The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Doug Faunt:

Another way to get stuck- age out of your parent's health coverage with a "pre-existing condition."
Don't have it, can't get it.

There was a concrete saw performing in the street a couple of days ago, putting out some great notes.

And lets not forget the old 1403 chain printer music.

#18 "and the older Gollancz editions".

I was interested to discover that the CBC did TWO dramatizations of "The Dead Astronaut" as well as of several other of his stories. Not what I'd expect from them.
Here's one of them:
http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/asithappens_20090420_14557.mp3

That's one of the reasons why bars had sawdust and/or peanut shells on the floor, back when.

I spent about a week riding a motorcycle in the various Alps last summer, and would just stop and gawk (no better word for it) at times.

My place gets a 94, not surprising. And they don't even seem to count that I have 8 or so theatre venues (live theatre, not movies) within walking distance, and a couple of live music venues as well as a major university.
And we have semi-annual block parties, and are working on monthly block potlucks.

That sounds like a great celebration. Please post details of your trip, since I should be in the Netherlands in the summer and then maybe in the fall.

I messed up the link up there:
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1275

There's a This American Life episode, Ruining It For The Rest Of Us, with a segment about this.
It was first aired in December of last year:
http://www.thislife.orgRadio_Episode.aspx?sched=1275

In that case, not much happened, but if immunizations were to get below critical mass....

If those don't work (or even if they do) panix.questions would be a place where the focus would be tighter. There are lots of procmail questions and answers there.

I hope I never have to try to ride my motorcycle in the snow for any serious reason, but taking the bike off-road in sand and mud is pretty good training. I took my F650 GS down to Hollister Hills and did a day's worth of exercises, many of which involved losing traction.
OTOH, both the bike and I are prepared to fall down and get back up.

And my rule for two wheels is I'll not ride if all three of these conditions exist: December, rain, dark.

I went to a segregated high school, and the University of SC was integrated about the same time as that school. We have come a long, long way. We're not there yet. Both of these have to be acknowledged.

BTW, you might want to watch San Francisco Proposition R:
http://presidentialmemorial.wordpress.com/

Some people think the renaming is inappropriate since the plant works well, and does good for the public.

re: ConstanceZEdwards@#24;
The rule is "mobile phones off. If you can't live with that, tell the ROV now, and you'll be relieved."
Apparently, there were numerous complaints, from the previous election, of poll workers using their telephones instead of serving voters. Also no games or music players, same reason.

As a poll worker in Alameda County, CA, the national elections will almost certainly be called by the time I'm able to get any information.
The obvious sources are banned in the polling place.

janetl @1

According to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters, the most likely way to invalidate your own vote here is to mail it in, since those are most likely to fail to be signed, a necessity for that vote to count.

And it takes place in Oakland, where a few of us live, and use the library. Of course, I checked it out from the Berkeley Public Library, since OPL's copies were heavily reserved (or on display).

I heard about it in "Unshelved, the library comic strip", http://www.unshelved.com/

Someday I plan to do a bike tour of the places that are mentioned.

I have actually done setup of the "old walk into a booth, move the big lever, set the small levers, move the big lever back", and they're not too bad, but even in my youth they were getting a bit unreliable and hard to maintain. They reminded me very much of the time I rebuilt a typewriter.

I'm in Alameda County, and we got touchscreen machines very early. The ROV was very personally invested in them.

Unscanned ballots, for whatever reason (busted machine, power failure, even ballots that are marked but not machine readable (we can give the voter three trys, but some people give up early)) are just put in a bag marked so, and hand processed to the degree necessary. Here, if you do a provisional ballot, you get a receipt and can inquire after 28 days if your ballot was accepted.
And we've been told we are welcome to come down and observe the count and processing of provisional and absentee ballots. It's a pretty open process.

Note that here the official votes are the paper ballots- the results of the scanner are a first cut and a preliminary count.

I was the inspector(in charge) at my neighborhood polling place for a number of years, until I was trained on the Diebold touch screen machines. After that training, I had the temerity to tell the Registrar of Voters that there were serious problems with these machines and the procedures around them. I was banned from working on elections at all after that until:
the Registrar of Voters (appointed office) changed;
the California Secretary of State banned those machines (mostly);
a friend who's an elected official and a Democrat party election official vouched for me;
and I was subjected to a lengthy personal interview.

I'm still not allowed to be in charge (mixed blessing-if I were in charge, I'd be required to drive and provide a vehicle).
I was not actually told I was banned until I confronted the ROV, at which point he admitted it.
Apparently, I wasn't ignorant enough.

We have mark-sense paper ballots now, and the onsite scanner only validates the ballot and provides a preliminary count, although there's one touchscreen machine (not used at all, in the elections I've worked) for disabled access.

Radio 4 is doing dramatizations of several of MR James' Christmas ghost stories on the Women's Hour Drama slot.

Merry Christmas. No presents here. I'm aligned with the Church of Stop Shopping.

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