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Tuesday, November 04, 2008

I Win

I realize this doesn't make sense because there are a finite number of votes and everything, but I just did this thing with CNN's electoral map and it made me excited. The map had all the states that were a lock for Obama in dark blue and McCain states in dark red, and they tallied the electoral college votes in each of these states. The winning candidate needs 270 votes. Neither O or M had that many with the places that were certain to go their way, but then in light blue and light red they had the maybes for each candidate. And in yellow they had the toss-up states.

So what I did was I turned just enough of the light blue states to dark blue until Obama had 272. That left three light blue, undecided states. I wasn't paying too close attention to what they were or how many votes they represented but what the heck.

Then I turned every other state on the map dark red. I gave McCain every one of his light red states and every yellow battleground. Then I gave him one of Obama's undecided states, what the heck.

Obama still won.

I don't know how Joe Young, America's greatest microfictionist, feels about that, seeing as he doesn't want Obama to win.

Here's my story called "I Win" which ends, "I've got the system rigged."

Here's how my voting experience went. It took over an hour. The long line crossed a series of three extension cords, the last of which was actually a power strip with a switch on it. The voting machines were all plugged into this one power strip, and voters waiting in line had to step over the switch as they went through the line. So if one person tripped the switch, all the machines would shut off. I think that's awesome.

4 comments:

Joseph Young said...

When did you write that? Is it experimental? Does talking about how to score points in Rummy 500 make it so? More stories should talk about nonsense, in that way. Good.

Adam R said...

Hi Joe, I wrote that story for the 2005 City Paper short story contest. I didn't win but I feel okay about it.

When I was rereading it today I thought at first, "Oh crap, this story isn't very experimental," but then as I read it I changed my mind. It's not the Rummy rules, it's the odd thread of non sequitors that makes it so, I think.

Thank you for reading it. That makes me feel good.

BlogSloth said...

dude, the person i vote 4 will finally win. wow and wow, and wow.

S

No Name McGee said...

Went in to vote at 8:10a.m. Had to register (moved since last voting in 2004). Cast my ballot. Was out by 8:25a.m. Thank goodness for small town West Allis!

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