I waited on a girl tonight that I've tried to flirt with before. She wanted a pack of cigarettes, keeping her head down and not looking at me at all. She didn't say anything to me. I wasn't in a flirty mood so I said nothing also. Nice way to begin an intense relationship. As she left with her friend (who was several orders of magnitudes hotter but I paid no attention to) she forgot her cigarettes. Still not looking at me, I made some Kramer-esque noises at her and her friend, for some reason unable to articulate the fact she'd left her cigs. She said to her friend, "go get those, will you?" Again she avoided eye contact. This is not the first time she's acted this way around me.

I mentioned this whole episode to a friend over a steaming heap of fresh tacos. He said there could be a few explanations:
A.) She lacks confidence
B.) She's scared
C.) She wants nothing to do with me
D.) None of the above

Let me break this down. If the answer is A then she is simply shy and needs me to be a little more forward than "will there be anything else?". If the answer is B, then I need to stop looking so angry (which I should do anyway). If she wants nothing to do with me, then I should back off. But I haven't got any other signal from her that tells me she's repulsed and/or frightened by my existence as a human being. And as a man, I should take that as an invitation to come on to her. Shouldn't I?

Its all an exercise in futility. I probably haven't even come close to the real reason she acted the way she did. In addition, I have some background info on her that may or may not be why she acts so strangely. No need to repeat that gossip here, since the source is questionable and the info has not been verified!

There is a conspiracy among game manufacturers to deprive me of my constitutional rights to operational games. Let me clarify: a used copy of Final Fantasy 9 doesn't work for me. Its broken. It boots up, plays fine until 45 minutes into the game. When I try to go through a door with Zidane after Princess Garnet, the game goes black and stays that way. Meanwhile, the music loops endlessly without hanging or sounding distorted. So, I'm flummoxed.

I haven't had the chance to try the game in another Playstation, so its possible that it could be my system. It is after all about 6 years old. But I haven't abused it, and it plays other games flawlessly. The disc itself isn't badly scratched. It looks like it has numerous light surface scratches, but nothing I haven't played before without any problems. Perhaps FF9 requires an absolutely scratch free disc.

In the meantime I'm fidgeting, playing other old games which of course work fine. This will be resolved, the only question is how and when.

To the pretty young brunette I served on Sunday afternoon:

I'm sorry.

I couldn't think of anything to say.

I was speechless.

It seemed like you knew I was helpless,

looking at you

every chance I had.

You were gorgeous-

your black hair shiny

and that red top hugging

your torso so tightly.

I'm afraid

I'll be using that image in the most naughty of ways

without your consent

no doubt.

For this, too,

I apologize.

Its official. The returns are in to the Board of Elections and I couldn't be happier to have this long day at the precinct be over. My duty today was to oversee the precinct of Cambridge 1B at St Benedict's Catholic Church in Cambridge. Our total voting rolls listed 568 voters, of which 394 voted. This is a turnout of 69%, exactly what our county Board of Elections had estimated.

Last night I set up the punch card voting systems at my precinct and got everything ready to roll. Unfortunately the cell phones we were promised by the BOE never came through. I'm told the deal fell through at the last minute. Luckily two of my workers brought their cells with them. Its a good thing too, since we made several calls of import to the BOE.

We had no issues with witnesses, challengers, agressive campaigners, etc in this part of Ohio. The stories of gloom and doom in the old media seem to have been overhyped and overplayed. Despite the fact that rural voters were courted heavily by the Bush campaign, media coverage seemed to focus on the metros of the three C's: Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinatti.

Aside from 15 labor intensive provisional ballots, there were no substantial problems of any kind at my precinct. My only regret is that a minor discrepancy resulted in a few missing signatures. This was not a case of fraud- just a case of tired election workers trying to keep up with the high turnout. Considering the 99% of those who voted quickly without even a minor problem, I'm proud of my team and myself for what we accomplished.


I'm glad I did this today. At no point did it approach the absolute living hell that I thought it might become.

Oh well. There's always 2008. . .