Granted, the vote on recalling Gray Davis was very close (something like 53% for, 47% against), which doesn't surprise me at all from what I know of the American voting process.
From all I've seen of elections down south, there is something that will never change: 45% of the voters will vote Republican, and 45% will vote Democrat. No matter who is on the ballot, if the Republican candidate is Jesus Christ and the Democratic candidate is Pee-Wee Herman, this ratio will always stay the same. ALWAYS.
So there's only a 10% margin out there who actually change their vote depending on the circumstances. And this margin is always who the candidates actively campaign for.
So the 45% Republican block voted for the recall (since a GOOD Republican would never think twice about voting a Democrat out of office), as well as an extra 8% of the swing vote.
8% of a voting public who were either caught up in a celebrity governor possibility, or who were stupid enough to endorse throwing out a governor who was voted on by the majority of Californian voters the first time.
I have two things to say on this:
1) If you voted the guy in, DON'T complain about what you get. You made the bed, now you should lie in it...
2) If the reason you were angry at Gray Davis was due to the overwhelming debtload he incurred and the crippling power outages, why would you ever actively endorse throwing some many millions of dollars on the costliest election in California?
2a) And why wouldn't you recognize the the federal government is to blame in some respect? Since they were the ones who decided to deregulate the power industry, which lost revenue for the state, as well as let the corporations throw the state into blackouts...
I'm just wondering how long it's going to take the Republicans to realize they have a governor on their side in name only. I mean, Arnold stands for a LOT of things that the G.O.P. hates.
I'm sure the only reason they voted for him is because it makes their party look good.
Eurgh. it's going to be a long four years in Sacramento...
* * *
I decided to join a hockey pool in the store that Jeff was organizing.
Now, while I am somewhat interested in hockey, I'm mostly a stats guy. I don't like watching the sport until playoffs hit.
Still, I like to think I know a bit about my picks, since I do follow the statistics.
And so, yesterday, after a long morning at work (Regional Manager visit, so I was there at 7:30 am), five guys decided to spend the afternoon doing the draft, in between helping out customers.
So there was a lot of, "Okay, Kyle's done selling that cell phone. Let's go to the back and get the next round done..."
I like to think that my unorthodox style of picking helped me out some. I decided to take a goalie in the first round, since my theory is, there's a crapload of good forwards, but a great goalie is hard to get.
So I picked Martin Brodeur first.
I was able to get a few good picks in (not such a hard thing with only 5 people in the pool): Paul Kariya (Colorado), Mats Sundin (Toronto), Ryan Smyth (Edmonton), Brett Hull (Detroit), Scott Neidermeyer (New Jersey), plus a whole lot more.
I think I did a pretty good job, considering I have no clue what I'm doing. I chose my second goalie on how frustrated I was when I heard his name out loud. ("Cechmanek SAVES!" was a mantra that haunted me and Canton whenever we played against Philadelphia in NHL 2002.)
I found this kickass website that does EVERYTHING in terms of pool stats...and for only two dollars! Whoo!
So how the hell did I become such a hockey nut in two days? A $125 pot, I guess. And competition...
* * *
Saw Jack Black in "School of Rock" this evening.
SUCH a good movie. It starts off with Jack Black being his Tenacious D persona, a jackass wannabe rock star.
When he needs money, he steals a substitute teaching job from his roommate, and thinks of it as a babysitting job, not wanting to teach the kids at all, until he finds out they can play music very well.
It turns into one of the best family movies I've seen in a long, long time.
Mostly because while Black is his usual hilarious self, he's not afraid to let the kids take center stage.
And the kids are great! All the rock music the kids play are actually done by the actors, and it's amazing how good these 10-year-olds are.
I saw the movie with Marauder and Dev, and all of us are now raving about it hardcore.
A movie I very highly recommend. Even if you're not a big Jack Black fan.
Listening to: School of Rock, an original song off the movie's soundtrack; Immigrant's Song by Led Zeppelin.
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