Thanks to the miracle of babysitting, Hank and I got to see a movie last week. We saw Stranger Than Fiction, starring Will Ferrell.

The premise of the movie, without giving anything away, is that the main character, played by Ferrell, suddenly becomes aware of the voice of the movie's narrator. It's a fun and inventive plot device that reminded me a lot of Charlie Kaufman screenplays, but that wasn't the best part of the movie for me. What I enjoyed most was that one of the characters, albeit a minor one, was Ferrell's wristwatch.

With a seven year-old daughter in the house who enjoys imaginative play, I spend a fair amount of time animating inanimate objects. I've supplied voices and personalities for everything from her stuffed animals, to her toothbrush, to our car, to the very house in which we live. (Housey has a VERY deep voice.) Never, however, did it occur to me to anthropomorphize my watch.

I'm sure lots of people who saw Stranger Than Fiction slapped their heads in a pseudo comical I-should-have-thought-have-that manner when they saw the Narrator character plot device, but I may have been the only person in the theater to give myself minor head trauma over the Watch character. I really really really should have thought of that. I'm going to slap my head a few times again right now.

I can't believe I thought to personify a toothbrush before my watch! My watch has been the the defining inanimate object in my life. Even when I'm not wearing an actual watch, I'm always aware of the time, and am within arm's length of some time-telling device. The watch is just the best physical manifestation of my relationship with time. It already has a personality. I just need to let it express it.

So now, I must decide which voice it gets. Is it a nerdy fellow, whose voice squeaks and cracks with excitement as it constantly nags me about each passing minute and every upcoming inconsequential event? Or is it more of a British butler, conspicuously resisting the urge to roll it's nonexistent eyes each time it has to remind me of wayward seconds? Those are both pretty good. Maybe the wristwatch is the squeaky nerd and the clocks are the butlers.

I'm excited to have all these new friends in my life. It can be lonely working at home.

This made me laugh until I cried. I kept it up on my screen for a while.

Let's see.... what else did I do during my Thanksgiving weekend?....

I oversaw one of Daisy's play-dates on Wednesday. Her school was out for the day, so one of her friends came over, and I kept half an eye on them while I did some work. They didn't require much supervision, but I can tell you this about seven year-old girls.

You know that rhyme that says that girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice? Nope, that's not true. Little girls are almost entirely comprised of screams and squeals.

It seemed like those two girls spent most of their day screeching in joy, fear, excitement, hunger, boredom, exhaustion, nonchalance, ennui, etc. They are at least 98% volume. Still, I got a fair amount of work done. I'm pretty good about ignoring screaming. Every once in a while I'd check on them and dispense some good ol' fashioned parenting nuggets of wisdom like, "NO CRACKING YOUR HEADS OPEN! IF I COME DOWNSTAIRS AND FIND EITHER ONE OF YOU WITH YOUR HEAD CRACKED OPEN, YOU ARE IN BIG TROUBLE!"

And, I went to my sister's house for Thanksgiving. She and her husband put on their usual excellent show. The food was expertly prepared, and their dinner table was festooned with a dizzying array of plates, silverware and glasses, some of which never even got used. There were napkin holders, teeny tiny little salt shakers, and mood lighting.

Sadly, most of their effort probably went unappreciated by me. It's like when I try to read fine literature. I usually enjoy the plot, and I like a well-crafted sentence, but all the symbolism and subtext always eludes me. Similarly, I probably completely missed how the rosemary in the vegetable medley brought out the green flecks in the candlesticks, or how background music matched the wine. I know there were whole levels of orchestration beyond my comprehension. Tasty stuffing though.

Over a year and a half ago I gave Daisy her first lesson on how to ride a two-wheeled bike. Then, because I am a totally lame father, we never had another lesson. Her bike sat by our front door, virtually shrinking with each passing day, a daily reminder to me of a job left unfinished.

