Last year around this time, I drew a comic of Marin doing some pumpkin carving because, well, I like carving pumpkins.
This year, I’m not going to get around to it myself, and Marin is equally busy with an engineering problem of epic proportions, so instead I point out Extreme Pumpkin Carving at ExtremePumpkins.com. They do a hell of a lot better job than I do anyway.
Congratulations to the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals, who kept distracting me from comic drawing all week.
Hi!
My name is Anne Gibson. I’m a 30-year-old married woman living in Pennsylvania, who votes on a regular basis. I like technology, intelligent thought, and peace and quiet.
I’m getting an average of a half dozen political calls per day. That’s six times each evening that a recorded voice for someone’s political party, special interest group, or election team calls my house and disrupts my life to spew on about their political priorities. Sometimes, I might agree with their points. Sometimes, I do not. Either way, right now, I’m hanging up as soon as I determine that the caller is not, in fact, human.
It’s wasting my time. It’s wasting the money of the political parties and pundits that are so desperately craving my attention and aren’t getting it because they’re making me angry. As there is illness in my household right now, it’s disrupting the ability for my family to rest and heal. I can’t politely describe how frustrating that is.
I’m very tired of it. I’m on the Pennsylvania “Do Not Call” lists because I don’t want to receive telephone calls that from groups I haven’t “opted in” to receive. While I support the right of members of our political parties to attempt to spread their messages to me, I don’t want to have to shut my phone off at night so I can enjoy the occasional dinner with my family uninterrupted. When a survey company calls me, I can request that they remove my household from their calling list. I haven’t found a way to do that yet for a call coming from a recorded nonperson.
The November elections are on their way. Political calls are by far one of the smallest issues you have to deal with. On the other hand, it’s disrupting my life and I need to know: What are you doing to silence my phone?
Thank you for your time and attention
Anne Gibson
—-
PS. I’ve already sent copies to: the Republican Party, Democratic Party, Curt Weldon, Rick Santorum, and Ed Rendell. (Their websites all list contact info. It’s handy.) Anyone have any further suggestions on who I can contact?
PPS. The funniest one so far was when they held the special elections in New Jersey and someone called to urge me to get out and vote. I’m not, nor never have been, a resident of that state. Are they a “vote early, vote often” state?
So Nighthawk’s home and slowly regaining his voice, still nowhere near 100% but a lot better than he was a week ago. (Well, not a whole week ago. Exactly this time last Monday they hadn’t made the first cut yet and he was feeling fine. But, you know, a week ago by say, 1:00.)
It’s a good thing that he’s feeling so well, too, because our heater just quit and he’s sitting at home under a massive pile of blankets waiting for the repairman.
The freakin’ heater was only just installed in June-ish, so I’m a bit perturbed. It does explain why we’ve spent the past few days noticing that the heater seems to run an awful lot and it still seems cold. I don’t think the ice building up on the outside of the condenser was exactly an advertised feature, either.
At least it’s almost sunny out….