I have to recant on the last point made in my previous post, since I was kinda hoping Kerry would win. Fuck healing the bitter divide in the country. With several Supreme Court justices likely to be appointed, this is no time to back down. Curiously enough, we on the Left may have Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (PA) to help us out. Specter is assumed to be in position to be chairman of the Judiciary Committee and he has said that he would not let any nominee out of committee who is anti-abortion.

But more importantly, the Democratic genuflection over the winter had better include some serious amount of time on the party’s inability to counter the Republicans’ pack of attack dogs. I could go on, but I’m no pundit, and doing so would just rile me up even more. And I’m just not in the mood for it right now.

I had the longest wait of my short (34 year) life at the polls today. It took 30 minutes from the time I got in line until the time I left. Things went smoothly, with the only hitch being getting the one person who knew how to lower the voting machine to adjust the height for the guy in the wheelchair who was in front of me in line. I signed in at about 8:45am, and I was number 148. I’m not sure how many people are in my voting division, but that’s a fairly high number for a polling place that had opened at 7:00am.

I also saw something I had never seen before: many people standing on the traffic medians on Broad Street with signs, mostly Kerry, and many many vehicles of all types honking as they drove by. Made for a noisy walk both to and from work. Then there was the P. Diddy “Vote or Die” van blaring music during the afternoon and tossing T-shirts to people on the street as they drove by. This I observed from my 16th floor office.

Some hopes for the election:

• That you all voted.
• That all your votes counted.
• That you will vote every time you have the chance for the rest of your life.
• That if you didn’t vote, you’ll keep your pie hole shut if you don’t like the outcome.
• Most unrealistically, that whoever wins tonight will be able to heal the deep idealogical divide that has cleaved the country in two. Otherwise, nothing of consequence is going to happen over the next four years. I know, I know: fat fucking chance that’ll happen.

I do not consider myself to be an overly attractive individual. I would call myself “average-looking.” So I was rather pleasantly surprised this week while walking to lunch with one of my co-workers. We were taking a shortcut down a side street, and an older male and an attractive younger female (my guess was anywhere between 25 to 30-something years old) were walking towards us. She turns, checks me out, and smiles. I was so taken aback by this, since it never happens to me, that I was suddenly unable to finish the sentence I was in the middle of speaking.

I probably wouldn’t have said anything to her anyway, but since I’m now dating someone, I thought it would be highly inappropriate. And yes, I did tell my girlfriend about the mystery woman. She thought it was kinda funny, after asking whether I thought mystery woman was cuter than she is.

Oh, I won’t come around that easy. Bad blood runs deep. In a way, I feel sorry for Red Sox fans. Their entire lives (for pretty much all of them) have been spent lamenting about The Curse. They held it as their reason for being, even moreso than Cubs’ fans and The Goat. So now that The Curse has been lifted, Red Sox fans really have nothing to live for. So do me a favor: kill yourselves. Now. Unless you’re a Kerry voter, then kill yourself after voting on Tuesday.

And does anyone know if MasterCard came to collect from all of those people who appeared in their commercial about Red Sox World Series tickets? They’re due lots of cash (from $200 to somebody’s life savings), someone’s brother, and I believe someone’s first-born child. You all know how tenacious the credit card companies can be when they’re owed something…

As a long-time member of the Yankee Nation, losing to the f-ing Red Sox leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. Like swallowing a bug that had just been dining on a pile of dog shit. I would have rather lost to the Twins. Ugh. [heavy sigh]

The only thing I can look at for possible “revenge” is that the Astros win the game tonight, and Clemens beats the Red Sox three times to win the World Series. That’s what’s called poetic justice.

This is something I can’t figure out. And if my memory is correct, it’s happened to me more than once. I start dating someone (like I am now), and I start noticing all these other women when I’m just walking around. I don’t know what it is; it’s not like I’ve suddenly awakened and can see again. Maybe it’s a change in my somewhat dour mood when not dating, and other people can sense that. It’s not that I’m necessarily interested in those other women, but I just happen to notice them a bit more frequently.

Eh, if I think about it too much, it’s likely to make my head explode.

Well, it seems Mayor Street has managed to milk the politcal benefit of attempting to find a developer for Penn’s Landing to its fullest. Now that the idea of something going there has been shelved (see the article from today’s Philadelphia Inquirer), the mayor can claim the political benefit gained two years ago (i.e., getting re-elected last year) by having open discussions on the subject without actually having to do anything with the site. Not that you’d notice any of that from the article, since the Inquirer seems more than content to just pat itself on the back for helping to put together the discussion forums.

And of course, the local design snobs are of no help. Lots of grandiose ideas from these folks, but no real substance. As “critics,” they only seem content to point out what they consider to be “bad design” without either explaining to those of us with no formal design training why something is “bad design” nor providing us with examples of “good design” to contrast the “bad design” with so we can attempt to figure it out ourselves. (The issue of blindly following accepted wisdom within an art area is a subject for another time.)

Now this may seem a bit odd to you, since I am a lawyer. But as my friends from law school say when lawyers do bad things, “I hate frickin’ lawyers.” This does draw some odd stares and questions of self-loathing, but it totally misses the point.

As proof, I offer the fact that since Vioxx has been “recalled,” for lack of a better term, I have seen at least four ads in the Philadelphia Inquirer from law firms soliciting business. All of the ads mention something like “You may be entitled to compensation.” Only one of the four suggests that if you take Vioxx, you should contact your doctor immediately. It’s nice to know that only one of those firms even attempts to show a little concern for people’s well-being. Unless of course, you count the potential for a financial windfall to be well-being. And if you think it’s about the patient’s well-being, you’re sadly mistaken. This is about lawyers wanting big bucks and/or big press (the latter someday likely leading to big bucks, so they’re hopelessly intertwined).

Sorry, but I won’t name the firms. I’m not gonna help these jerks.

Watched the first presidential debate tonight. Kerry kicked Bush’s ass. Kerry was more prepared and far more even tempered. Bush had some rather long silences, kept hitting the podium for emphasis (which conveniently got picked up by the microphone), and was clearly agitated at times. It’ll be interesting to see how it all will get “sound bitten” in the newspaper tomorrow.

On the Philly front, more indictments in the federal probe of City Hall corruption. One city employee got fired for being indicted and a councilwoman’s aide resigned. I hope they’re not done yet…

Didn’t even try to hook up the printer or install the software tonight. I needed to get all my contacts from my old computer into the new one. Unfortunately for me, I could export the Address Book from Eudora on the old Mac to the Address Book app on the new Mac. The manual import process sucked. Then, of course, I had to rip a few additional songs to the iPod along with downloading a few new songs from the iTunes store. No I can properly jam on the 10 minute walk into the office. As long as I don’t get run over while not paying attention crossing a street, I’ll be fine.