A couple of years ago, the readers of the San Jose Mercury News voted the interchange between I-880 and US-101 the worst interchange in the Bay Area. It has many horrible features, but the worst of all, in my humble opinion, is the entry from Old Bayshore Highway to I-880 Southbound, just a few hundred feet from the exit to US-101 Northbound. Getting onto the freeway there is daunting at best; I try to avoid it if at all possible.

But today, we braved that route joyfully – we were on our way home (via the library) from dropping our ballots at the Registrar of Voters’ office. We’ve done our civic duty – now to see how else we can make a difference!

I made one more attempt to play the failing Looney Tunes Platinum Collection disc from the library – I cleaned the disc VERY carefully and even reset the Blu-Ray player to factory defaults. Still no dice. I’ve sent them a note saying there’s a problem and will return the set tomorrow.

I also expect to vote tomorrow – I did a lot of research today on the measures I was unsure of and have come to decisions on all of them. I want to sleep on it before filling out the ballot, though, because there were a couple of close decisions.

For those who are curious, I’m planning to vote Biden for President, Eshoo for Congress, Ravel for State Senate, Low for State House, Owens and Ristow for Town Council (4-year terms), and Stephenson for Town Council (2-year term). I’m planning to vote FOR Propositions 15, 16, 17, 18, and 25 and Measures A, B, L, and RR. I haven’t decided whether to vote in the election for Superior Court Office 24 – the judge currently in the seat is running unopposed, so it really doesn’t matter whether I vote or not! Ballotpedia has a link to his website, but when I go there, I see a “this domain for sale” page, so I don’t think he’s terribly worried about this election either.

We spent a lot of time in front of the TV today! We attended a concert in the park in Westchester County and a shiva minyan for the mother of one of the auxiliary rabbis at Shir Hadash.

But the most important thing we saw was interviews with all of the candidates for Los Gatos Town Council, which helped us narrow the field. We still have to make final decisions on the state propositions, Town Council candidates, and local measures – but at least the top of the ballot is easy!

I also reworked the website for the Silver Tongued Cats to put more information on the site. I liked the theme I used there (Colinear) so much I’m using it here, too – did you notice?

It was the first day of Torah Study for 5781; we are studying the Haftarot this year. Rabbi Aron gave us an introduction to the Haftarot in general (for example, the large range of regional variations in the choice of Haftarah for a particular Shabbat), but we didn’t actually get to this week’s Haftarah! Maybe next week….

Yesterday, the Los Gatos Public Library told me that their copy of Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3 had gone missing, so I turned to the San Jose Public Library. They didn’t have the Golden Collection, but they said they had the Platinum Collection: Volume 2, which had “Duck! Rabbit! Duck!”, and they emailed me today to come get it.

I inserted Disc 2, which had the cartoon I wanted to see. I was greeted with the unstoppable “this is culturally wrong but worth watching anyway” disclaimer and then the main menu. I selected a cartoon; the screen went black…and that was it.

I even upgraded the firmware in my Blu-Ray player – it didn’t help. I can play some of the features on Disc 2; I can play Disc 1 just fine. But not the cartoons on Disc 2.

A friend had offered to loan me his copy of the Golden Collection, but I thought I’d see if I could find the cartoon online. YouTube has excerpts, but not the whole thing – but a wider search paid off.

If I wanted to see it again, I’d buy the Blu-Ray from Amazon (it’s only $10), but the mandatory ads and disclaimers are awfully discouraging.