Vox Lucens

Today, our hero arose.  He went and compiled his weapons - a passport, a title, a utility bill in his name - and went to face the enemy known only as DMV.

Ah, DMV!  That giant among bureacrats, patron saint among inefficient morasses, guardian angel of all drab waiting rooms.  And when the little mechanical voice said, “A023 at Window Number 9,” our hero knew that every weapon at his employ would require the most skillful of weilding.

And each, one by one, was taken and assimilated by DMV.  Each accomplished its purpose, but none could deal the deathblow.  In the end, it came down to one weapon - the debit card.

Our hero begged.  He signed over a lien on the house he does not yet own.  He promised to donate his wavy locks to the California Department of Aid for the Hairless.  He spat upon signs that said “Threatening a State Employee is a Felony” and demanded justice and freedom.  All to no avail.

But in the end, debit card prevailed.  It was bereaved of its motive force, the green energy that powers its economical workings, but it prevailed, and our hero emerged with a small piece of paper broadcasting to the world that he had an Interim License to Drive.

–From A Pointless Oral History of One of Mankind’s Dimmest Luminaries

I didn’t bother, I’m afraid, studying the California textbook on driving.  Perhaps it was naive, but I assumed that since I had been driving for quite some time with a clean record, I’d be able to buzz right through a written test.  (Though the inner man chafed at having to take a written test, I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal.)

But when I sat down and started reading I was worried.  I didn’t know the answers.  I discovered, though, that the questions I didn’t know the answers to were based entirely on the fact that I’m just too good of a person.  I don’t drink, so the BAC limit just doesn’t matter to me.  I don’t smoke, so regulations on when you can smoke and drive just never entered my mind.

And as I sat there, thinking to myself that if I failed this test because I don’t drink and smoke, I was going to be rather put out.

It turns out, though, that California is strangely predictable on how it regulates drinking and smoking.  I found it rather ironic, though, even in my relief at passing, that while I got the questions about smoking and drinking correct, of the three I missed one involved a blind man in a crosswalk, one involved talking on a cell phone without a hands-free device (it’s more legal than I thought!), and the third involved how much information you have to give the imbecile that smashed his car against yours.

But this I can say, with a highly genuine sigh of gratefulness - it’s done.  I’m licensed and registered.  I need not darken the door of a DMV for a long while yet.

My new state, I’m afraid, is best known for its idiosyncracies.  Perhaps it is often deserved, perhaps it is normally not, but be that as it may - today I found perhaps the best political commentary on this fair state that I can imagine…in a picture.

So I just saw one of CNNs top stories for today.  The headline simply read, “Voters Ready.”

Aside from being inane and totally unimaginative as a headline, I really expected a story like this…

****

“Voters Ready”

PALM SPRINGS, FL - After a countywide voter education project, voting authorities claim that voters are ready to cast their ballots.

“We’ve had extensive training for the citizens of Palm Springs on the use of a Number 2 lead pencil to fill in an oval.  In addition, we have handed out thousands of pamphlets with detailed instructions and definitions on the use of chads, the meaning of a straight line between a candidate’s name and an oval, and the emergency number to Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters in case of confusion,” one election official told CNN on the condition of anonymity.

Mary Jones is a Palm Springs resident that experienced difficulties understanding the ballot eight years ago.  “Before, I was frightened,” she told CNN.  “I thought maybe the line between the oval and the name meant ‘minus,’ and I did not want to cast a negative vote for anyone except Pat Buchanan.  But because of this voter training, I know that if I accidentally fill in the oval for John McCain, Obama campaign lawyers will read my mind and know who I meant to vote for and fight it all the way to the Supreme Court, so I am confident that justice will be done.”

When reminded that Bush won the landmark election case of Bush v. Gore, involving similar mind-reading issues, Ms. Jones claimed that breakthroughs in European theories on chad-reading, like European theories on socialism, were on the rise, so she was confident that her ballot would be read properly.

