Trouble with Democracy

The trouble with Democracy is that an idiot's vote counts that same as a smart person's. LOL Just kidding.

Reggie Jackson Tried to Steal my Cab!

So, did I ever tell you about the time I met Reggie Jackson? This was back in the mid-1990's. He tried to steal my cab late one night at the Monterey Peninsula Airport. I had gotten in on a red-eye flight. I'm tired as hell. After getting my luggage, I walked outside to wait for a cab. Others from our flight did the same. After waiting about 15 minutes, I figured sumfin was up, so I went to call one of the cab companies to come on down. Within 30 seconds, three cabs show up. Apparently, the airport had a rule against cabs waiting for passengers, so they waited to be dispatched from a just a block away. Anyways, I let some elderly couples take the cabs. This left me stranded. I had to wait for the cabs to return, so I sat and waited. While I'm waiting, another flight gets in. Reggie Jackson comes out of the airport building and sits down a ways over from me. Finally a cab returns, and what does that Reggie try to do? He tries to steal it from me. He saw me waiting with my luggage, but he still walks right up to the cab and prepares to load up. I walked right up to him and looked him square in the eye with a rather unpleasant look on my face and just said with attitude, "Is that your cab?!" Well, he matches my look for half a second, then tries to play it off with something like, "Oh, this one's yours?" I'm like, "Yeah." LOL So, the cabbie recognizes him too and gets all excited. I load up my luggage and get in. The cabbie tries to get Reggie's attention to ride with us to, and I'm like, "Alright, fine, ask if he wants to share." Reggie goes to sit back down. At this point, I know he's not coming in this cab, so I tell the cab to just go. I didn't have all that far to travel, so riding with him woulda been pointless, even on better terms. Who knows, maybe the cabbie got back in time to give him a ride before another cab showed up. Whatever. I wasn't going to let anyone steal my cab that night.

Well, the recall election is today

I've done voted via absentee last week. My mind hasn't changed, either. I'm still not happy about having to vote over the recall, but oh well. I think the law should allow counter-petitioning (or would that be counter petition or counterpetition?) during the petition collection process. Actually, that's not a bad idea. That would mean that any petition would need to collect a more reasonable number of signatures instead of letting a very small percentage of the population trigger something like a recall.

Some week off this has been

I had intended on doing nufin for a couple of weeks in the evenings, to just relax and veg. This is cuz last month I was soo busy. Well, it's not shaping up that way. I've gone out Friday, Sunday, last night and today, plus tomorrow and Friday again. I'm having a good time, so I'm not goin to stop the spontanious flow of activity. I'll just need to make sure I take it easy this weekend cuz I'm goin to need to catch up on sleep.

Microsoft's Settlement Refund...umm, wow

This is turning about to be one strange turn-of-the-century. First, we start getting tax refund checks in the middle of the year without filing taxes yet. Now, Microsoft is throwing money at us too.

Basically, you get a settlement for any eligible Microsoft purchases you made during 1995 thru 2001. No proof of purchase is necessary if the total reimbursement is does not exceed $100. Microsoft even had two of my purchases already listed. The really really scary part about all this is that somehow, they knew to send the reimbursement form to my current work address. I've been working at the same company all along, mind you, but we've moved a couple of times since then. Well, it's a refund that I'm sure I deserve. :) Anyone else wanna give me some money? LOL

Updated Post, August 14, 2006

I finally received my Microsoft voucher

Updated Post, September 15, 2016
Microsoft Settlement Refund...umm, wow Part 2

My Vote

Besides the recall vote, there's two other items on the California 2003 special election: proposition 53 and Proposition 54. I've stated before that I'm a political centrist (as opposed to moderate). So here I am, faced with two highly political propositions. What's a centrist to do?

 
My viewpoint on Proposition 53 is that the last thing we need is more planned state government spending that takes money out of the budget. This proposition is giving our elected leaders no room to move when balancing the budget. I was very surprised to find that the Republican party of California is supporting this thing. Aren't these guys supposed to be against wild government spending? When I read the pros and cons, it just left a bad taste in my mouth to think this was even on the ballot. Yuk.

 
My viewpoint on Proposition 54 is that it is about time this issue is being addressed. I classify my race as American. Ethnically, that is what I am. It would be nuts to break down my family lines to choose just one of my origin ethnics as my own. The truth is that I represent none of these origin "races", or maybe I represent all of them. I am walking proof of the stupidity of claiming ethnicity. In a colorblind society, it wouldn't even matter. I am tired of being asked about my ethnicity by the government. I want this practice stopped. I read in the cons that this proposition will hinder health care collection of data. Well, it doesn't. Even if there is some loophole where this might occur, it would be fixed by the legislature next year anyway, so this is a moot point.