On the voter registration thing -- in Pennsylvania, to register to vote, you have to fill out a form with your name and address and date of birth, and check a box that says "I am a US Citizen." There's a thing that lists all the penalties for lying on the application, but it doesn't ask for any proof of anything. It asks for drivers license number or last four digits of social security number, or there's a box to check if you don't have either of those. You can get the form online, or at any public library or post office or pretty much any other government agency. You sign it next to a statement that says "I hereby affirm that the information that I have provided in this declaration is true," and so on. Then you mail it in, and within two weeks, they send you a voter registration card. I have no idea if they actually check anything -- it seems like it would be a pain to check stuff unless something seemed obviously off.
(I've never had a voter registration card before. In NJ, you didn't need a card -- you just went to the polling place and signed your name in the book, and the little old lady supervising the polling place would check to make sure your signature looked like your previous signatures, and then you could vote.)
What Windsparrow said above re: id. They can be really problematic for people who are already disenfranchised. Way back when someone (megan?) asked me to elaborate on my opposition to id requirements for voting, and I never did, but if I had, that's what I would have said.
Congrats on the good placement, Zmayhems. That's really great news, and a huge plus in the financial column.
Love "All My Internet Friends." Yay us indeed! I'm glad other people have other usses. (You would all laugh just now at how many ways I tried to fictionally pluralize "us.")
I also have squee to share that no one will care about, but I have to squee anyway. So years ago I had this favorite Celtic punk band, that radicalized me. Their lead singer was very charismatic and passionate, did civil disobedience and brought medical supplies to Iraq when it was under sanctions, basically the sort of person who could start a cult that I would join. I went to a bunch of workshops he led and argued vehemently at them. It was really formative in my intellectual and social growth.
So later, the bass player from that band, who had become friends with the SO through some world music stuff they'd done together, moved his family out to us in New Mexico where they lived and worked alongside the Navajo people in an effort to prepare themselves for later work in Tuva, near Mongolia. He's the one who did the actual throat-singing that Sheldon did on BBT.
Anyway. So this week, I commented on something the bass player said about Japan on facebook. And apparently on the strength of that the former lead singer friended me. Then announced he was quitting facebook, so I snarked at him that friendship with me had put him over the edge and emailed him to get info for his blog.
And he emailed me back, and I turned into a fangirly ball of mush. Which is stupid, because I didn't get like that when the bassist was living in my house, so I don't see why I have to be like this now, but still, squee!
And it turns out it was a flounceoff, so I still have to temper my facebook posts with whether they'll pass muster with this Jewish lapsed Christian anarchist poet (hey, he should meet Victor) and also with my uberConservative suburban donors.
Allyson, that reminds me of the older secretary at my job who couldn't believe that I didn't print out copies of all the procedures and policies I needed and put them in a binder for easy reference. Lady, the intranet IS my easy reference!
In othe Luddite newsI missed my bus at tops-- one that came at 6:30 because I was in a line that tookover 30 minutes because of WIC Checks. There has to be a better way. It is like the system is designed to make people frustrated with it. This family actually had all the correct itms and everything organized, and just the process of the cashier checking and double checking took 30 mins. The system has not changed since I was a cashier- I can't believe that it is not computerized. I am not patient today, and I am not mad at the cashier or the family, but WTF?
Wow. Troy and Abed's love is almost too pure to slash.
Almost.
ita, I went back and read your LeVar Burton whitefont. I totally wanted to spoil that joke for you the other day! Or at least I mentioned it obliquely, I believe.
I totally wanted to spoil that joke for you the other day! Or at least I mentioned it obliquely, I believe.
Ha! I'm just playing catchup to the laughs of the world.
Camel Chugging Coke Because Why Not?
Can camels burp? The one in the video does, but maybe it was edited in....
I got my mile swim down to 61 minutes--yay! Now, if I manage to get it below 60 minutes, hopefully sometime this week or next, I'll be five months ahead of my original goal to swim a mile in under an hour by the end of the summer.
Once I get it below an hour, I'll start adding laps so I'll stay in the pool for an hour, just swimming longer distances.