Last week I turned to Hank and calmly said, "AAAAAAAAAH!!! Daisy is almost seven and a half and she still doesn't know how to ride a bike! Dammit! And now she's even too big for her old bike. I suck!!"

(Note, my new book, "Parenting by Panic", will be available soon!)

Hank told me that Daisy had been admiring some frilly pink bike at Target the other day, but Daisy had also told her, "Mom, I don't think I'm a bike person."

It was time for action. Even though it wasn't her birthday, or Winter Present Tree Day, I could no longer be a parent to a child who couldn't ride a bike. With Thanksgiving's four-day weekend, it was the perfect time to teach her. I left work early on Wednesday and drove straight to Target to buy their pinkest and frilliest bike. Thankfully, pink frilly bikes are cheap.

I showed it to her that evening and she was delighted. The next day, on Thanksgiving morning, we started anew.

Although I live on a narrow and hilly street, there's a short stretch in front of our house that's fairly flat. For our first lesson, I just focused on getting her comfortable with the brakes, and learning how to hop off the bike as it comes to a stop. I promised her that I wouldn't let her fall, so I ran behind her, holding on the seat. After about a dozen times we agreed that I could let go for one or two seconds if she seemed balanced. The whole thing went really well, and wisely I didn't push things too far.

Lesson #2 was on Friday morning and I wanted to focus on getting her a bit more balanced, and then teaching her how to turn. I figured that would be difficult since leaning into a turn might be a bit counter intuitive for someone desperately trying to stay upright. We broke into the poorly secured playground of our neighborhood school for the lesson.

We did a few laps around the blacktop, with me running alongside, doing my best to hang onto the bike without getting in her way. Much to my delight, there was absolutely nothing I had to teach Daisy about turning. She instinctively leaned into the turn, and didn't oversteer with the handlebars. After a few more exhausting laps, it was clear to both of us that I wasn't adding much value on these laps, so I just let go....

Click! The little camera in my brain took a snapshot of her pedaling away from me for the first time. I beamed. This one was one of those moments.

She cruised around the yard a little shakily, but staying upright. I winced every time she got near an obstacle, but she managed to narrowly avoid both the benches and the basketball hoop pole. Apparently my propensity to launch myself into stationary objects isn't hereditary.

"Daisy, I knew you'd be good at this, but you're even better than I thought you'd be. I'm really proud of you." I declared, leaving out the part where I also complimented myself for somehow not screwing this up.

"Thanks, dad. I'm proud too."

The next thing to teach her was how to get going by herself. I had been balancing the bike and pushing her forward each time. So, I taught her how to position the pedals, and then stand, straddling the bike, with one foot on the ground, and one foot on a raised pedal, and then push off while beginning to pedal. We practiced this a few times, but it wasn't easy.

"I think this is the hardest part of riding a bike," I offered.

"Can we skip this part for now?" she asked. "Maybe you could teach me something else instead?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Daisy, there is nothing else to teach you. This is the very last thing. You already know how to do everything else. You can balance, you can turn, and you can stop. If you learn this, then you're done learning how to ride a bike."

Her jaw dropped.

"Really?" she asked incredulously. "This is it?"

"Yep."

We practiced a few more times with increasing skill. She got it right once or twice, but it was definitely the hardest part for her.

I called Hank on the phone and suggested that she take a break from her chores and come down to see Daisy's progress on the bike. I was deliberately vague about how well Daisy was doing.

While Hank was on the way, I had Daisy practice some figure 8's and some tight turns. She was doing laps around the yard when Hank arrived. Hank peered around for a second, seemingly wondering why I wasn't alongside Daisy. Then she spotted her.

"Oh my gosh! Daisy! You're RIDING YOUR BIKE!"

"I know, momma!" Daisy yelled from across the yard.

For the next 20 minutes or so, Hank and I sat on a bench in the sun, watching Daisy ride her bike around. Daisy has always been a careful child, and she approached the bike riding the same way. We watched her incrementally trying slightly tigher turns, and going slightly faster. Throughout the entire session she wore a serene and proud smile.

