Friday, November 18, 2011

Robocalls revisited; Village 2011 information

I recall waking Wednesday, Nov. 9th, with a happy thought...those extremely annoying robocalls touting various candidates or issues for the voting the day before would have ended.  Robocalls are the political ads that you get via your telephone and generated by a computer and calling lists.  Well, I was just plain wrong.  The calls are continuing.  Now, though, instead of for local people and issues, they're for national ones.

I guess I simply forgot that the various state primaries and caucuses (Is the plural of 'caucus' "caucii"?) are just around the corner.  I can't imagine what the folks in Iowa are going through as they are facing the nation's first caucus early in January.  But here our neighbor New Hampshire will have the first in the nation primary election.  These events will begin a series of them all across the nation for the following several months and lead to the probable Republican candidate for next November's presidential elections.  The Democrat candidate, President Obama, is already chosen unless something really dramatic happens between now and then.

Politicians, naturally, excluded themselves from being listed on "Do not call" lists when they passed a law allowing us to include ourselves on such lists.  So you can't stop those calls from coming by requesting inclusion on the list. 

The new round of robocalls is from Republican candidates for the Presidential nomination.  Like before, I've never heard one as the instant I determine the phone ring is signaling a robocall, I hang up.  I'm not sure why I'm getting these irritating calls.  Maine is way down the list of states in order of selecting its preferred candidate.  Way down.  I suspect New Hampshire wouldn't allow me to register and vote on the same day with no proof of residency or photo I.D. or background check or anything, so the calls are totally wasted on me.

I'm also irritated that the majority of these wastes of my time happen during the suppertime hour.  That makes it a double turn off for me.

I got one the other evening from one of the top tier candidates.  As always, I hung up just as soon as I heard the "I'm your idiot candidate" so have no clue what the message was.  A few moments later, I picked up the phone to make a call and, son-of-a-gun, he was still rambling.  Apparently the calling computers also have the ability to bypass hang-ups.  I don't know why as no one would be hearing the message.  I continued not to listen.

I find robocalls to be nothing but a total waste of time, money, and message.  At least in the Gator household, they create a whole lot more negative feelings on the candidate than any good will.  I'm keeping a list of calls and each candidate gets put to the bottom of my list of potential favorites.

We have nothing new in Village Construction to show you right now as we've taken a couple days off for some other things that needed doing.  The major section needs the input from Gator Daughter before we can finish it.  She annually creates a section of the Village that includes a forest scene complete with animals and a pond.  She'll be here Saturday to make that section come to life and then Gator Wife and I will complete that section.

GD is planning to return Sunday and they way we've been able to progress, there's a good chance the Village will be mostly completed.  That'll give GW and me a couple of days to complete putting in trees and "snowing" the Village.  Thursday morning, the two ladies of the clan will put the underside hiding skirt around the entire project while the Turkey is cooking, and we'll official light the Village for this season.
When it is "Lit," Village 2011 will look something like
this lit Village 2010, but there will be some
different pieces and even these will be in different places.

I'll have a picture or two of the progress either later this weekend or, more likely, Monday morning.  For anyone new to here, our Village is a combination of Department 56 Victorian and Dickens village collections which we erect each November as our Christmas Season celebration project.  The village comes down early in January. 

Meanwhile, as always, I hope you have just a super November weekend.

Gator

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