jumpy jumpy vitamins

Quiet day

It’s an abnormally quiet day at the office here, which to my line of thinking indicates that one or more of the following situations is taking place:

All computer hardware, software, and networks are performing optimally. (rare, but it happens)
hardware could be on fire, software could be threatening people’s mothers, and the network could be finalizing plans to build assassin robots. I just won’t hear a peep about any of it from my users for at least another week. (default for this type of situation, sadly)
Every user is heads-down on next year’s budget and completely oblivious to all other issues. (most likely)

This does give me time to fiddle with my balky iPod, though; it has been dying a slow death, and I think the hard drive is mostly dead now. I can’t get past the ’sad iPod’ action with any key combination, so I’m going to let the battery drain itself over the next day or two and try again. If still nothing… well, everything’s backed up as of Tuesday, and any new stuff since then is either saved elsewhere or not critical.

Last night Fred and I had an “audition” for the chorus’s small ensemble; we’ve been in previously, and were asked to come back, but the director wanted to hear everybody’s voices separately so that she could figure out the best blend. It went well, I think, though we haven’t heard a final line-up yet.

As I was singing, though, Fred was in the hall talking to another returning member, and somehow C* got Fred thinking about buying a house again. I’m not opposed to the concept, but the market’s still a bit high at the moment (REALTOR<tm> rhetoric notwithstanding) for my tastes, and with the ongoing job hunt the financial situation might be changing very soon.

After that, and some brief adventures in puttanesca, I drove to my youngest brother’s hovel^H^H^H^H^Hplace to fix his computer. Kid trashed the MBR, so I have to rebuild the OS this weekend. He’ll find a few nicer components when he gets it back ’cause it’s his birthday and ’cause I need to get a few components out of the house. He’ll also receive the standard lecture on safe network usage.

Got home late last night and it was getting pretty chilly out. Fred had already put the flannel sheets on the bed, though, so we stayed comfortable overnight despite the open windows and light breeze.

Tonight’s project: write a paper on Alan Turing already.

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Apologies to Jimbo, whose hairstyle I’m planning to “borrow”. (Not the beard, though. That’d take me a long time to grow, and in the meantime I’d just look hoosierish.)

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Salon has an interesting piece on how the US Constitution does not guarantee universal suffrage (just click through the commercial). Though the Constitution does prohibit disenfranchisement based on race or former status as a slave (15th Amendment), sex (19th), age (26th), and ability to pay a poll tax (24th), it only implies universal suffrage in the Fourteenth Amendment’s first section (the bit about “equal protection” that a certain wing hates so so much).

The MO state constitution, however, is pretty explicit on the issue:

All citizens of the United States, including occupants of soldiers’ and sailors’ homes, over the age of eighteen who are residents of this state and of the political subdivision in which they offer to vote are entitled to vote at all elections by the people, if the election is one for which registration is required if they are registered within the time prescribed by law, or if the election is one for which registration is not required, if they have been residents of the political subdivision in which they offer to vote for thirty days next preceding the election for which they offer to vote: Provided however, no person who has a guardian of his or her estate or person by reason of mental incapacity, appointed by a court of competent jurisdiction and no person who is involuntarily confined in a mental institution pursuant to an adjudication of a court of competent jurisdiction shall be entitled to vote, and persons convicted of felony, or crime connected with the exercise of the right of suffrage may be excluded by law from voting.

(Article VIII, Section 2, Missouri State Constitution)

The bits about how felons and the incapable can’t vote are pretty standard. My favorite part, though, is how they also indicate that people who’ve fucked with elections can have their own voting privileges revoked even if their crime wasn’t a felony.

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Question: is this blog easier to read in chunks like I’ve done this week or as separate items?