All in all, I had a pretty good Thanksgiving weekend, but this was the very best part. That night in bed, Hank said to me, "Today was a good day. You should write about it."

I looked at the clock.

"It's 11:41, babe. The day ain't over yet. Bad stuff could still happen."

She was right though. It had been a good day. Dolface knew I'd have one eventually.

Tragedy has befallen us.

There are a few appliances in this house which must be operational at all times in order to maintain my happiness. I'd put the water heater, the refrigerator, the toilet, the coffee maker, and the Tivo in this category. Also, the wife. The loss of any of these devices would impact my life unacceptably.

Recently, however, the Tivo has been wigging out (a technical term). Actually, it's not apparent that it's the Tivo. It could be the satellite dish, or the cable leading from the satellite dish, or the Tivo/receiver doohickey. All I know is that recently when I've been sitting down to watch my Daily Show or Colbert Report, the reception has been all wigged out. You know, jiggy. Conflurmagated. Astromapixelatified. Unacceptably so.

For a couple weeks it was only affecting the Comedy Central shows, and not every night. Since I have more TV to watch than time to watch it, I put up with the issue. However, things came to a tragic head this weekend when the transmacorruptifluximafication affected Battlestar Galactica. Crucial bits of dialog were garbled. Unacceptably so.

The wife and I quickly constructed a plan. I'd do a little troubleshooting to try and figure out where the problem was, but meanwhile we'd download the most recent episode of Battlestar Galactica from iTunes and then somehow connect our laptop to our TV. It was a good plan. However, it required cables that we did not own. Since I had more money than time, I made a quick trip to Radio Shack, aka, the nerd's last resort.

Radio Shack isn't a horrible store, but it's not cheap nor do they have a particularly good selection. What they have is a lot of locations, including one about 2 miles from my house.

I journeyed to one on Sunday morning to pick up the cables I needed. My wife had also asked me to pick up some etchant (ferric chloride) for an art project she was doing. I found the cables by myself, but I asked the Radio Shack Assistant Manager to help me locate the ferric chloride. He snorted in exasperation and grabbed a bottle for me.

I eyeballed him as he rang up my purchases and identified him as a fellow geek, probably having a bad day. "I'm glad to get these cables," I announced in a friendly manner, "I'll finally be able to watch this week's Battlestar Galactica."

I wouldn't normally utter that phrase outside of my geek cocoon, but my nerd-sense assured me that I was among friends. It was wrong.

The Assistant Manager snorted again, derisively this time, and announced, "I have a satellite dish with a Tivo."

I had been served.

It was on.

Nerd equipment fight.

"I ALSO have a satellite dish with a Tivo," I parried, "but the images have been pixelated recently, so I'm going to download this episode from iTunes and connect my laptop to my TV."

BAM! I call your receiver and raise you a download!

He exhaled dismissively, wiggling all the overgrown nose hairs protruding from his nostrils. "It's your satellite cable. You need to replace it."

"No. It's NOT my cable. The distortion only happens on a couple of the channels."

We jockeyed for position.

"Oh, it's your cable. The same thing happened to me, but it only affected my secondary receiver, which I don't care about. You'll need to call your satellite provider and have them check it out. They'll charge you for the visit, of course."

"We'll see. I'm not done troubleshooting the problem," I growled, testosterone oozing out of my every port.

"It's probably time to replace your equipment anyway. Do you have HD? Analog broadcasts are going away in 2009, you know."

"I know! And, no, I don't have HD yet."

"Ohhh!" His eyes perked up. "You know, we have a selection of HD TVs here. Our LCD models are quite reasonable."

Aha! So this was the reason for the nerd fight! He just wanted to sell me a TV. His sales fu was weak.

"I will NOT be buying any TVs from Radio Shack today," I explained condescendingly. I grabbed my bag and marched out of the store, still bristling from the encounter.

