Dad always told me to “vote early and often” and I did that today. We had a science department meeting scheduled for 7:30am today, so I went into the polling place (the First Brethren Church at the other end of town) a little after 7am thinking that it would be less than half an hour like usual. I didn’t get done until 7:40am! Well, I was pleased that so many people were out and voting, but I know that the majority there were not voting as I did. (Ah well…)

They were having a Mock Election at school today. The senior government class divided up into 7 different parties and came up with their platforms and campaigned and had a well-run debate yesterday. I was pretty sure which party I would vote for before, but after the debate, I was convinced. And so I voted in the Mock Election and got my second “I Voted Today” sticker. Go me!

Computer/DVD-wise, btw, I’ve got Winders back on my computer and some of the more essential programs on (Pegasus & Firefox, for example). And I’ve watched some of Still Game – will watch the Sylv ep one today. Funny show. And easier for me to understand than Rab C. Nesbitt. 🙂

So, how do I think this election is going to go this year? Um, I think I just wanna stay in bed tomorrow. 🙁

This weekend was a fun one. On Saturday, I went shopping for a DVD+R/RW and had Indian Fud for lunch. That evening, I went to a birthday party for a co-worker (though I didn’t know it was a birthday party) where they had t-bone steaks for everyone. Good eats! Sunday was church at the UU where dad sometimes preaches (and he preached about Progressive Churches) and then home for Diablo! judiang, indefatigable42 and I played for a couple of hours, but then 42 had to get ready for a party that night. Then Judi and I played for many more hours and audioboy was able to join us by the end of the evening. It was great doing the marathon and we’re hoping to get another one together when we can get even more people involved.

So, back to the DVD+R/RW… I first went to a “mom & pop” computer store (or maybe “local geek-owned” is a better description) and they had some Lite-On DVD+R/RW drives for $75. I then went to Best Buy to see what they had available and noticed that Double Layer drives are now available. Hmmm, I pondered… If I do get one, I should shoot for a more adaptable model. CompUSA was also nearby, so I popped in there and was astonished to see their prices were less than Best Buy’s! That was a shocker to me. I ended up getting a Memorex DVD+/-R/RW drive which comes with Nero’s software and is Double Layer compatible. Go me!

After watching my poor old Ghoul Lashed tapes, I felt I should rescue them by converting to DVD, and now I’ve got the technology to do so. Well, sort of. I have the capability – TV capture card & DVD recorder… But things aren’t working quite right yet. My poor capture card hasn’t been able to capture video in awhile (but I haven’t really needed it to). And after I installed the DVD+R drive, I discovered that my ASPI wasn’t set right. Heck, I’ve no idea what ASPI is! But Nero complained about it and things weren’t working right. I was able to make back-up DVDs, at least, so my goal is to reinstall Winders (yes, I’m still using Win98SE) and see if I can get the video capture and DVD recording to work. If I can’t get that to work, yes, I’ll break down and install WinXP Pro instead. *sigh*

In case things don’t work right in my upgrade, I do have something to cheer me up. My DVDs which I ordered from amazon.co arrived today – woohoo! More Black Books! Spaced! Porridge! Sylv in Still Game! Yay!