And one more touch from my brother and his wife: They knew the people who'd come around as part of the recall. Apparently, they canvas the neighborhood often enough that both of them are sick of the campaigners. They don't believe in the recall (``we believe it exists,'' my brother explained, showing that our senses of humor are not all that different, ``just not that it should be applied in this case'') and will, if they're in a mean enough mood, waste the campaigners' time by pretending to discuss the matter and chop up the campaign points into fine, content-free nodes.
Otherwise after a couple of semi-passive amusements like watching the original pilot episode of Knight Rider -- which I'd never seen before and which I'll discuss when I have some spare time -- and the early-90s pilot Knight Rider 2000 -- which I'd never seen because at the time I'd have to watch it from the student newspaper office, and the other person in the office at the time insisted on thinking I was joking when I said, ``I want to watch the new Knight Rider movie'', which I admit could sound like sarcasm[1] -- and some miscellanities like Shaun of the Dead and something else I may choose to write about later, I set out for my parents' home. I didn't call to warn them since I didn't want to be asked to stop off at the store for one or two items, which experience teaches would explode into about forty items. So as I got home it was after dark, and my parents were in bed already and didn't seem to notice my entrance. So as not to alarm them with the site of a huge, barely animate lump in the guest room bed I went to their bedroom to say hello. This caused my father to yelp in surprise and jump back on the bed, which woke my mother. I'm glad I didn't choose to alarm them.
[1] All was not lost. I was able to grumble about it as a throwaway line in a humor piece in the newspaper. I don't remember the rest of the piece, but I remember that because people liked the detail and it was nearly the only feedback I got that month. This reinforces a theory of mine: if you have no idea how to be funny try being passive-aggressive over trivial issues.
Trivia: By 1797 Eli Whitney had constructed twenty-eight cotton gins, none of which were in use. Source: Big Cotton, Stephen Yafa.
Currently Reading: The Collapsium, Wil McCarthy.