Author: Aryn Crowley

Hello friends and readers, as you may or may not know, I have been working for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners training college students to serve as Polling Place Administrators (PPAs) on election day. The city of Chicago obtained new touchscreen voting machines by mandate from the passage of HAVA (Help America Vote Act) requiring that there be a way for people with certain dissabilities (blind, quadrapalegic) would be able to vote with privacy and without assistance at the polling place on election day.

Anyway we got a bunch of those new machines, and the Judges of Election (the folks that run the polling places) had TONS of problems running and using the machines during the March primaries. The board or elections decided that something had to be done to save their jobs and make the elections run smoother. Their solution was to recruite and train 2000 college kids to be there and know how to setup and run and troubleshoot the voting machines.

Well as you can see by this handy graphic from the Chicago Tribune , there was a marked improvement between these elections and the primaries in March: So as you can CLEARLY see from that graphic, my friends and I single handedly saved many people their jobs and helped this election to go forth successfully.

We spent election day (from 5:00am until 10:00pm) answering call after call taking down complaints from voters, and helping judges and PPAs solve problems. Some of the more comical calls we recieved (comically scary maybe) were from judges wondering when we were going to be bringing them coffee and donuts (sorry we don’t provide) or wondering why there was not a television included in their equipment so they could watch their training video to learn how to run a polling place (yikes!).

The majority were about little problems with machines where we would talk them through how to change the paper, get out a stuck voter card, help them realize that the machine is in fact unplugged and that is why it won’t work, and generally run them through the simple procedures they had been trained and were outlined in their handbook they should have had with them. There were a few calls from frustrated voters about judges who were generally disrespectful and had an obvious disregard for the election process and the voters privacy. For those we sent out investigators to hopefully smack some common sense and respect into these people.

It was my first election that I worked, and I think everything went pretty well. Our boss was very happy with the work that we did, and asked if we were interesed in doing this again in January for the next elections. Only thing I need now is to finally recieve the crapload of money that they owe me, this elusive check that is mysteriously floating around the county building just out of reach. I will call tomorrow and they will probably just tell me “Friday at the LATEST”, which is what we heard last week, and the week before, and the week before, and the… sigh.

Tomorrow is Nov. 7th, and we all know that Nov. 7th = voting day! So don’t forget to get out and re-elect or elect your favourite candidate in whatever city or state you are currently registered in. IF you.registered_status = false THEN shame on you. ELSE IF you.registered_status = true AND you.vote = false THEN you have no room for complaining. So go out and vote away, at the very least so that you can complain when that jerk that was elected does something that you don’t agree with. Plus its fun, those new touchscreens have in-vote movie systems… so you can now watch commercials why you vote and you don’t doze off while paging through 11 pages of judges you have never heard of ( at least in Chicago ). Good luck heroes!

I saw clap your hands say yeah! last night. some thoughts.

openers:
takka takka – weak sauce.
architecture in helsinki – pleasant surprise, this was one of those bands that I had heard the name of for years (from the KSU archie kids ) but never quite listened to. They were quite spastic, but put on an entertaining show. It was almost like a fiery furnace diet type of band,but you could feel the definite influence of the clash and talking heads / david byrne

clap – they put on a pretty rocking show. granted it was fairly pretentious (basically no interaction with the audience, and what little he did say was incomprehensible) but I liked the way they played their first album’s songs live, and some interesting newer songs.. the one that stood out to me contained the word satan being repeated over and over. It sounded like it might have some promise. The first of the newer songs they played I wasnt impressed by at all, and it was annoying how they opened the show, really only because they played “gimme some salt” and I think kind of bastardized the song for the sake of bastardizing. I dont know if the harmonies just didnt work, or what but I was really hoping to hear it played the way it was on the record which I really like. but those lows were quickly quelled as they kicked ass the rest of the show..

they did play the opening track “clap your hands” which was pretty neat, complete with megaphone gimick..
one last thing, I kind of dont see why they need to be a 5 piece, I would think that the reduction of one of their members would open up some of their songs and make them sound a little better live.. but oh well they must be doing something right.. we’ll see if they have the sophmore slump, then time will tell if they are truley a quality band.

