I voted on the way into work this morning. No lines at my polling station. I walked right up to the desk, signed my name and went into the booth.

My voting place divides the sign-in books between A-K names and L-Z names, and I was number 56 on the “A-K” list. My town is generally republican leaning. There is a race for two spots on the town council that is getting plenty of attention (based on lawn signs anyway).

There were two poll watchers. Why is the democrat poll watcher always a younger lady and the republican poll watcher a grandfatherly type older man??

It’s one of those news events that sticks with you, an event that you always remember where you were when you heard it. The day was October 3, 1995, and I was at work that afternoon when the jury announced their verdict in the OJ trial. The woman in the office next to me was totally into the trial, following it daily and keeping up on the events and people. She had a radio on, and when they said “Not Guilty” to the murder charge she let out a huge gasp and said “Oh, my God!” She almost started to cry, she was that upset.

I always thought justice would come for OJ. At minimum he would live out the rest of his life as a pariah, an untouchable rejected by society. At best, I hoped he would slip up again, and some judge and jury somewhere would make the slimball pay.

Finally, it happened. O.J. Simpson convicted, jailed in Las Vegas. It happened yesterday, October 3, 2008. Exactly 13 years after the travesty of justice in the LA murder trial. Twelve charges, twelve guilty verdicts. Guilty of conspiracy, burglary, kidnapping, robbery and assault. The judge can sentence The Juice to the maximum, which would be life. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

My first thought during the Palin-Biden VP debate was (seriously), did Joe Biden have plastic surgery? He had those slanted-upwards eyes that you see on someone who had a facelift, like Joan Rivers for example. Plus Biden is a Washington DC legend for his hair transplants, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to think he’d go the plastic surgery route.

Now the New York Post has an article up IS JOE HIDIN’ FACIAL WORK?. The have pictures of Biden from 2005 and compare them to facial shots from Thursday’s debate. It’s pretty damn obvious that Biden had some work done. The article quotes a Manhattan plastic surgeon who says Biden got surgery around the eyes (a ‘Lateral Brow/Eyelid Lift’ says the doctor) and Botox injections for the forehead.

While the headline says “Lautenberg agrees to debate Zimmer on NJN“, it really should say “Lautenberg Continues to Show Contempt for Voters”.

Yeah, Lautenberg agreed to debate republican challenger Dick Zimmer.

Once . . .

On NJN, the state public TV network . . .

On a Saturday Night at 8PM . . .

Three days before the election.

Saturday night has the lowest viewership of any night of the week. And three days before the election barely gives absentee voters time to get a ballot into the mail.

But this isn’t about educating NJ voters and giving them information, it’s about winning elections. The article quotes a FDU professor who seems to be more of a democrat operative. “The only people who have time for that anymore are people in senior citizens centers” says the operative about the thought of several debates between Zimmer and Lautenberg.

Too bad for Zimmer. He’s a good man, and Lautenberg is ripe for the picking. In a “change” election year Lautenberg is the target #1 to be removed from office, and given voter disgust with the democrat machine in Trenton, Zimmer would have a shot. But he apparently hasn’t raised enough money, and the national GOP senate committee is spending money elsewhere.

New Jersey voters get the government they deserve.

Today is the last regular season baseball game at Shea Stadium. I probably went there a dozen times or so in my life. My memories of the place:

1. They always said Flushing New York on the broadcasts, and it wasn’t until I was in high school that I found out Flushing was a part of New York City.
2. The first time I ever went there was in the early 1970’s, I think it was 1972. Mets vs. Braves. The Braves beat Tom Seaver, and I think Mike Lum hit a grand slam. I went with my Cub Scout troop, and I remember our troopmaster was a big Jerry Grote fan, and he was upset that Grote wasn’t playing that day.
3. I was there when Dwight Gooden won his 100th game.
4. I was there the night the Mets scored 10 runs against the Braves in the 8th inning to come from behind and win. My friend left after the 7th inning to go back to the car and fire up the grill for the after game tail gate, and he was outside and heard the crowd reaction as the Mets rallied. He tried to get back in, but security wouldn’t let him in. We watched the fireworks from the parking lot.
5. Driving there was torture. I always got lost and ended up in the Korean part of Queens.
6. No matter what time of year you were there, if it was a night game you needed a coat or a blanket.
7. My last trip there was August 22, 2006, Mets vs Cardinals. Took the wife and three kids for a classic game. Luis Pujols drove in seven runs for the Cardinals, hitting two homeruns including a grand slam. Carlos Delgado hit a grand slam for the Mets, but Carlos Beltran won the game for the Mets with a monster two run walk off homerun. Mets win 8-7. See the picture below. Our seats were not so good, but they were under the upper deck, and there was a pipe leaking water onto our seats. I went to the usher to complain, and I ended up getting five seats in the mezzanine directly behind home plate.

It was always impressive when you caught that first glimpse of it as you were heading down the Grand Central Parkway. Yeah, it wasn’t the prettiest of places, but I liked the cool retro feel to the stadium. So long, Shea Stadium. Hello Citifield.

Allison, Liliana and Daniel just hanging out between innings at Shea Stadium, August 22, 2006.

Nice picture of the kids posing with a cardboard cut-out of Mets manager Willie Randolph.

