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Voting with Fingers, Voting with Feet....
Nov. 6th, 2013 05:01 pmYesterday, for the 36th out of 37 Novembers (missing only one due to a hissy with an upstate college town elections board), I cast my vote upon the waters.... and, as usual, didn't do very well in terms of outcomes. My Dem county legislator survived a nasty, State Republican-funded smear campaign against him, but one or two of the other D's in the Lej went down in slime and the GOP will now control the do re mi of patronage for at least the next two years. We also re-elected an incompetent Republican sheriff who won mainly because he vowed not to enforce the state's post-Sandy Hook gun control reforms, and an unqualified Republican county comptroller who won because, hey, he used to be on the tv and had name recognition.
At the town level, it's mostly status quo, but I was pleased to have helped elect a new town judge who significantly defeated her political-hack Republican opponent. The latter particularly pissed me off because she was caught having not submitted her biennial attorney registration or taken her continuing ed courses, and she tried to palm it off on "family" obligations. Sorry- I just spent hours listening to (and paying for) crashing-bore programs so I could fill out (and pay for) my license for two more years, and my family needs me, too.
In the mayoral races I mentioned a few weeks back, both Democrats won handily, without either of them even seriously campaigning following their primary wins. Rochester's race was more bizarre, since the endorsed Dem's runner-up (the current incumbent in the job) still got 40 percent of the vote despite his having dropped out of the race and his having endorsed her. Buffalo, meanwhile, looks forward to four more years of mediocrity from an empty suit of a mayor.
Teabaggers were held off (but not decisively) in Virginia at the Guv level, but it's still neck-and-Neck in the Attorney General contest there- the one involving an even nuttier Bagger, who introduced legislation requiring all at-home miscarriages to be reported to police with the threat of jail for failing to comply. Jerseyites made Chris Christie the Republicans' Great White Not-So-Baggy Hope for 2016, and in a smaller but more significant vote count, Illinois legislators passed a bill to add the Land of Lincoln to the roster of states allowing same-sex marriage.
All in all, it could have been worse. And it wasn't even raining;)
----
I also spent a little on myself today- and found the two online ways of doing it to be not a close race at all.
Earlier in the day, somebody reminded me that the Avett Brothers' new album had come out recently; I tried an actual Brick and Mortaruary in hopes of finding it, but no such luck, so I figured I'd again take advantage of Amazon's best-of-both-worlds promotion called AutoRip, where you get the mp3s instantly but still get a real disk for slightly more shekels.
In doing so, I noticed that the free-shipping threshold has gone up. No more adding a single album or a longlost paperback to get over 25 bucks; nope, now it's 35. But boy are they pushing that Amazon Prime deal to tie you into an expensive annual membership.
I'd also been reminded earlier in the day about how, at least when it comes to music, Bezos is something of a Bozo to the artists. My longago friend from here (and now on Facebook) Wil Maring passed along this pretty-please from another artist:
if you must buy cds from anyone than me, please don't buy from Amazon. Please buy from CD Baby, but best, buy from me. Especially, DON'T buy your mp3's there. Buy them from me. Or CD baby. I get a bad feeling everytime I have to pack something up to mail to Amazon. They give me a little money, but then I have to spend half of that little money to mail them the dang cd. Between them and the post office, not much left over for little ol' me.
Just in case you were wondering. About Amazon. And how they screw musicians. That $15.00cd they are selling.....? The artist gets.....$6.75. PLUS there's an annual 30.00 fee to be on there. I can't even calculate whether it is one or two pennies I get when they sell an mp3. I'm getting the frick off of there. Fug um.
The exchange went on to note that Amazon is notorious for ordering only a few CDs from the artists at a time, requiring them to spend even more of their "profit" on shipping costs which are much higher for low-quantity orders- and they have additional requirements for the shipments and what's shipped that further eat into the bottom line.
I have used CDBaby before- and will try to think of them more readily when ordering online- but best of all, of course, is ordering direct from the artist at their site or their shows. So it is going with Joshilyn Jackson, who is again doing a Virtual Book Tour through her hometown indy bookstore to promote her latest novel. I ordered that one and should have it in hand around Thanksgiving. Which is one other nice thing to be thankful for:)
At the town level, it's mostly status quo, but I was pleased to have helped elect a new town judge who significantly defeated her political-hack Republican opponent. The latter particularly pissed me off because she was caught having not submitted her biennial attorney registration or taken her continuing ed courses, and she tried to palm it off on "family" obligations. Sorry- I just spent hours listening to (and paying for) crashing-bore programs so I could fill out (and pay for) my license for two more years, and my family needs me, too.
In the mayoral races I mentioned a few weeks back, both Democrats won handily, without either of them even seriously campaigning following their primary wins. Rochester's race was more bizarre, since the endorsed Dem's runner-up (the current incumbent in the job) still got 40 percent of the vote despite his having dropped out of the race and his having endorsed her. Buffalo, meanwhile, looks forward to four more years of mediocrity from an empty suit of a mayor.
Teabaggers were held off (but not decisively) in Virginia at the Guv level, but it's still neck-and-Neck in the Attorney General contest there- the one involving an even nuttier Bagger, who introduced legislation requiring all at-home miscarriages to be reported to police with the threat of jail for failing to comply. Jerseyites made Chris Christie the Republicans' Great White Not-So-Baggy Hope for 2016, and in a smaller but more significant vote count, Illinois legislators passed a bill to add the Land of Lincoln to the roster of states allowing same-sex marriage.
All in all, it could have been worse. And it wasn't even raining;)
----
I also spent a little on myself today- and found the two online ways of doing it to be not a close race at all.
Earlier in the day, somebody reminded me that the Avett Brothers' new album had come out recently; I tried an actual Brick and Mortaruary in hopes of finding it, but no such luck, so I figured I'd again take advantage of Amazon's best-of-both-worlds promotion called AutoRip, where you get the mp3s instantly but still get a real disk for slightly more shekels.
In doing so, I noticed that the free-shipping threshold has gone up. No more adding a single album or a longlost paperback to get over 25 bucks; nope, now it's 35. But boy are they pushing that Amazon Prime deal to tie you into an expensive annual membership.
I'd also been reminded earlier in the day about how, at least when it comes to music, Bezos is something of a Bozo to the artists. My longago friend from here (and now on Facebook) Wil Maring passed along this pretty-please from another artist:
if you must buy cds from anyone than me, please don't buy from Amazon. Please buy from CD Baby, but best, buy from me. Especially, DON'T buy your mp3's there. Buy them from me. Or CD baby. I get a bad feeling everytime I have to pack something up to mail to Amazon. They give me a little money, but then I have to spend half of that little money to mail them the dang cd. Between them and the post office, not much left over for little ol' me.
Just in case you were wondering. About Amazon. And how they screw musicians. That $15.00cd they are selling.....? The artist gets.....$6.75. PLUS there's an annual 30.00 fee to be on there. I can't even calculate whether it is one or two pennies I get when they sell an mp3. I'm getting the frick off of there. Fug um.
The exchange went on to note that Amazon is notorious for ordering only a few CDs from the artists at a time, requiring them to spend even more of their "profit" on shipping costs which are much higher for low-quantity orders- and they have additional requirements for the shipments and what's shipped that further eat into the bottom line.
I have used CDBaby before- and will try to think of them more readily when ordering online- but best of all, of course, is ordering direct from the artist at their site or their shows. So it is going with Joshilyn Jackson, who is again doing a Virtual Book Tour through her hometown indy bookstore to promote her latest novel. I ordered that one and should have it in hand around Thanksgiving. Which is one other nice thing to be thankful for:)