I’m really quite worried about this upcomming election. I know I can’t vote for Bush. I can’t possibly. With every fiber of my being I know that I cannot vote for him. The problem is that I have yet to be given one single reason to vote for Kerry. I have yet to see any reason why, if the other candidate were not George Bush, I would vote for Kerry. So I’m concerned, because I know I’m going to vote for Kerry, and yet I have no idea what that will mean for the country. If I were to vote for Bush (I won’t), at least I know what might happen. With Kerry, I have no clue. I want to believe that it will be better than what we have now, but I haven’t been given any reason to. What does that mean? Is Kerry just as bad as Bush? Sometimes it seems like it. Has Bush managed to create a “New World Order” in which our leaders don’t really feel the need to consult us or do anything beyond what they want to do? That’s really frightening.

Like almost everyone else who was in the store, I picked up a copy of the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD this morning. It got me to thinking…

I am lucky enough to have grown up with the original trilogy. I got to see it before Lucas made any “corrections” to it. Now, he can say all he wants about how he’s changed them for the better, and that can be argued for either side, but I’m glad I’ve gotten to see it in all its forms and make up my own mind. But here’s what I wanted to talk about…

I just read an interview with George Lucas in which he was asked in what order does he think the new generation of Star Wars fans should watch the movies. He said, without question, they should watch them in chronological order, meaning start with Episode I and work up to Episode VI. What I find interesting about that, though, is how it will change Epsiode IV-VI for viewers, as opposed to the way we saw it. What I’m saying is, when my generation saw the original trilogy, it was a shock and surprise to us to find out that Luke and Leia were siblings and that Darth Vader was their father. We were floored by those revelations, and it put the entirety of the trilogy up to that point into perspective for us. It’s like finding out that Kevin Spacey is actually Kaiser Soze (sp?). For the new generation, though, it won’t be that way. They’ll already know all of that information by the time they get to Episode IV. I wonder how that will change things for them? Will it make the entirety of the story less interesting, or will it add a different element for them, experiencing the dramatic irony of knowing things that the characters don’t know? I wish I could experience it both ways, but I won’t say that I’m disappointed to have experienced it the way I did. I guess I’ll get to witness it through Cindi, who will have the opportunity to watch it in order.

I get a lot of ideas over the course of the day. Sometimes it happens when I’m trying to go to sleep, sometimes while I’m driving, sometimes just when I’m sitting around. I have things that need to get written down. I have ideas about my other ideas, and expansions on them, and if I don’t write these things down, I tend to lose at least parts of the ideas. Sometimes the ideas are stupid, but if I don’t write it down and look at it, I won’t realize that. Sometimes I just need to take notes about something. I used to think that my PDA would handle those functions for me, but it’s not happening. Something about being able to write on paper, to draw pictures to go with my ideas…I need that. So I went and bought myself a nice journal with blank paper inside of it. If you see me ever, you’ll probably see me with it most of the time. I’ve only had it a day, but so far I think it’s been a good thing for me.

Also, thank god it’s September. I’m working again. It feels great. Really great. It feels like coming alive after being dead all summer long.

In the past 3 1/2 weeks, I’ve had to spend over $1500 in repairs on my van. The damn thing is getting smart. It knows that if I were to be hit with that $1500 all at once, I’d have probably gotten rid of it. But when I get hit $500 at a time, I figure it’s not too bad. And it knows that when I get to that third $500, I’ll figure, “I’ve already spent the $1000, I’m not going to get rid of it for only another $500.” Damn you, van. Damn you….

To answer a few of Stacey’s questions….

The meeting with the education director at McCarter never happened. He had to cancel because he was running late from somewhere. He said he would call me to reschedule, but I haven’t heard back from him, yet. I have left him two messages trying to reschedule but as yet have not gotten a call back.

The deal with my domain is that its renewal date came up and Network Solutions, who it is currently registered with, never bothered to send an e-mail to anyone saying that it was coming due. So then it lapsed. When it did, Network Solutions put it into registrar-hold. Bryan tried to transfer my domain from Network Solutions over to eNom because he is not really happy with Network Solutions anymore, and by transferring it would then be in my name and would be my problem to deal with (which is better). Unfortunately, because of the registrar-hold, it could not be transferred until it was renewed. If we renewed it at Network Solutions, however, and then transferred it to eNom before 45 days, we would have to renew it again at eNom (some sort of global registry rule). So, in the end, I just renewed it at Network Solutions and put a note in my calendar for June 1st to transfer it to eNom.

Also, is it bad that Windows has downloaded Service Pack 2 but I haven’t installed it, yet, because I’m afraid it’s going to mess things up? Stupid Windows….

Halle-frickin-lujah.