November 11, 2000 (idea)

I woke up a little after noon today, and was trying to think of what to do today and I remembered that there was a protest over the screwed up ballots in downtown West Palm Beach. So I went there. I picked up some posterboard and some markers and made a sign that said "Bush: concede to popular vote!". This is sort of a response to Bush's side constantly commenting that Al Gore should concede to save us all of this hassle. I think that Bush could just as easily concede as Gore.

I got in on at least two camera interviews and talked with one or two reporters. I was right behind the reporter in several shots, including local news, CNN, and even an international show that was in Japanese. I found a picture of me behind the Japanese reporter at a news website at:

http://www.out2.com/copyroom/articles.asp?StoryKey=13012

The out2.com site was handing out the "smiley face" stickers (you can see one on my sign), and later mentioned that I was up on their site so I checked it out when I got home.

It figures that I get caught in a picture with an asian lady :) If you don't already know from my other daylogs, I have a thing for asian women. I talked to her for a few moments after her camera spot and saw her notes written in kanji and basically chatted for a minute about how I am really enjoying learning the language and that their written language is so beautiful.

There was a lot of shouting at the demonstration when the Bush supporters showed up, which really didn't make much sense to me. I don't know why some of those people who were shouting at each other even think it was going to do any good. I spent most of my time away from the mob, just holding up my sign to the traffic that was passing by. Many of them honked their horns and cheered, while others just looked on without comments.

I ran into one Gore supporter who was really religious. I was kind of suprised to meet someone who is very religious and a Democratic Party supporter. We talked for a while about stuff and he mentioned a lot of religious mumbo-jumbo, but he didn't once try to impress his religion on me. I was very impressed with this person; if more religious people were like him, there would be a lot less reason for me to hate organized religion.

I hung around until about 7:30pm, when I was interviewed one more time by a local news station on my way back to my car.

It turns out that my last interview wound up on the news and they quoted me as saying that the manual recount was open to being "too subjective", but they left out the part where I said that they should do a re-vote. Sort of made me sound like a Bush supporter. Bah.

Anyway, I was talking on the phone with my friend that I mentioned in yesterday's daylog as my "depressed friend", we'll just call him "Bob" for now; and it seems that he managed to run across my comment and got upset enough to hang up the phone. I really hope he read the rest of my writeup, as it mentions further down that after we talked, I thought that we both felt less depressed. He's somewhat emotionally unstable right now (he's always a bit overly concerned about his health, and has been not feeling well), so I think he's probably a bit edgy right now. I'll wait for him to call me back.

This is basically my "diary", except that is online for everyone to see. I'll probably say some stuff to piss people off, but I have no bad intentions. If everyone did this, then people wouldn't build up so much frustration inside, and perhaps their lives would turn out better since fewer misunderstandings would be made. Anyway, I feel bad that "Bob" is pissed off, but I think he'll eventually get the context that it was written in.

I wrote "bob" a letter, basically saying that I did not properly warn him about reading my daylogs here, and that if he still wanted to be friends, that I would leave it up to him to call me. Since I've always been so introverted, I don't know too many people, so it would suck to lose a friend I've had for about 8 years, especially over this. But honestly, I am going to write what I feel, and if that's too much for him, then that's the breaks; he shouldn't read this if he can't handle it.

Since I have started noding my thoughts here, my personality has changed. In just this short time, I have gone from being very introverted and staying indoors every weekend to doing something as far out as to get out and join a government protest.

Part of what gave me the courage to start doing this is my long-wanting need to get to be more social, but the straw that broke the camel's back has to be my feelings for Kawana, who is the first girl that I am attracted to that ever treated me nice and genuinely made me feel good about myself. My feelings for her may be a sort of naive and it may just be a hollow form of love, but I've never been in love, so I would have to describe this as the closest I've been yet.

One thing I have done to my daylogs is I have gone back and put in "character names" for all of my friends, so that they can remain somewhat anonymous (though they will certianly know I am talking about them if they read it).

Man am I tired. I think I'll go to sleep early tonight. Have to work tomorrow anyway. I guess I feel bushed after spending all day at the protest event.