A few days ago, my friend Neil gave a brief answer to the question "Spamfighter, howcome you got into spamfighting?"

I get asked that a lot, too -- and while my answers vary depending on my mood at the time (and usually go on way longer than the questioner actually probably wanted), the core hasn't ever really changed: I think e-mail is cool.

More than that, I totally love the idea of worldwide, near-instantaneous yet non-interruptive human-to-human communication. I love it like Gir loveded the piggy, only slightly more sane and hopefully a lot less like an alien robot.

Though this is only my second election in San Mateo County (in less than a year), I decided to sign up to be a poll worker -- and, since I'm writing more, blog about the experience.

This morning I opened a letter, purportedly from Warren Slocum, which read:

You are hereby notified, pursuant to Elections Code Section 12307, that the Chief Elections Officer has appointed you to serve as JUDGE of the precinct board for the CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL GENERAL ELECTION to be held on TUESDAY, 11/07/2006

Looks like "judge" is the title they give to generic precinct workers; other titles are "inspector" (clearly the person in charge) and "student PW" (probably a bored high school intern.)

Since I'll be in Toronto all next week, the only training sessions I'm likely to be able to get to are either tomorrow or mid-afternoon on the 30th, but I'm confident I can make one of those work.

Now...where's my absentee ballot? It should've arrived by now.

I was visiting friends in a crummy neighborhood in West Oakland this evening, and some time between 6 and 7:30 somebody broke one of the back windows of my car. They got in, rifled through my stuff (I hadn't entirely finished unpacking after my long trip), clearly saw some CDs -- but only stole my iPod, which was in the glove compartment. Nothing else appears to be missing. Maybe a couple burned CDs, but I can't remember where I left 'em.

They also tried to start the car with a screwdriver -- most likely the same screwdriver which had been left in my '87 Mustang when somebody broke into it in San Francisco in 1999 or so.

My friends already sold that house, and won't be living there much longer. Oakland is a very big place -- it's not all like that.