xtcian

;) Good ending. I laughed out loud. ((Applause))

Hey, but you have a lot of success pressing J Boogie's and the other Republican's buttons.

Fabulous and funny--oliver, you too. thanks for the chuckles!

I had to laugh at the elevator comment. I'm claustrophobic, so I hate a crowded elevator. If I have a lead on someone heading toward the elevator, which is around a corner after you get in the main lobby of my building, I hasten my steps so that I gain a lead. And then I press my floor and that stupid CLOSE button and then move to the back of the elevator. If I make eye contact with the person, I walk up to the buttons and pretend to press the OPEN button, but I'm just jamming that CLOSE button as hard as it can go.

Unless, of course, the wannabe elevator catcher is hot . . . and then I'll hold the door open all day long!

The worst part is when you get on the elevator with the folks just coming off their smoking break and you end up smelling like you were just battling a Four Alarm house fire.

LOL! Great post.

Excuse me for showing my Canadian ignorance, but was the last photo a voting machine? I never understood (especially after the hanging chad debacle) how a voting machine was any better than a paper and pencil.

Actually, Lola, in this country a paper and *pen* might be more prudent...

For the record, the 'close door' buttons in the elevators at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics work. You can verify this by waiting for the door to start closing, then hit 'open' door, followed by 'close door.'

Nothing to plan a vacation around, but thought you'd like to know.

Mechanical voting machine are quite reliable, and poll watchers test the machines before each elections. They reset the machine, and then do test votes, then reset the machine again and the election officials put a seal on the reset. Since poll watchers from both parties have to agree the machine is working right, they are not a source of controversy, especially in comparison to computer machines.

One of the foremost experts on electronic voting is one of my professer here at Iowa, Doug Jones. If you ever wanted to learn more than you ever care to about the technology for conducting elections, contact him, or read this page:

http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/

It's when the Republican you voted against is reported to have been elected unanimously that you know we've all died and gone to Hell...

During my summer breaks (and even for 2 weeks during the winter break), I work at a manufacturing plant about 45 minutes north of UNC in my hometown of Oxford.

We make those stupid ass heat-sealed packages that are featured in your 4th picture, Ian. "Light gauge custom thermoforming." Whenever I try to explain to someone what kind of plastic packaging we make, I always end up saying, "You know those stupid packages that batteries and Black & Decker tools and makeup come in? ....Yeah, the ones that don't open. We make those."

In my line of work, we notice such things as elevators and crosswalks. After much scientific testing, my colleagues and I have determined that the "Door Close" buttons in the Waldorf=Astoria do work, and the crosswalk button at 23rd St and the West Side Highway also works. Good facts to know if you're in a jam.

My pet peeve with the elevator close buttons is that the open will be on the left in one elevator, and on the right in another, so I'm always accidentally closing the door on someone when I'm trying to be polite and keep it open. (The close seems to work fine for me!) They should at least be standard across elevators in the left/right position.

That last set of button problems is a Deibold problem.

OK, I'm looking in bewilderment at the last picture... why on earth does it have to be so complicated? What's wrong with just marking an X on a piece of paper? ... cheap, utterly 100% reliable, and a lot less fiddly.

I have honestly never seen a voting machine, and it's not because I haven't voted. The only machines in use at elections in my hometown were the ballot-counters. And if someone had a problem, the ballots would get counted by hand. One time they ran out of ballots....(OK, off topic.)

Anyhow....yeah, I agree with you about the crosswalk buttons. I usually have to wait a whole cycle for the walk light at the corner of the main streets, and anything else I tend to get fed up and just cross when the light is red for the part of the street I'm trying to cross (works pretty well on one-way sidestreets). Usless buttons. Don't know why I bother to pound on them.....