Short stories

Two kind of funy stories today. First off, it's November 7th, get' yer arse out and vote. Please.

First story has to do with voting. I went to my polling place to do my civic duty. As usual there were quite a few seniors there and there was a small line. I signed the form and got my ballot, then proceeded to get in line for a booth. The kind woman directing the line said a few times that the new electronic polling machine was available, but nobody would use it. The polling had been open for almost 5 hours and she said only one person had used it.

So I said," I'll give it a shot, is it self-explanatory?" All the seniors in line looked at me like I was a crazy fool, trusting a machine to fill in the little circles for me! As soon as I sat down at the machine I could tell, all eyes were on me. It was very simple, feed your ballot in and then it walks you through each item on the ballot one screen at a time. You simply touch the person you want to vote for on the screen, it highlights that person and you touch another button on the screen to move onto the next question. At the end it gives you a summary page to check your selections, then it prints right on the regular ballot card, filling in the circles you noramally would with a pencil. Then it kicks out the ballot, you can look at it and check it over, then put it in the ballot box to be couted just like everyone else.

The volunteers were thirlled that someone had actually used the computer. It really wasn't anything special, it wasn't any easier or harder than filling the thing out by hand (unless you really hate filling in circles with a pencil). But each screen was really clear and obvious as to what you were voting on. I could definetly see how it scares off people who don't use computers, but come on folks, this is 2006 I'm not one of 2 people in my polling district who have ever used a computer. Try it out, you might like it!

Story Two:

As you know my band, Derailleur has a show this Friday night at the new Guthrie theater. The guy who set-up the show had asked me to meet him today at 11:30 to go through where to load in, where we'd set up, etc... That's an unusual amount of forethought for the type of places we usually play, but this is the Guthrie, so I figured it was ok and I agreed to meet him.

So I get there at 11:30 and the guy is running a little late. Once he shows up, I introduce myself as Bob and he says "Oh I thought you were scheduled for noon." I told him I had 11:30 on my calendar, but whatever, I'm flexible. So he seems kind of flustered and says, how about a tour of the place first, then we'll meet one other person to discuss things. I'm thinking ok, how much can we really need to"discuss", but a tour sounds cool, so sure. So he proceeds to give me a full tour of the whole new building, behind all the stages, each theater, all the costume and prop building areas, the works. I'm thinking, man this is great, then he says we're going to lunch!

The whole thing is odd. I mean he never mentioned where we'd be playing during the tour, we went through several bars. I even ran into my Cousin Ann (hi Ann! Thanks for letting me know about this opportunity) along the tour and we talked about the fact that Derailleur would be playing Friday night and she'll bring some folks over after the show. Next he says, it's time for lunch, which kind of shocks me. So we sit down to lunch at the restaurant on site and he starts askingabout my connections to the Film Board, and such. I'm like, ahh I don't have any connection to the film board.... Then it all came together and I said "I don't think we're having the same meeting!" His eyes opened up really big and he figures out who I am and has a moment of panic because he's appearantly supposed to be meeting a memeber of the Film Board who is also named Bob at noon! He forgot about me coming in at11:30 and assumed I was the Noon Bob. So he's really embarrassed, I'm really embarrassed, I tell him he better get to his meeting, and I'll take off. I just ask him to email me specifics of what we need to do Friday.

I left to go back to work to find out I had a parking ticket because his tour took over 30 minutes and I figured I'd be in and out in about 15. damn.

He called me back later and felt really bad about the error, which was really an honest mistake. Heck I got a really cool tour out of the deal, so I wasn't too worried about it. We got our arrangements sorted out and all's good.

What an odd day.

please vote today. really.

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