The Urban Pantheist

It's crazy how much better I feel now that I've come back from getting replacement car keys.  I ran that errand (plus getting a new house key, some booze, and a quick vote).  I was beside myself with anxiety last night and this morning, and I owe a great deal of thanks to Alexis for dealing with me, and providing calm smart advice. 

The car keys only cost six bucks each, and were simple to acquire (Toyota dealer a short bike ride away) and it could easily have been more difficult.  In 1998, the year my car was built, Toyota started putting little computer chips in some car keys, that had to match the car's computer in some way.  If my car was one of those, I would have had to have it towed to the dealership to have the computer replaced.  As it is, I'm amazed to have it all done in one day for so little money.  Triple A is a godsend, also.

Maggie goes to have her surgery tomorrow, so Alexis gets to be stressed out and I get to give calm smart advice.  I'll have to think of some first.  It's a surprisingly common operation (TTA) in dogs, and I suspect it's due to a manufacturing defect.  We missed the recall notice probably.  Maggie is a young dog and this should improve her quality of life immensely.

Riding my bike around town to do my errands made me think a few things to myself: First I thought, "How the hell did I used to do this all the time?" and "Why did they design bikes so that all my weight is on my junk?"  Later I realized that I had gotten all my errands done in less time that if I had driven (rush hour you see), paid nothing for parking, and worked up a nice healthy sweat.  Truly In Urbis Rotas Duas est Optima but they need to work out that perineal bruising problem.  If I bought a recumbent, would I use it more than my '91 trek mountain bike?  I don't see people on recumbents zipping around completing errands--mostly they chug along, commuting.

As much as I would love to stay up all night drinking each time a state turned blue on the map, we have a surprise procedure at work tomorrow which will have me reporting for duty at six a.m. sharp.  Work is once again in the "kicking my ass" phase, which is apparently standard for autumn.  (The weather determines if animals can be shipped or not, so most of my quarantine cases come in the Spring and Fall.)  One pair of animals--I can't tell you what they are, but they are evolutionary cousins--requires the use of so much PPE that by the time I'm done in there I'm drenched with sweat and have fogged up my eyeshields to the point of functional blindness.  The more interesting parts of my job are being swallowed up by a variety of different janatorial tasks. 

I'm looking forward to tomorrow--specifically to it being over with.  I hate to wish my life away, but I'm already mentally living in tomorrow, 4 p.m., at home.

No, it's not about venomous spiders or snakes or monotremes, as much as I love those things.  My question has to do with the Australian voting system.  As I understand it (my disclaimer before exposing my utter and typical American ignorance of any culture other than my own) voting in Australia is required.  First of all: is this so?  Second, if so, how is this enforced?

In the United States, voting is entirely optional, in fact, there are obstacles in place that could potentially skew the vote.  First of all, it's always on a Tuesday, when most people have work or school.  The polls are open before and after work hours, but many people find it too much of a hassle to figure out where their polling place is, find a place to park, wait in line, and do it.  Sometimes they run over little kids in order to find a place to park.

Also (and this is what made me make this post in the first place, thanks to the video sin_agua  posted, in which several celebrities remind us Americans that we have to register to vote) you have to register to vote.  That is, you have to go through some kind of government hoop, which depending where you live (and your internet access) is as easy as getting a hotmail account or as big a pain in the ass as getting a dog license (go to city hall, prove identity, certify rabies vaccination--or did the 14th amendment get rid of the rabies certification requirement?).  I realize that in order to prevent voter fraud, it's necessary to keep track of these things, but it makes me wonder:  In a place where voting is MANDATORY (like Australia, maybe? and Brazil?) do you have to go to the trouble to register first, or does the government keep track some other way?

I could google this, but hey I know some people in Australia, and I'd love to hear it from you guys. 

Plus I'm already splitting my attention between posting this and listening to the VP debate train wreck, where Biden and Palin seem to be participating in entirely different conversations.  Even if I agreed with her on anything (book banning, secession, creationism) I couldn't vote for her because her voice makes me want to climb the goddamn walls.  WORDS ENDING IN I-N-G SOUND LIKE "ING" not "EN."  Yer darn tootin' we're gonna be workin' on a whole mess a problems you betcha!  Good god, can't the leader of the free world sound like an educated adult?!  Even Dan Quayle enunciated his gaffes correctly.  She sounds like she's running for treasurer of the student council of a St. Paul public high school.  Except she lies more.