I sent in our absentee ballots for the ‘08 election yesterday. It was a bit anticlimactic after having followed the race so closely, swept up in the excitement of a potentially historic vote. I missed not going to the community center at the “Y”, signing in and manipulating the big red dial on the electroinc voting machine. Absentee voting was incredibly easy though and FedEx guarantees one day delivery of the ballots for free from here.

Related Australian Fact O’The Day: In Australia, voting is mandatory. As in, there is a federal law here that requires each citizen to vote. That still puzzles me. And my Australian friends think it’s equally bizarre that it’s not mandatory in the US.

A recent visitor to our house in Austin…

Picture courtesy of Lolo.

Update 8-Oct-2008: It’s a harmless orbweaver spider. Scroll down to Orbweavers on this page. Remarkable that the picture is almost identical.

In case you were wondering, Johnny Costa was the musical director and pianist for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. I told Twyla a while ago that it sounded like Bill Evans primarily because Bill Evans is the only jazz pianist I know. She told me I was crazy. It’s been bugging me for a while so I finally looked it up. She was right of course but it turns out Mr. Costa was an accomplished and well regarded jazz pianist in his own right. All the music for the show was done live by Mr. Costa’s in-studio jazz trio.

Also learned today that Mister Rogers’ middle name was McFeely.

So, there you go, that should fill your useless knowledge quota for today.

We do not support government bailouts of private institutions.
- 2008 GOP Platform

Should be fun to watch the 2008 GOP kick W out of the clubhouse.

I’ve been reading quite a bit about the financial crisis in the US lately. My initial reaction to the bail-out talks was echoed in a reddit post that I can’t find anymore: Why not bail-out the regular folks by giving them money to cover their defaulted mortgages and watch the results trickle up to the banks? Granted, probably a naive idea. But the author of this letter to Senator Obama has another alternative along the same lines: Ensure the FDIC is adequately funded to cover consumers then let the banks fail and rebuild the industry through bankruptcy courts and future legislation. Seems a much better plan than rushing to throw 700 billion at Wall Street with little to no oversight.

I love reading Roger Ebert’s reviews. Even for movies I have no interest in, his columns are just incredibly fun to read. That’s why I really, really hope this is either a joke I don’t understand yet or a hacker’s prank.

A few stunning pictures of Hurricane Ike.

“Vote for me or Walker Texas Ranger will kick your ass!”

Coolest bird ever? I think so! [via reddit.com]

Forecast for tomorrow here in sunny Melbourne: 41C. Since I still can’t convert in my head, Google tells me “41 degrees Celsius = 105.8 degrees Fahrenheit.” Crap!

Update 31-Dec-2007: Well it only hit 40.9C (105.6F). Even after living most of my life in Texas, I don’t think I have ever experienced a day so hot! It was like sticking your head in an oven or, when the wind blew, a convection oven.