Sue recieved a letter in the mail from unicef a month or two ago. It looks like a pretty standard solicitation for donations except for one angle that I hadn’t seen before. The inclusion of a shiny new nickel on the inside. The nickel is placed so that you can see a little part of it through the address window on the front. I know its not everyday that an organization that is out there helping people has time to send cash money to random people, so this must be one special letter. On the right side of the address window with the previously noted shiny nickel is a blue box with an arrow pointing to the shiny nickel that says ” This Nickel could save a child’s life!” , below which our other roommate wrote the ever so witty phrase, “Then why did you give it to Sue?” Which brings up an interesting point, because Sue has un-willingingly accepted this nickel, she has prevented it from saving a child’s life. So way to go Sue! …maybe we need to lay low for a few weeks until the heat from this blows over…

I was at the good ol’ Cub foods last night, really itching to find that perfect product that defines me as a person. Not just any item will work, mind you, as I am constantly on the lookout to make that “deep” connection with companies and their products. I want to have a personal relationship with the items that I use in the consumeristic world that is my life, because if I cant have personal relationships with other people (not true), then why can’t I have personal relationships with all the wonderful companies out there. I mean they have my best interest at heart, so I decided a long time ago that if its printed on a box, it is most definitely true.

I needed something to cover up my leftover meals, and for baking cookies , and keeping out the aliens from my brain. So I scoured the store, searching for that PERFECT product that can truly define me as a person, and lo and behold, I found it.

I feel more like a man now.

So I just happened to catch the new re-runnings of Pee Wee’s Playhouse on Adult Swim, and I have to say that I enjoyed it. Pretty creative entertainment for children… I think it could even hold up to todays ever shortening attention spans. Its amazing the little snippets you can remember from your childhood. I probably haven’t seen nor even thought about that show in what at LEAST 15 years, and yet I still recognize all of the characters, and the zany things that ol’ man Herman does.

One of the ladies on the current Law and Order show (S. Epatha Merkerson) was just a young actor at the time, and played the post-ladie who, in this episode, was forced to eat an imaginary breakfast with all the gang. There are so many psychedelic visuals and references in this show; its quite amazing. Inside the fridge there were a bunch of hippie food characters all protesting their own demise (eggs with signs that say “stop poaching”) or some Hendrix-esque guitar playing eggplant or something. Anyway it was crazy, and a definite welcome to my late night entertainments.

I think it might be a law or rule or requirement somewhere that whenever you have to go to the emergency room two things happen: a) you wait for a long time b) that long time is usually somewhere between midnight and 4 in the morning. Last night a friend of ours took an awesome tumble on her rented bike (from me) on our way home from playing beach volleyball. We were coming out of an underpass on a trail, it was dark and about a six inch ledge jumped out and pulled her down.. hard. She ended up dislocating her elbow, breaking some things, and plunging headfirst into the world of bionics. I think she is going to be the first of my friends that will have some titanium, or steel, or lead, or stainless steel, or iron contained inside of a body part, which will make her a good contender for the impending robot army.. which side are you on julie?

**note this photo of the girl with the bionic arm is not actual julie but an internet representation of what she might look like if this were actually her.

I showed up at around 1am, only to see the emergency room through the window. Peaple sprawled about everywhere waiting and waiting for the doctors to fix whatever currently ailes them.. Sue and Julie had been there for a few hours before I even showed up, so after a few more hours of waiting to be moved, waiting to be wrapped up in a cast, waiting for said cast to stiffen, waiting for doctor to return for discharge, to driving home on the ever so empty streets I made it back to my bed at 4:15 am. what a day! But all is well, I think she is having this thing below put in later this week. I have always been curious as to how well the newer power gloves work to do normal everyday things AND to play NEW super mario bros… no one will ever know.. well except for maybe julie.

items that need to be accomplished: (in order or importance)

write lyrics.
write songs.
get local recording infrastructure in place ( so we can put things on mobile location)
write lyrics.
write songs.
get mobile recording infrastructure in place (for cross continental collab)
begin collaboration of above said songs which all have pieces residing on big brother
write lyrics.
write songs.
create album/shows worth of material
then acquire chicago players and begin rehearsals ..
acquire live performance opportunities
take over americas, europe, australia and japan
retire.
die.

i feel like i am purging a baby from my own womb and putting it into this badass cyber womb that i have created.. i am so motherly.. kind of like the earth.. only cyber.