Like all true nerd fights, this one ended unsatisfactorily. No slap fights (sorry, Pablo) or scratch marks. Frankly, I'm not even sure who won. I'll be back for Round Two though.

Bring it.

I think we're decent parents.

That statement is true because of the word "we're". It allows me to lump together my wife's parenting ability with mine. I'm a pretty lousy parent, but she's a really great one, so if you average us together, we're decent parents. Yay, math!

I'm not certain everyone is going to rate us that way though. Daisy had a friend, Jasmine, sleep over on Saturday night and it's just a matter of time before that Jasmine's parents prohibit her from socializing with our family.

First, when the mom dropped her daughter off, she also brought along a present for Daisy, a nice sweater and skirt. Daisy's birthday was months ago, so I'm guessing this was just a Thanks For Having Me Over present. Given that when we drop Daisy off at other people's houses, we're lucky to remember her underwear and medicine, so I can't imagine we'll be reciprocating for these types of gifts.

After the mom left, we got ready to have dinner. Jasmine saw her plate of food and said, "Since I'm a Christian, I'm going to thank Jesus now."

It would be an understatement to say that I'm not a religious man. My parents half-heartedly pushed some Judaism at me, much as I occasionally try to get Daisy to eat a couple of bites of squash. I hate it, she hates it, I know she hates it, and she knows I hate it, but it's a game we play about once a year because it makes me feel like a better parent. I can pull off that game because I force down the squash too, so it passes the hypocrisy test. I can't do the same thing with prayer.

So, let it suffice to say that this might have been the first prayer offered to Jesus at our dinner table ever. Wisely, and uncharacteristically, I decided this would be a good time for me to shut my mouth. Daisy spoke up though.

"Well. Go ahead," Daisy stated, shrugging.

I think Jasmine was a little put off by our lack of piousness because she immediately changed her mind about the prayer. I felt (a little) bad that somehow we had dissuaded her from thanking Jesus, but maybe he would have preferred a nice sweater and skirt anyway.

A few bites into our dinner Daisy launched into a discussion about what to have for dessert. We asked Jasmine what she usually had for dessert at her house.

"Dessert? Hmmmm," she mulled, "We don't usually have dessert. Maybe some fruit."

I cringed, knowing that as soon as dinner ended, Daisy would proudly show off the literal suitcase of candy that resides in our kitchen. I didn't feel any better when we fed Jasmine ice cream and Holiday Oreos (santized of all religious imagery) after the meal. I'm pretty sure that Jasmine's mom will be hearing all about it the next time she offers up bananas for dessert.

To top off the unwholesome evening, we let the kids watch some Tom and Jerry, which features all the violence of a good Looney Tunes cartoon, but without any of the cleverness.

Poor Jasmine. It was Her Dinner with Satan.

Tonight I went to a neighborhood watch meeting.

There's an organization in San Francisco (and in most cities) that helps neighborhoods deal with safety and some quality of life issues. Tonight's meeting was the first step in organizing the people on our block to help prevent crimes and respond appropriately when they do happen. Volunteers for various tasks were solicited (I signed up for the easiest task) and the beginnings of a plan were put into place.

All in all, it was a very civil and sedate meeting. No one got freaked out about crime and we all made nice nice. That was until the meeting facilitator opened up the floor to anyone with an issue. What we then learned is that people on my block don't really have safety issues, they have parking issues.

Person A was mad that people park across their driveways. Person B urged us to help each other fight parking tickets, by erasing the chalk marks that the meter maids use to ticket cars without residential parking permits. Person C thought that Person B's idea was horrible, and was actually counterproductive to being able to park in our own neighborhood.

An excellent argument ensued. The meeting facilitator yelled at us, and a small part of me secretly hoped that irony would rule the day, and a fist fight would break out at this, our very first neighborhood safely meeting. Alas, it did not come to blows. :(

But maybe we'll make our neighborhood a teeny bit safer. And maybe I'll get to see a good fight at the next meeting. That would make a MUCH better blog post.

