Post volume is severely down here, and I'm not sure there's much I can do about it. That's a shame, in a way.

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It's been a pretty good run on the phone of late, for what it's worth. In the last two weeks, I've gotten my never-frequent-enough doses of Jenny, Tina, and Didi. Amazingly, Didi picked up the phone on Tuesday night despite not recognizing the number. Because, you see, she was tired of talking to the A-Train. So I serve a purpose, I guess.

Jenny and I had a pretty strong conversation going Wednesday night. We covered med school applications, my new job, office volleyball, med school interviews, her dude, illicit activities with illicit individuals (read: sex with strippers), and The Pack, whose debut drops December 19. Badass. (It's also on Jive, which makes it less badass.) (The genre, reported by pitchfork, is "hyphy," which I can neither pronounce nor describe. But it's pretty sweet.)

So that lasted probably 45 or 55 minutes, and then I brought up The Office, and then we talked for 20 more minutes about nothing but. I gotta tell you people, The Office is, without a doubt, the highlight of my week. I find this not at all sad. Such heart, such hilarity, and Jim's coming back to Scranton! And he's bringing that one girl that Jenny and I both think is kind of pretty and both kind of like is coming. But it doesn't look like the dude that says "Hey Tuna" is coming. But, still, it's awesome.

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Let's talk elections, but only briefly.

I'm not quite sure who came up with it, but there was a referendum in the great state of Michigan to open up a November hunting season for mourning doves. I think the fee for a license was two bucks or something. It didn't pass.

I figure that, if it did pass, the people who got that referendum on the ballot would next open a hunting season for young minority children. Because they'd be all out of animals to shoot, I guess.

Hunting's pretty creepy and unattractive to me, though I try to keep that quiet up here. Turns out, it's not just the kooks that blast up Bambi and his (her?) friends. Perfectly nice people do, as well, including a coworker. Her response, when I asked about what she had done over her weekend: "I shot a deer, but never found it." I have no idea what that meant, but she was pretty pissed off about it a few weeks ago.

I didn't really do much in the way of research leading up to the election. I voted the straight party ticket, and then read about the referendums in the booth. Turns out, by voting the straight party ticket, I could not just find the people with funny names for state university board of regents - I had already cast my vote for those elections. Sigh. I'm ill-informed, I guess, but was stunned to find not just doves, but also eminent domain and affirmative action on the ballot. There was also some mandatory education fund referendum that failed. I tend to believe in funding education, but I guess it's already funded somehow.

My quest to vote was a near-miss. I don't know where my registration card is - probably in some file somewhere in the apartment - so I went to The Ring Fingernail website on Sunday night to see what there was to see. Amazingly, it was freakishly efficient. "Type in the name that appears on your registration card," it informed me, and they'd tell me where I vote and when the polls were open. Amazing! So I did, and I had until 8 p.m., and I decided to go after work, of course.

Problem is, the elementary school that was my designated polling place is also under construction for the year. So, like, it was closed. And fenced off. And not, apparently, a polling place. But I took two or three laps in the dark, pulled through some mud in the construction-access lot, and flagged down a neighbor. He directed me seven or eight blocks away and I was in. So it was nice to take part in the Democratic process, I think.

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Election day this year brought back memories of last year's. I had just learned that (relatively) lots and lots of money had been stolen from me by someone far richer than me (though, maybe, actually probably, it was an honest and idiotic mistake). And I was hacked off, some f-bombs at work, perhaps. And I was walking home from lunch and I got a call reminding me to vote. So the polling place was across the street from me and, just to spite the thief, I cast my aldermanic vote for the town kook. I didn't really know much about him, but I knew that he was a sitting alderman and was a certifiable kook. He won by six votes, and the thief was griping about it the next morning. While was griping, I was giggling inside. Awesome.

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Since election day last year, I've had four different home addresses and drawn paychecks from five different employers. Certainly that's not a record, but it's pretty notable. Probably more of both than you, for instance.

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Talking to my roommate last night, and we got to talking about college. I guess we're always trying to relive "glory" years or something, and he's farther away from his than I am.

So he says, "Northwestern's a pretty good school, right?"

And I really didn't have a proper response. I was pretty stunned, because I just assume that people, you know, kind of know things like that. Or, at least, don't have to ask about it.

