alas, i have broken my right pinkie finger. my dreams of blogging about the missives of McCain, Hilary, Barack, and the heretofore silent Giuliani are thwarted by the effort required at this time. i shall soon regain the ability to type away furiously (if with bad form, sorry mavis!). in the meantime, take a moment to remember that here in SF we get a mayoral election this year! That should be fun!

Don’t know if it’s mine or the US Postal Service’s, but who doesn’t honestly think a lot of these are going to get stolen or supremely messed with?

In honor of California moving up its primary (and to spark up the blog and make me “care” about politics again), I am starting my 2008 Presidential Campaign watch now even though that goes against my better judgment. I am starting with an experiment. today, I “joined” the campaigns of Hilary, Barack, Giuliani, and McCain - I can’t be bothered to use full names and you know who I mean - that is, I signed up for their e-mail lists. I’m tempted to sign up with a different e-mail address and zip code because it would be interesting to know whether there’s any blue state/red state variance in e-mail campaign messages. Iowa City doesn’t get the San Francisco speeches or ads and vice versa so why would the written communication be the same (other than the logistics of parsing that out - but modern technology is amazing).

I picked the four people I could stand the most and plan to compare, analyze, and mock their messages. I’ll think about signing up for a few of the longer shots and people whose messages I imagine I’ll have a hard time stomaching. I should be fair, but I haven’t got a lot of time to devote to this. We’ll see.

One observation, so far. I only got confirmations and thank yous from Giuliani and McCain. Both were amusing. Giuliani, mindful of aggressive anti-spam defenses, asks me to add his site’s url to my safe senders list. McCain asks me for money and to set up a “McCainSpace” page, which made me giggle because it comes off like an awkward, desperate to be hip (”the kids still like MySpace, right?”) rip-off. But I give them points for the effort. Why do Hilary and Barack take me for granted?

I, obviously, did not win either of the lotteries. So I’m still here, but feeling a need for a transition. Of course, this is because while my life is standing still, so very many friends and co-workers are transitioning out of or into new jobs. I feel the need to change something, though it’s hard to justify change for the sake of change. But all the thinking has been quite a distraction.
My current thoughts, i.e. list of many options I’ll probably never execute on:

• Cut my hair - wait, I actually am probably going to do this
• Buy a new (to me) car - hard to justify when I have a (9 year old) car (that is no longer manufactured) that is paid off, my registration and insurance fees are negligible, I calculate that I’ve driven about 10,000 miles in the last four years, I drive at most twice a week and about 20 miles total in a really heavy week (occasionally up to 60 miles total if a trip to see my mom occurs)
• Start a running program with the goal of running Bay to Breakers - inspired irrationally by my sprained ankle
• Finish learning to play the guitar - can’t even type that with a straight face
• Write a novel
• Travel more
• Brush up on my Spanish
• Learn French
• Cook more
• Clean my office
• Blog more

We’ll see.

The jackpots are so very high. The chance to put down a buck or two and walk away impossibly rich is alluring. I wasn’t sure if I could get beyond the amusement of the fact that this week is National Problem Gambling Awareness Week (a little awkward, no?) - as it says right on my Mega Millions ticket - but I did and made a late afternoon dash to the one place near my work that I knew sold tickets, worried, but kind of hoping (for forced rationality’s sake) the shop was closed. It was not and I have to admit to buying into the madness by purchasing 3 plays for tonight’s record Mega Millions drawing and 2 plays for tomorrow’s respectable $57 million California Super Lotto jackpot drawing. I don’t expect to win, but, well, to quote the lottery slogan that I usually find horrifying - you can’t win if you don’t play. (You can, of course, lose miserably by playing, but no need to go into that.) The lottery has worse odds than just about any game in Vegas, but if you can take it for a lark, a bit of entertainment, it’s all right.

p.s. This all makes me think of (as I always do) that great The Simpsons episode involving a fervor over huge lottery jackpot, the best part of which is when people start checking out Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” from the library, only to discover it’s not quite as helpful as they presumed.