It's been amusing watching all the politicians flopping around since the election. The Republicans are busy placing blame, and the Democrats are jockeying for position around the feeding trough, pretending that votes were cast for them rather than against the Republicans. Ahhh, the fetid stench of democracy. Congratulations, America!

Now that the presidential elections are only two years away, I thought I'd be one of the first to make a prediction. This way, in two years, I can place a Colbert-esque "I CALLED IT!" banner on my blog.

Ladies and germs, I Am Prepared to Give Up at Any Time proudly presents its very first presidential prediction. America, your next leader will be: Senator Barack Obama*.

I think the next President will probably be a Democrat. America seems to like switching parties when it comes to their leaders. It's been rare in recent history for America to elect two Presidents in a row from the same party, unless they're voting for the guy who is currently Vice President. Apparently, we like change. Or we're wafflers.

And speaking of wafflers, what other Democrat could possibly get elected? I think America is tired of Kerry's act. Hillary seems to inspire both fear and hatred. John Edwards has been officially branded as a lightweight. So that leaves all the "unknowns". And among those unknowns, Senator Obama seems to have the momentum. Being an unknown is a great way to get elected. Career politicians are all distasteful individuals, and the longer they spend in politics the more corrupt they get, and the more things they'll do that we'll hate. So, a less experienced politician is not only less corrupt, but more likable as well.

People tell me that Barack couldn't get elected because he's African American. But, he's only HALF African American, so the racists can still sort of squint and see what they want. Plus, the guy is an inspired speaker, which will be a stark and welcome contrast to the less.... uh..... eloquent speaking style of our current President.

Finally, when someone asked him if he'd ever smoked pot, he gave a disarmingly honest answer, saying, "I inhaled -- that was the point."

America is ready. Barack Obama in 2008. You heard it here first.

Those are my astute observations and that is my prediction.


*Assuming the guy runs.

Blog posts about my random weekend activities are never very cohesive. It's usually a little "Oh, a park bench attacked me" followed by some "I accidentally fed Daisy some peanuts!", closing out with a touch of "I didn't think one zit could contain that much pus!". Although, it's always a heartwarming journey following my trials and tribulations from Friday to Sunday, it's rarely thematic.

This weekend I had a theme. That's good news for my blog.

The theme was emasculation. That's bad news for me.

The first thing happened when I had to make a trip to Sears to buy a new garage door opener remote control. So manly! Unfortunately, my wife asked me to pick up some pantyhose for her while I was out. So not manly! This is not a big deal for me though. I am comfortable enough in my masculinity to buy pantyhose. Besides, I knew no one would give me a hard time at a store a mere dozen miles out of San Francisco.

So, I picked out my garage door opener and the pantyhose (which was really hard! The sizes had names like CD and TwoPlus, and the chart on the back looked like a game of Tetris had puked), and I marched up to the cashier. She was chatty and very sociable, and we had an animated conversation about caffeine. She may have been flirting with me. After she handed me my receipt she said, "Oh. I only rang you up for the opener. I didn't see your.... uh.... panty... hose."

I smiled confidently and said, "I like to buy both feminine and masculine products at the same time. Keeps me, you know, balanced."

The cashier stopped and stared at me. Then she literally look half a step backwards, shrugging nervously, her eyes darting back and forth from the pantyhose to me. She was suddenly extremely uncomfortable. Initially I felt compelled to explain that the pantyhose was for my wife, but the severity of her discomfort was strangely riveting.

"Am I really the first guy today to buy Craftsman products and pantyhose?" I asked innocently.

She shook her head, twice, like someone who can't quite believe what they're seeing, like I was a ghost, a very gay ghost, and then she exhaled defeatedly. "Well, " she muttered, "We are in the San Francisco Bay Area."

