You ever have one of those weeks?  You know, where one bad thing leads to another.  That, by Wednesday you wish it were Friday, and by Friday you wish it were Saturday?  One of those weeks that could be summed up with those three words....what..the...fuck? That, my dear Economic Populists, has been my week.  So why bring that up at all?  I feel I owe you all an apology.  You see, every week I put out my little cruddy column, Manufacturing Monday (or Tuesday), yet this week nothing came out. Now I know I'm not one of the better bloggers out there on the web.  Far from that, and I know my econ stuff isn't the best either, that goes to the two folks who I think are the kings of that, Bonddad and Jerome a Paris.  I'm a piece of crap compared to them, a rookie, a guppy, a greenhorn, a Padawon Jedi Learner, well you get the idea.  Saying all that, I do love to blog.  It allows me to connect with folks, and DK has some of the best I've ever seen.  I was that kid that didn't mine sharing, cause, well when you're disabled, you go for as many friends as you can get.  And there's nothing wrong with sharing your stuff, well, OK, there are exceptions, but I think you get the idea.  Humans are social creatures, especially on here.  Hell, its why many of us are news and political junkies!  I still have to thank Blaz and Georgia 10, my two alumni from my old university days, for getting me started on this. So any ways, what happened?  Two things, that honestly, the odds of it happening only a bookie in Vegas might take.  Now there are a lot of smart techies out there, so any advice would be most appreciated...criticism as well.  Basically, in the span of a week, well really three days, my wifi router went and then my motherboard. If anyone has that new Linksys N router, the one that looks like a cross between a shiny black toilet seat and a UFO, be aware that that there is a design flaw. Apparently, a chip is situated away from the needed heat ventilation holes at the base of the thing.  When the machine gets really hot, and it does, the router reboots or just plotzes on you.  After a while, the thing eventually dies.  Now this happened to me like three months into owning it, so taking it back to Amazon was a no go. Now you may think that my techno foibles would have ended there.  Oh no, Lady Luck decided to put her iron booted heel on my windpipe once more by causing one more technological catastrophe.  While attempting to order my new router the computer just went pzzzzap.  Everything went dark, was kinda spooky considering it happened late at night.  In case you're wondering, I rehooked my cable modem straight to my machine.  Any ways, I took it to my friend who runs this computer shop at this local Korean mall called ASSI (to this day I don't know what it stands for).  Now this guy's good...real good, he tested out all my components for free and finally figured out what went wrong.  My ASUS MVP motherboard had decided to join my Linksys router in taking a dirt nap.  Now I won't get into all the technical jibble jabble, but suffice it to say, less than a few days later I was up and running. Many folks go through bad computer days, but what are the odds of both your router and your motherboard going on you?  Man oh man, I mean makes you think? Venom...if you step outside of your house, will you get hit by a chunk of blue ice from a passing plane?  Crazy, I know, but I do live near O'Hare Airport. Now I know this is the big week most of us have been waiting for or at the very least dreading.  Tuesday our, to quote Gerald Ford, "long national nightmare" will soon be over. Hopefully, the forces of democracy will have won, Barack Obama will be President, and the GOP will be joining my Linksys Router and ASUS motherboard!  If it's OK with you folks, I had a special Manufacturing Monday election edition planned.  If you think it's inappropriate or what have you, please let me know. You folks out there have been swell, and I look forward from hearing from you all.  I just hope...oh how I truly hope, that we win this tomorrow.  I can take a failing router.  I can take a failing computer.  But I don't know if I can take a failing democracy (that is, faulty electronic voting machines, shenanigans being pulled by Republicans, etc).  You all deserve a better government than what we got now. You all take care now, victory on Tuesday!