I responded, level-headedly, "Yeah, pretty good."
And he asked what NU does well, and I said, roughtly, "Well, it's a pretty good journalism school. And engineering's pretty good. And I think the music program's pretty strong. I guess." More accurately, I could have said, "Shit yeah it's cool, dude. It's pretty much good in everything. Like, really good. Like, Harvard-of-the-Midwest good. Like, pshaw, Harvard is the Northwestern-of-the-Northeast, dude." But I didn't.

How NU friends of mine would react to questioning along these lines:

Nemo: "No. It's Northwestern in Chicago. The four-year one."

Gurs: "Mmmmmmmmmmm...yeah, I guess it's pretty good. Yeah, it is."

Jenny: "It's better than this two-bit school I'm at right now, that's for damn sure."

Sumo: [Laughing uncontrollably]

Rico: "It's no Michigan. I love Mario Manningham. I've never even heard of Northwestern. Go Blue. Oh, wait Northwestern. Yeah, their quarterback sucks."

Didi: "I went to fucking Northwestern you fucking third grade bastards. And you know what they taught me there? How to beat the crap out of snotty-nosed third graders. [Pause.] Now, let's turn to page 32."

Harps: "Sure, it's a good school. But it was a lot better when I was there. When I was there, they actually taught us how to operate a camera, you prima donnas."

Flax: "I've never liked sushi much, due to the texture, but I decided I'd give it a go just this once. [Love ya, baby.] I went with a California roll which, to be sure, isn't particularly risky, plus some more exotic items. Eel, also. And while I've never been comfortable with just the concept of sushi, the combination of the ginger and the wasabi and the surprising tartness of the fish made for a surprisingly enjoyable...what? Oh, you're asking about Northwestern? Oh, I suppose it's pretty good."

Bullshot: "I love purple silverware. Let's get some for this weekend."

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I really enjoyed Northwestern's win over Iowa last weekend. I wish I had purple silverware for Saturday's game, when they shock the world against Ohio State. Or at least try to keep it competitive.

I'm not particularly excited for the hoops season, but it will be fun, in a twisted way, for Timmy Doyle to be a go-to guy. He'll probably be the worst go-to guy in Big Ten history, or at least since Winston Blake. Worse, they're only in the great state of Michigan once, on a Wednesday night in early January. It'll be tough to get to that one, sadly. Maybe I'll get a chance to see them in the NCAA Tournament or something.

The prospect of Jeff Ryan getting lots of minutes is exciting, only because Carmody has said exclusively positive things about him. 6-6 former GBS Titans who can play three backcourt positions don't grow on trees. I thought he might be too skinny to contribute this year, but BC thinks he's not. And I'll always agree with BC.

I really hope the Cats beat Cornell on Friday night.

Also exciting? The return of Big Ten Wonk. Highly recommended for your overly-stats-heavy Big Ten hoops analysis. I like it.

It was neat to see Rutgers beat Louisville tonight. Is Jeremy Ito related to The Good Judge? His Rutgers bio doesn't list his parents' names.

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I learned last Tuesday, shortly after posting, that Daylight Savings Time is shifting dates next year. It'll be starting in mid-March (not early-April), and ending in mid-November (not the weekend before Thanksgiving). I'm not quite sure on the reasons, but it means that, scarily, kids will be going to school in the dark for two extra weeks next fall.

I was stunned by this information, and immediately asked my work "Pod Mates" if they knew. They looked at me like I was an idiot. I believe the word "Duh" was uttered.

Tail between legs, I made a point of conducting a survey of the rest of the staff. It wasn't disruptive to the day, of course, as I did it during mutual spare moments.

The results:

Didn't know before I told them: 9
Already knew: 7, though it was six if you really questioned one of them

So I was pretty vindicated. And it was a pretty good diversion.

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Today, Thursday, may have been the toughest day I've had at work. But I got through it, and was able to laugh about it with my supervisior guy afterwards. I couldn't wrap my brain around this report I had to compile, and I was pretty sure that the report itself was ill-designed and, as a result, largely inaccurate. [This is the most boring I've ever gotten.] I brought the supervisor over, we tried to figure things out for 45 minutes and, when I started to snap again, he said, "Close the file, I'll figure it out." So that was frustrating, but, again, we laughed about it afterwards. What was more frustrating was that I took my struggles with me to the volleyball court. As they say in baseball, never take your offensive struggles to the field but, in terms of tedious paperwork (that is, "offense") and break time volleyball ("the field"), I definitely did. Sigh.

Still, things are pretty neat there, too.

Go Cats.