John Doe told reporters that, prior to the training, he had difficulty fitting the candidate’s name inside the tiny oval provided.  “Before voting, I tried to shrink my handwriting so that I could write the answer in the space provided,” he complained.  “But my friendly Obama rep assured me that I just had to fill in the oval with little circles next to the candidate I want to vote for.  That alone convinced me to vote for Barack,” he went on.  “If someone would have told me this in high school I might not have flunked the SAT and be stuck in this soup kitchen.  Barack has the information Americans need to succeed!”

In a token appearance so that this article does not appear biased, CNN interveiwed a John McCain spokesman who claimed, “It is the McCain campaign’s contention that putting ‘George Bush’ next to Mr. McCain’s name on the ballot misleads voters into thinking that John McCain is, in fact, George Bush.”

“That is blatant hatemongering,” an Obama spokesman responded.

****

Alas, the actual story was far more boring.  And to be fair, I did intend to write a more serious election post.  There’s just so much to write about that anything but parody is overwhelming.

…that Delta is now too cheap to provide you with a paper folder to put your boarding passes in?

Or, as the ticket agent told me today, “We discontinued folders a number of months ago.”

Guess what frequent flyer doesn’t regret not flying Delta in the past few months?

But this I will say - they had excellent video on demand on my little Charleston to Atlanta hop. I wonder how many folders you have to scrimp on to buy a new tricked-out jet to fly your passengers around.

Hopefully some of the foregoing will explain why there has been a serious lack of bloggish infotainment on this venue of late. The last week (even the part I didn’t spend overnighting in O’Hare) has been crazy, but praise the Lord, I think everything got done! I finished my first freelance legal project (a brief in a securities case), did the slideshow for graduation, spoke at a homeschool conference Saturday, preached on Sunday, oh, and yeah, I worked my normal job. Now, ten months after finishing my studies, I am off to officially graduate from law school.

One of the joys of having both my work and personal e-mail accounts plastered all over the Internet is that I get lots of spam.  Spambots just love people like me, I’m afraid - more interested in letting people get in touch with me than in protecting my contact data.

But that gives me the chance to kind of watch the spam trends.  Recently, there was a deluge of Russian spam - kind of pointless, as I don’t read Russian.  There was also a spate of spam in which the subject line was “Re: [random number here].”  Also rather pointless, as there was absolutely nothing that would even remotely encourage me to read (even assuming I did want to re-finance my mortgage or purchase medications through an unsolicited bulk message).

But the best spam trend of all is occurring right now.  The spammers are sending me tons of e-mail with fake news headlines.  Some of them have been startling–

Beijing Olympics Cancelled

UK Prime Minister Forced to Quit

Man Killed by Flying Cocktail Glass

Others, more entertainingly, have been random bordering on hilarious–

Paris Hilton Considered for Mother Teresa Role

Obama Converts to Judaism!

Playing Poker Prevents Alzheimer’s Disease

Many of the latter have caused me to snort rather violently before compulsively hitting the “delete” key.  But I really sat up and noticed when I was perusing the CNN headlines on my iGoogle home page, and dismissed one of them as being spammishly amusing.  It took me a good 10 seconds, and a number of re-reads, to realize this was actually supposed to be a news headline.

“Bush Peace Dream Iffy for ‘08, Olmert Says”

What?!?!?!  We’re not going to have peace in the Middle East in the next four months?  After centuries of conflict, I’m shocked that our leaders can’t solve the world’s problems in the upcoming weeks.  Thank goodness CNN is there to report to us on their shortcomings!

I think I’m going back to reading my spam now.

This evening our Jordan team met at the Remember storage facility on John’s Island to do some preliminary inventory and packing. In one of the boxes we found a wonderful specimen of roachdom - an albino.

He was quite the looker.

And it wasn’t just us doing the looking…here’s my personal favorite.

And just so you don’t hate me…