I'm sure she went home and poured herself a stiff drink.

Me? I moved on, my masculinity still entirely intact. I had some yard work to do. The annual Oxalis battle began a few weeks ago, so I strapped on a radio and went outside to pull some weeds. I tuned the radio to the sports talk station and was immediately assaulted by college football "analysis". In general, I have limited appreciation for sports, but I have zero tolerance for college football. I flipped the radio over to NPR just in time to hear the announcer for their Soundprint program introduce their next program.

"Stay tuned for our broadcast of My Dinner with Menopause."

Oh. Man. A discussion of menopause done in the style of My Dinner with Andre. My testicles began to shrink at the mere thought of it.

I quickly flipped back to College Game Day on the sports station. I endured it for several moments before coming to the inexplicable conclusion that hearing ex-college quarterbacks reminisce about their glory years might just be the one thing on the planet more boring than hearing about women's fears about menopause.

With great reluctance I embraced my inner vagina, and I.... tuned.... back.... to.... My.... Dinner.... with.... Menopause.

And if you tell anyone about this next sentence, I will deny ever typing it. My Dinner with Menopause was more interesting than College Game Day.

Anyway, after my vagina and I finished picking weeds, I looked forward to reestablishing my masculinity. So, on Sunday, when I had some free time and my wife suggested that I put up some shelves in our closet, I was all over that action. Shelves! Support structures! Tools! I could feel my ovaries shrinking as I donned a flannel shirt. This would be the redemption I needed. The shelves would be big, and hard, and sturdy, a showy display of over-compensation.

My wife told me what size shelves she wanted, and I minced off to Home Depot to buy supplies. After returning home with wood, screws, and assorted shelving hardware, I set about to build the world's finest shelves.

Within minutes I discovered that I had bought almost all the wrong things. The wood needed to be re-cut and the hardware wasn't really the right kind, and I had spent so long making decisions at Home Depot, there wasn't really enough time left to complete the project. I had failed. The bags of screws lay flaccidly on the ground.

It was my one final shot at recovering my manhood and I biffed it.

What was your weekend theme? Was it Your Dinner with Emasculation? That was mine.

Now I'm starting to get spooked.

I went for a run yesterday at lunch. On Thursdays I try to do some sort of speed workout, so yesterday I alternated intervals of easy running and hard running. During one of my easy intervals, I was jogging along, not hurting anyone, when suddenly out of nowhere a tree jumped in front of me, slamming into my left shoulder.

I didn't need go to to the emergency room, like I had to a few weeks ago when I was attacked by the garbage can, but I do have a pretty good looking scrape on my shoulder. It will heal, but it frightens me a bit.

It's like I've suddenly been thrust into a war against stationary objects and I'm losing. This is very concerning. I use stationary objects every day. If, for example, my office chair drops its apparent policy of non-involvement in this war, then my workday is going to become much more challenging.

How much longer before the coffee maker develops a taste for blood? Or my toothbrush? Or even my beloved Chillow?

These are dark times. Hold me.

A few thoughts on yesterday's election:

1) Politically I'm pretty far left of center, and I'm pleased to see that the Democrats have gained power, but I'm under no delusion that they'll be able to do anything good with Iraq. Iraq is totally broken and it's going to get worse for a while before it gets better.

2) Everyone knew that the Democrats were going to gain seats in Congress. Polls differed on how many seats, but it was widely accepted that many Americans were fed up with the war (of course all those Republican scandals didn't hurt either, but the Democrats have had their fair share too). So, if you're George Bush, wouldn't you fire Rumsfeld BEFORE the election and not the day after? You can't win elections by taking action after people vote. Smooth move, George.

3) Someone quoted a study to me the other day stating that the best legislation is passed by administrations that have a President from one party and a congressional majority from the other. The premise here is that since things are "gridlocked", any proposed legislation will have to get amended and tuned to the point where it's acceptable to both parties, and that this makes for better laws. I'm not entirely sure that theory works, but it makes me hopeful.

