During the 80's, I lived through two of the nastiest political campaigns ever. Jessie Helms v. Jim Hunt for U.S. Senate. If you think Jessie was evil in the senate, you should have seen him on the campaign trail. Any presidential campaign since then has been nothing compared to that. I thought it would be great not to have to put up with all the political ads on TV during the election season but I actually miss them. Both the Republicans and the Democratic party seem to think New York is a given for the Democrats so neither party seems to spend any money on TV ads here. I haven't even seen the Republican Swift Boat ads or the Democratic response to them except for some excerpts on the news.

Bill Clinton has to undergo by-pass surgery ASAP. I hope it goes well. I love Bill Clinton for the most part but I'm sure there are people who hopes he dies on the table.

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Yesterday, a telemarketer called from Time-Warner Cable wanting to add DVR service. I quickly said no but somehow we started talking. I've never done any chit chat with a telemarketer but we talked about where we're from and I found she used to live in Michigan but is now living in East Florida. Her house is boarded up and she's doing her job telemarketing in a call center waiting for the hurricane to come ashore. I know we talked for 5 minutes as she was plainly distressed. I used to do tech support over the phone and I know if I stayed on the phone more than four seconds after I was done and they were monitoring the call, I'd hear about it. Take care of the problem and get rid of the customer. I even forgot to tell her to take me off her list even though I we're on the national and state do not call list.

Tonight we tried out an new (to us) restaurant. It was delicious. We were the youngest people there.

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We were at a convenience store today in Amsterdam and I remarked to Duncan there were two cars in the parking lot with space saver tires on them. About five minutes later going about 65 MPH down HWY 5, the truck starts rumbling and I smell something burning. Within ten seconds we were pulled over looking at the flattest tire I've ever seen. I was now sporting the classy space saver tire going down HWY 5 but not at 65 MPH this time. We got to a service station and filled the old tire and it was torn up (in only 10-15 seconds). It was also less than a year old. The cause of the flat? Bad valve stem. I believe this is the first flat tire I've had when it wasn't raining. Lesson learned? No lesson learned.

I love Mark McGrath. I hate Extra.

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I'm sitting here watching the rerun of the city council meeting and it is extremely hard for me to sit here and listen to these f**king nut cases talking to the council without screaming. The respect level for my local officials has increased immensely...though it is still not very high.

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How hard is it to take care of a CD or DVD? Answer, not hard. Seems like every DVD I check out of the library, unless it's some sort of documentary or artsy fartsy movie, has been screwed up. I'm trying to watch X2 tonight and once again it's scratched up. In my whole CD collection, do you know how many scratches  I have? Not a freaking one. You open it, you play it, and you put it back in the case. You don't touch it. It will last a long time. Thank you loser brat kids who can't take care of anything.

I finished my first week at my new job and so far so good. The people are nice and the company seems to value it's employees. Well, maybe except for the GM who they escorted out of the building today...Back to X-Men 2.

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I like to sing in the shower, loud. Anything goes but there seems to be a few favorites that come out time after time, year after year. Let's Stay Together, Tina Turner of course, Love Child from The Supremes, and anything Terence Trent D'Arby (oh, excuse me, Sananda Maitreya). I'm dirty and filthy so I must now go sing, LOUD.

Happy birthday to my brother today and to my dad tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, a day trip to Montreal is in the works in Duncan's new car.

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The Kirby vacuum cleaner sales guy just left, an hour and forty-five minutes after he arrived. Yesterday a guy came by giving away a chance to win $1000 grocery shopping spree and it was sponsored by Kirby so I figured I'd be getting a call. Tonight a girl called and low and behold, I was picked out of a thousand entries to get two rugs cleaned after I listened to a sales pitch. Imagine that. How fortunate. Oh well, I decided to go for it. A knock came at the door and this guy was hot. But let me tell you this, after an hour and forty-five minutes with a vacuum cleaner salesman, nobody's hot. He did a great demo and I would love to have this piece of machinery but at $1435 plus $200 for the optional shampooer, I don't think so. And this thing did rock. It picked up everything. It wasn't very hard telling this beautiful young man no but he looked like a beat puppy as he was putting away his things which seemed to take forever.

Reading my last entry, I just realized I haven't downloaded my pictures from Montreal last Saturday. Let's just say it was "interesting" and it was great to see Michael and Lara, as always.

Guilty Pleasure Tonight: I love the Lenny Kravitz - Sarah Jessica Parker Gap commercial.

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It feels good to feel good. Starting in August, I think I started feeling better. I don't hesitate to say it now, but I couldn't bring myself to admit it then. I know during the months of June and July and probably long before that, I was either depressed or as close to it as you can get. All the classic symptoms were there but unfortunately, I chose to keep it all inside which just seemed to make it worse. I thought about going to the doctor but I thought that course may have just drawn it out. I know personally and have heard of many people where medications that are great in most cases, just seemed to cause more problems and make the original problems worse. I don't know if that thinking was right or wrong, I just know that's how I thought at the time. That whole "if you don't talk about it, it'll go away " way of thinking. Being a gay man, I should be the first to know that way of thinking is just pure bullshit. It's hard to put my finger on it now, but in early August, I started to fell better and it just got better week after week. If this happens again, I'll be at the doctor early, not drag it out again. I was lucky this time. A lot of people go through similar things and don't make it out alive. It feels good to feel good...

Favorite saying in the news this week:

The artist formally known as Cat Stevens.

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The folks at Comedy Central were annoyed when Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly kept referring to "The Daily Show" audience as "stoned slackers." So they did a little research. And guess whose audience is more educated?

Bill O'Reilly sticks his foot in his mouth once AGAIN.

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