marketing routers?

I usually just get hits on searches for "Cisco Sucks" and while that one keeps bringing me traffic, I've also now gotten hits on searches for "Stila Powder", "blowtorch", "people become anorexic" and "bolstrood", for which I am the only thing returned in a search.

I guess I'm the only one talking about Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. Of course, I think everyone should read Snowcrash.