4) The citizens of San Francisco have spoken. By a 60 to 40 margin, San Franciscans have stated their desire to have Bush and Cheney impeached. So, now... um.... uh.... Hmmmm. Maybe they didn't think that all the way through.

Overall, my reaction to yesterday's events is:

The United States uses a system of government called representative democracy. This means that we elect officials at various levels (city, state, federal) to represent us and make (hopefully) wise decisions on our behalf. One could argue about the quality of the results (lookit me being all tactful!), but that's the system we employ.

The mechanics of this system seem to work at the federal level. Again, I'm not arguing that our representatives do a particularly good job, but they're mostly showing up and voting and signing bills. There's plenty of time in the workday to take bribes, shoot a man in the face, have sexy IMs with pages, AND work on legislation.

At the city and state level (at least in California, anyway), lawmakers feel free to give up. Some issues come across their desk that apparently require the wisdom of the masses. So, every year....

Whoop! Apparently the end to that sentence should be "... I write the same blog post." I just searched my blog and found that I've already bitched about how California and San Francisco lawmakers like to ask voters to decide on issues that we can barely understand, let alone judge wisely.

So, let me jump to my main point here. For all of you who are also presented with election booklets filled with incomprehensible propositions about campaign finance reform loopholes, water levy engineering, and Fourier Transforms, allow me to present Mike's Simple Proposition and Initiative Voting Rules. So simple!

Rule #1 - Don't Make More Mediocre Laws

Most propositions consist of 75% good and 25% bad. This is not an acceptable level of goodness for a new law. Since the proposition process does not give voters a chance to amend these laws, we can only vote on what we're given. Unless you really REALLY love that 75%, don't vote yes for something that's 25% crap.

Rule #2 - Don't Tie Up Funds

It's rarely a good idea to mandate how funds should be spent. Ok, suppose I agree to raise the sales tax on gasoline so that we can repair more roads. That might make sense. What happens 2 years from now when gas prices go through the roof, and at the same time the levies break and need a billion dollars in repair. Oh, sorry. We mandated that the gas money ONLY go towards road repair. I guess we'll take the levy money from our underfunded schools instead.

I know the folks in the legislature can be idiots, but don't tie their hands by placing restrictions on how they budget our money. If we're going to give money to our goverment, let's put it in the big bucket so that our most pressing needs can be addressed each year, not just whatever need was biggest when we passed some narrow proposition.

So, unless you really REALLY love whatever they're funding, or just really REALLY hate whatever they're taxing, don't tie up funds.

Rule #3 - Don't Tie Judges' Hands

Often there are propositions that mandate certain jail time or penalties for certain crimes. I don't like child molesters, or rapists, or other violent criminals, but I'm hard pressed to argue that the citizenry of California can do justice by uniformly penalizing all people whose crimes get categorized the same way. We have people whose job it is to judge these criminals. They're called judges.

Judges won't always make the right decision but at least they get to meet the criminal and hear about the case. That's about 20,000% more data than we're given when we're asked to pass a law about appropriate punishments.

Rule #4 - No Meaningless Toothless Declarations

This is probably more of a problem in San Francisco than in other places. Here in SF, they love to float propositions that say things like, "This is a declaration of policy calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney"

Super. That's super.

Has anyone checked the impeachment handbook to see where San Francisco city goverment fits into the process? Maybe Appendix Rainbow details our part? On page Sunshine, perhaps?

Stomp your little feet, San Francisco! Pound those effeminate little fists! If you think and you believe, and you sprinkle the goddamn fairy dust, then maybe, just maybe....

You won't find many people who have a lower regard for Bush and Cheney than I do, but even I can't stomach a vote for a meaningless Declaration of Policy. I'll abstain on this one. Just a complete and total waste of time.