Other Shea blogging: Matt Sinclair, says Shea Goodbye, Unless . ., Mets Guy in Michigan has pictures, Pete at The ultimate Sport Road Trip blog has memories of his first game as a 7 year old, Tony at A Red Mind in a Blue State has a really nice article about his many trips to the ballpark and J.P. Pelzman from the Bergen Records reminds us all that the NY Jets had a long history at Shea in his post More Shea memories from the Jets and Shea It Ain’t So

New Jersey is still the #1 state in one of the most important categories, and that is the cheapest gasoline.

CNN.com reports in “Gas prices: Down 10 cents in 4 days” that the average price for a gallon of gas in NJ is $3.468. The nationwide average is $3.757. Only in Hawaii, Alaska and Illinois is the price of gas still over $4.00.

Sounds like time for Corzine and the Trenton democrats to point out how this is a good time to raise the gasoline tax, particularly if the proposed toll hikes get blocked.

I promise this time I am back.

I had a lot of things going on, but the worst was the fact that somehow WordPress forced me to upgrade the DynamoBuzz blogging software. And I didn’t have time until today to actually do the upgrade. Lo and behold, it worked.

I’m not too optimistic about the chances of the State of New Jersey being able to cancel the contract with outgoing Keansburg school superintendent Barbara Trzeszkowski. At stake is three quarters of million dollars in severance pay and cash for unused sick leave and vacation. I’m not a lawyer, but a contract is a contract, and it appears this was done by the book based on the rules in place in 2003. It seems to be more of an issue of lack of oversight from the city and state. Wasn’t Jim McGreevey governor back in 2003?? Enough said.

If state attorney general Anne Milgram can get this deal cut down, I’d like the New York Mets to hire her to see what they can do with some of the contracts on the Mets. What’s more obscene, $750,000 in severance pay for the Keansburg school superintendent or $16 million a year for Carlos Delgado??

Tonight was the first meeting of the Keansburg school board since the controversey hit the news (Keansburg school board re-examines superintendent’s severance deal). The lady at the center of the controversy, outgoing superintendent Barbara Trzeszkowski was not in attendence. I guess she couldn’t rent a stretch limo on such short notice.

Technorati Profile

The Star-Ledger decided to endorse challenger Rob Andrews over incumbent Senator Frank Lautenberg in next weeks primary for the democrat nomination for senate. Andrews for U.S. Senaten says the headline.

The editorial notes that there isn’t a dimes worth of difference between the two on any major issue. They’re both left wing democrats. But the editorial criticizes Lautenberg for “lack of detail or depth in his discussion” of the major issues and says that on health care his answers are nothing but “bromides” lacking in specifics. Ouch!!

As regular DynamoBuzz regulars will note, I am no fan of Lousenberg. If anything, Frank’s biggest sin is failure to bring home the bacon. Senators from farm states get billions in federal subsidies, Senator Robert Byrd gets truckloads of federal dollars for West Virginia. Alaska’s senators get billions for bridges to nowhere. Lautenberg gets nothing for New Jersey, one reason this state has perhaps the biggest negative balance between tax dollars sent to Washington and dollars received back in federal spending.

I’ll be up late next Tuesday, hoping the news is good and we can send Lautenberg off into the sunset

I’m about a week late here, but kudos to Jersey blogger Jane from the Armies of Liberation blog for a nice write up in (of all places) The New York Times.

The piece, A Living-Room Crusade via Blogging highlights Jane’s work on the behalf of Yemeni journalist Abdul Karim al-Khaiwani, arrested several years ago for the crime of writing bad things about the government. In Yemen, that get’s you labeled a terrorist, and the punishment can be death.

Jane’s work has made her enemy #1 of the Yemeni government. Good job Jane!!

This blogging vacation lasted two months, but I think I’m ready to get back into the swing of things.

While I was away, comment spammers took over DynamoBuzz. I was getting over 100 spam comments per day. So I closed all the old posts for comments, and I’ll see if I can find a good WordPress comment spam filter plug-in.

I’ll see if I can put out at least one post per day. I figure with all the NJ government news, the election and the normal summer activities I should have enough to blog about.

Hi, kiddies!! Time for the DynamoBuzz word of the day.

Today’s word is schadenfreude.

Wikipedia defines schadenfreude as:

I bring this up today because of the news that New York governor Eliot “The Punk” Spitzer has been caught up in a federal investigation of a high priced call girl ring. Spitzer was apparently a client, and based on the transcipts of a federal wiretap Mr. Spitzer was a steady customer for the call girl ring, an outfit that was charging Mr. Spitzer about $4500 an hour for its services.

The call in question happened on this past February 13th, the day before Valentine’s Day. Mrs. Spitzer must be glad to hear about that.

The classy thing for Spitzer to do would be to spare his family the continuous embarassment and resign. However, the next classy thing Spitzer does will be his first, so expect him to try to tough it out.

While some will compare this to Bill Clinton’s experience, Byron York at National Review notes one big difference. Clinton had many defenders, even feminists, who were willing to go out and stick their necks out to defend the louse. Spitzer on the other hand, has almost no friends. He is nasty and unlikeable, and his fan club can meet in the back seat of a Ford Pinto and still leave enough room for the groceries.

Spitzer made his career as an attorney general using any hint of a violation of the law as a hammer to club alleged criminals into submission. The “blackmail” form of prosecution. Now the hammer has become the nail. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving fellow.