first, you have to know that there are 2,532 songs on my iPod (which generally stays in my truck unless I buy or import some songs and need to sync up). You should also know I am a little bit obsessive about keeping it on “Shuffle All”. I enjoy my music, all of it, and I like the random surprises the “Shuffle All” provides.

Another important tidbit to keep this story in perspective is that my polling place is only about 10 blocks away from my house, so it is about a 2 minute drive over there (yeah, I drove, the truck over there…it is cold and wet, I wanted to swing by the espresso stand on my way home, and I’m a carbon nuetral driver with 99.9% bio-diesel in the F250).

So, there is only really time for a single song between here and my polling location, so my eyes started getting really moist when my iPod fortuitously and at random decided to play Neil Young – Lookin’ for a Leader as I drove away from the house. I should also mention I don’t “Rate” my songs, I don’t want to skew the randomness of my musical experience. I bought the song back in November of 2006, and I only recall it coming up on shuffle a couple of times since then, so I suppose it was about due.

I guess there still is some magic in the day-to-day, I sometimes forget that these days since it doesn’t seem to present itself with the same frequency it did when I was younger. Rationally speaking, that song is going to play about once every 2,532 times I go to vote…odds like that aren’t incredibly comforting to the consumate atheist…but, I’ve never said there aren’t unknowns, just that the notion of omnipotent hate mongering phantoms and a “one true religion” that sentences people to eternal damnation for various trivial infractions and moral disagreements seems pretty silly…