Rule #5 - Just Say No

If you are undecided on a proposition, vote no. Don't vote for a new law unless you're pretty certain that it's a good one. No bad laws, people.

(Update: I almost forgot one more rule.

Rule #6 - Don't Yell At Me

If you still can't decide how to vote, then look at the arguments for and against the proposition in the voter pamphlet. Whichever side USES THE MOST CAPITAL LETTERS loses. You can't substitute letter size for good arguments.)

Maybe it's because I stay reasonably fit, or perhaps it's due to my hermit-like work environment, or it could be that one of your gods just likes me, but for some reason I rarely get sick. Today I'm all sniffly though. :(

The last time I was Oh-My-God-I'm-Sick sick was years ago. Late one night an illness came on suddenly, and a toilet was required immediately. I recall stumbling to the toilet and being unable to decide which orifice was going to require its services first (answer: bottom). After giving each orifice a generous turn, I got up, became light-headed and literally crashed around the bathroom. In my dazed state, I was unable to figure out why I kept falling, so I kept getting back up and immediately toppling over again. I played this game a few times, crashing into the shower stall, the cabinets, and of course the floor, and then eventually realized that gravity was implacable so I aimed my ricochets out of the hard and pointy bathroom and bounced into the soft and carpeted living room where I collapsed for a nap.

Today I'm not enjoying that kind of slapstick sickness, instead I'm just a little under the weather. This is the type of sickness that will just go away by itself in a couple days. I'm a big proponent of letting symptoms just work themselves out. so I'll rarely take any medicine for a low fever, or runny nose, or similar annoyances. I figure those symptoms are my body's way of fighting the germies.

I'll deviate from this system if the symptoms prevent me from sleeping well, or if I need to feel well for a few hours. Today, since I was going to be visiting my parents, and I didn't want to spend that time sniffling and blowing my nose, I popped a DayQuil.

As near as I can tell, my body saved up all the snot it was going to expel during those 4-6 hours because this evening my nose has been a virtual faucet. It's like there's a snot brigade in my head, furiously fighting an imaginary fire with the power of mucus.

And, yes, I know that this is a ridiculously trivial thing to complain about, but this blog is where I put my ridiculously trivial things to complain about. In fact, my snotty nose is to actual suffering as running into a garbage can is to an emergency.

I can never remember whether daylight savings time begins or ends in the Fall (well, Google just solved that mini-mystery for me. It just ended. Anyway...), but the "fall back" thing we do with our clocks in the Fall is my favorite part of the mysterious Daylight Savings Time process.

I mentioned this to one of my coworkers this week and he was surprised to hear that I like moving the clocks back. I was even more surprised to hear about his surprise. (I think the surprise chain ended there, which is good because those kind of feedback loops never end well)

What's not to like about moving your clock back an hour? Time is our (my) most precious resource and I just got an extra hour of it!

When I woke up on Sunday morning, it was earlier than it felt, giving my whole day a nice leisurely feeling. Then, it felt like I got to stay up late on Sunday night. As long as I'm not working or taking care of a screaming infant, I like staying up late. It still has the same naughty appeal it did when I was a kid. Lookit me staying up until a time that feels like 11:00pm! Spank me, momma!

Then, on Monday morning it felt like I got to sleep in again. Then I got to play that naughty game all over again during the next 24 hours! Oooh, my bottom will be sore tomorrow!

Folks, I've got a family, a mortgage, and a regular job. This is what passes for excitement in my life. And as an added moving-the-clocks-back bonus, now when I wake up on a weekday morning, it's already light outside. There was something unnatural about waking up while it was still dark.

And what's the price I pay for all this joy? It gets dark an hour earlier in the evening.

That's it! One less hour of light in the evening! Big freakin' whoop! Who cares whether it's light or dark when I'm eating dinner? I'm EATING my dinner, not performing photosynthesis.

If I could move my birthday, I'd move it to the day when Daylight Savings Time ends. Best day of the year.