Circadian

Back in September, we laid down the cash for a condo rental in Vegas. Just a bit off-strip, but not unbearably so, it came to just a hair over $180 for the week – one of the benefits of being timeshare owners, I guess.

I wondered, at the time, just how much it was going to cost to fly there – you see, the week we have is from 11/23 through 11/30 – the week of Thanksgiving. All of the flights were looking really, really bad for when we wanted to fly. But we did some tweaking and got into a pair of tickets just the other night for a pretty good deal. Certainly significantly better than the $580 we had been looking at.

Now I’ve found us a rental car, again through the timeshare company, for a meagre $140 for the duration of our stay, which, thankfully, we won’t have to pay out of pocket for until we’re there. Add to that the costs of eating, drinking and being merry, and we have a very exciting vacation planned.

And let me tell you, it beats the hell out of staying in Denver and cooking turkey for two.

During most political seasons, you’ll see polls about the type of person that the public will or will not vote for, regardless of the rest of their politics. In most of them, you learn that for all that Americans think of themselves as forward-thinking and advanced, atheists start out with, per this poll from 2007, 53% of people automatically discounting them as being someone they could vote for. That’s right – disavow the existence of god, and over half of the populace wouldn’t vote for you even if your politics perfectly jibed with them.

And then today I learn that atheism is sexy. Yes, while your public atheism will get you onto the do-not-vote list, it can also get you a date, with it increasing the chances of your first-message being read and replied to on Ok Cupid’s dating website.

So, let me get this straight. If I don’t believe in god, people trust me enough to want to date me, but not enough to vote for me. Please tell me there are other extenuating circumstances!