Horn is broken...
You have to take the good with the bad... the bitter with the sweet... count your blessings... into every life a little rain must fall... HORN IS BROKEN - WATCH FOR FINGER!

What the heck am I talking about? Let me first say that the good side is that I am glad I don't have to rise before daybreak and embark on a treacherous commute through a hellish freeway system to slave away at some horrible job (been there, done that). I work at home which means I can usually get up when I'm ready and go about my business. This morning at about 6:35 AM I was sleeping peacefully... in some pleasant dream about who knows what -- probably about 15 minutes away from waking slowly and naturally, feeling refreshed. Into my consciousness came the steady whine of a car horn. This wasn't the first time. I got up and put on some clothes and went out to the street below our window. There was some piece of junk Pontiac Grand Am wailing away like a banshee. While I was writing down the license number I noticed the sticker about the broken horn. How appropriate, I thought; this car giving the finger to my blissful sleep. Fortunately I ran across another neighbor who lives on the first floor directly below me. We had a quick conference about what to do and I gave her the info. She was more irate than me and not handicapped by my live-and-let-live attitude so she would call security. You go girl! The wailing stopped a while later.

There is also a pick-up that likes to park below as well. It has a hair-trigger alarm that goes off every time a car passes, and then launches into a steady chorus of HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! until its master shuts it off somehow. Is such noise pollution necessary? It just makes you wish someone would steal these damn cars and dismantle them in the seediest chop-shop on the planet... and let the owners take the bad with the good.

Good For What Ails Ya
There certainly are a lot of ailments to think about these days. My favorite is Restless Leg Syndrome. Those poor people with animated push-pins and ants in their legs! You should go to the doctor if you've that's happening I suppose. Then there's that thing that opens up someone's toenail and climbs in... that looks distressing too. There are lots of pills to for your depression. Of course they say to ease up if you start wanting to kill yourself (probably good advice in most circumstances). There are lots of pills to give you a boner... one that got me a woman would be much more useful at this point though, so I can save my money on that one. Associated with all of them is a long list of side effects that sound as bad or worse than the original malady... which they use various clever but transparent techniques to cheerfully communicate.

The list could go on and on. I just wonder how people ever got this far without all of these medications. Were they aware that all of this Computer Generated animation was lurking around every corner, waiting to make their lives unbearable? And since when is it your responsibility to tell the doctor that you have ants crawling around inside your leg... unless you're in the drunk tank with the DTs! Don't they go to school so they can tell you what pills you should be gulping down? Oh well, take two and call me in the morning.

Whew!
The elections are over -- that's a relief! My party did well... we certainly sent a message. Here in NM the outcome for our Congress Member is still up in the air though, too close to call.

I refrained from making many comments along the way. The attack ads from all sides were so ugly and absurd that I had to keep my thumb over the channel button on the remote at all times... they weren't worth watching or stressing about. It's a shame that American politics has come to that, but maybe there's a change in the air. I think it's been pretty clear that this administration (or the behind-the-scenes politicos) likes to divide people as much as possible and tear down and accuse any dissenter of awful things. But now the dissenters are a significant number of American citizens... pretty good folk from my experience.

I was fortunate to be in another city in another state over the weekend, watching their attack ads. It was interesting, because they used the same techniques and weird graphics and all, except I had no stake in the game up there, and didn't really know who the candidates were or what they were about. It was just an academic exercise as I watched everyone try to smear each other. So now we have a year or so to back off and observe how the new broom does up there, and gear up for the next round.