Today's title comes courtesy of my new paper shredder. A paper shredder is a wonderful thing. At least a paper shredder that works is a wonderful thing. The first paper shredder that Daniel and I bought, some time ago now, was a cheapie thing; we brought it home and managed to fry its little motor in something like a day. This one's lasted nearly two weeks now. I have a big bin full of confetti.

I think this entry is going to be a bit like a bin full of confetti. I have various things to say, but I'm at a loss for how to weave them together into any kind of coherent entry.

The massive confetti generation is all in honor of my reorganizing my personal files, and moving them from an over-crowded file box into a spiffy new file cabinet with lots of space. I've been at this for about two weeks, and I'm nearly done. I think I've about quadrupled the number of file folders I've got, which makes it much easier to find things, and to figure out where to put them when filing.

I've also shredded and thrown out enough stuff in the process of reorganizing these files that I probably could have fit everything back in the old file box with room to spare. Doh! It's okay - the filing cabinet is much more ergonomic.

I'm looking forward to being organized again. My desk usually looks like a minor disaster area, but most of the time I can find stuff. Lately, I've been misplacing stuff on my desk, which is very troublesome. Definitely time to put some method in my madness.

It sometimes seems to me that my supply of organizational acumen is finite. If I'm really on top of everything at work, that's when I'll forget to pay the electric bill or something stupid like that.

Work is going quite well. The handover from my boss to his interim replacement went off with only a couple of small hitches. Of course, it's not really the interim replacement I'm worried about - it's what we'll do when she leaves. We're interviewing for a technical publications manager right now. I'm not directly involved in the interview process, but I've got to say it's tricky. Interviews are such a weird way to hire people. There's gotta be a better way to do this.

But the manuals are all getting written, and even though every single one of my deadlines changed this week, they all got longer rather than shorter. So, can't complain.

I dutifully went and voted Tuesday, and got a sticker reading, "I voted touchscreen!" Apparently, the touchscreen machines were new in most San Jose precincts, although I've voted touchscreen before in Berkeley and nobody thought it merited a special sticker. Both Daniel and a coworker joked that we should have gotten stickers reading, "Nobody knows if my vote was counted!" Argh.

So, John Kerry is now the Democratic nominee. I can deal with that. He wasn't my first choice. Or my second choice. But, you know, he's a nerdy Yale-educated Massachussetts liberal. As a nerdy Yale-educated Massachussetts-born liberal, all I can say is, "Hey man, pass the catsup!"

Actually, as far as the presidential primaries go, this entry here summarizes my feelings pretty well.

State politics is more interesting right now, but I'm still kind of confused about the long term impact of the propositions that passed. It's pretty clear to me that the basic problem with the California budget is that something like three-quarters of state expenditures are locked down by law, which means that every time we get in a crunch, there's nothing to cut except education and social services. None of the propositions on the ballot did anything to address that. We did authorize the state's borrowing a crapload of money. I'm so glad that we recalled Gray Davis and put in a guy who's ready to roll up his sleeves, make the hard decisions, and...run up a huge debt.

I think I'm going to go read more of Jeff Noon's Automated Alice right now. Compared to California politics, it makes sense.