The rains have finally begun. I never would have imagined how much i missed rain and how happy i'd be when my roomate came bursting in with a huge smile on his face saying "it's raining!"

The bizarre thing is this sudden joy at the appearance of rain is probably one of the most universally shared human experiences accross all of time, and only now in rich modernized countries have we lost this ancient joy and the rain dance rituals.

I was going to post about my first time voting, but i found the whole thing far too depressing. There were too many things i really didn't have good opinions on and i made several votes for really bad reasons (i voted for a guy for Lt. Governor just because his job is "ferret legalization activist" and i couldn't pass up that once in a life time opportunity). Several things i had good reasons for and strong opinions... I strongly opposed the limit on heights of new buildings in berkeley for example. Also i finally figured out how and why to vote in the representative race, Barbara Lee is the incumbent and I don't really agree with her strong opinions on Iraq, however I decided that we have a republican president and I didn't want more republicans in congress so I bit the bullet. However despite these few things, the whole thing really felt like a game, especially with the touch screen voting machines, and i just had this sudden realization that millions of people are making these random decisions that i was making for often not good reasons and that the bizarre amalgamation of all these accidental decisions will result in lives and deaths of people all over the world and the direction of our country. It was really kind of depressing.

I saw "Bowling for Columbine" afterwards. I recommend it, it was quite good. I definitely don't buy most of his points, but for those of you who enjoy documentaries about nutty guys on crusades (which i think most of us do), this is a very good example of the genre. I figured that since the filmmaker was also the nut he was following that the movie would lose some sense of touch, but it was surprisingly well done and hysterical. Although i disagree with many of his answers he raises great questions, and the movie is guaranteed to make you laugh a lot and i don't mind being preached at when i'm laughing.