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We returned home this afternoon. Ella the World's Most Famous Cat was fine and even emerged from under the bed reasonably quickly. It's about as hazy and gray as it ever gets around here, but it was still nice to see the palm trees and familiar territory as we drove home from LAX.

What I learned after a week back in Philadelphia and New Jersey:

I still love hanging out in Philly.
I can't eat that many cheesesteaks anymore.
All cities need daily tabloids like the Philadelphia Daily News and New York Post.
There is no better ice cream than Bassett's in Reading Terminal Market.
I need to get me one o' them HDTV things.
Lincoln Financial Field is very nice, but it ain't no Franklin Field.
Certain household name talk show hosts have no sense of humor at all.
On the whole, I'd rather be in California.

And we be- are- back.

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Upon returning home from the east coast, I noticed one very important change in the landscape around our town. A new growth had taken root, sprouting on every corner, in every median strip. And it all had the same message:

Join ARNOLD

Before we left, there was little physical evidence that an election was about to take place. When we returned, the signs were everywhere. I imagine there are BUSTAMANTE signs in East L.A. and the Central Valley, MCCLINTOCK signs in Simi, ARIANNA signs in state mental health facilities, but in our area, the signs all say the same thing:

Join ARNOLD

Why? Is he falling apart?

The L.A. Times is doing its best to ensure that. The paper has become so comically one-sided in its coverage, it appears that the editors have made the conscious decision that stopping the recall (or making sure Bustamante is the only other option) has become more important than the paper's integrity and reputation. Not that it had a great reputation to begin with: this is, after all, the L.A. paper that has as many Calendar section lifestyle columnists covering New York (one) as it does L.A. (one). It's the paper of Berkeley Bob Scheer, Steve "You Don't Pay Enough Taxes" Lopez, and the Israel-Is-Evil Middle East Bureau, the same paper that will send a reporter to Burundi faster than it'll bother to send one to Redondo Beach. The South Bay could break off at the El Segundo border and float out into the Pacific and the Times would run a wire service brief on page B-8.

The Times' march to glory, of course, has been highlighted by its spectacularly outrageous last-minute Parade of Gropees, a move so brazen- less than a week before the election- that even some Democrats are embarrassed. But you know all about that. The only good thing about the Times' descent into the world of the Party Organ is that it may hasten the flight of readers from the daily paper to blogs and alternative news sources. Maybe it'll even get Dick Riordan's new weekly off the drawing board and into print at last. Maybe it'll prod Dean Singleton to make the Daily News a real city-wide alternative to the Times. Maybe... nah, the Times is what it is. We're stuck with it.

And we'll be stuck with whatever we decide on Tuesday. If we're lucky, we'll wind up with real change, with a new team cleaning up the mess and restoring integrity to the office, with business and individuals alike being given a fairer shake. We'll have true budget restraint, sane deals with state unions, no more free ride for Indian casinos, real workers' comp reform, an end to the insane illegal immigrant drivers' license and community college giveaway.

Or we'll have more chaos.

Call me a cynic, but I'm betting the over on the chaos line.

Whatever happens, it'll start tomorrow. This oughta be entertaining.

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If this is to be a revolution, it happened in a fairly banal way.

We drove the three miles or so to the polling place, a large, empty room in a community center at the edge of the barren hillside that used to be an elementary school but now houses day care and nursery school programs. We walked in, signed the book- they didn't ask for ID, took the punchcard, slipped it into the machine, punched the holes, removed the ballot, checked for chads, slipped it in an envelope, handed it in, got a receipt. That's it.

And now, we wait. Place your bets now- the window closes soon.

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“What do we do now?”

That was the final line of the movie "The Candidate," when Robert Redford's idealistic candidate, having won a race by following his handlers' lead, contemplates what had just happened. I imagine that's what Arnold Schwarzenegger is thinking right about now.

Here's what he can do now: line up the Tom McClintocks of the state, turn them loose finding waste and programs to cut, get to work on the legislature to see if some Democrats can be enticed to work along with the new team, work on repealing the tripled car tax and the illegal immigrant licenses. Start immediately, be ready to hit the ground running as soon as he's sworn in.

Naturally, he'll probably just bask in the glow for a while and then wade into the Sacramento muck without a clue, but we can dream. Meanwhile, it might be a good idea to send some suicide prevention specialists over to the L.A. Times building, because they backed the horse that broke down a few steps out of the gate.

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It started with a couple of general aches, then some soreness in the back of the throat. A few sprays of Chloraseptic didn't make a dent. Then, in the morning...

...urgh...

I've been sick all day. Couldn't exercise, couldn't think. You get this and it seems the world swirls around you, and you can't understand how the worls could keep going while you can't.

I think I wrote the same words last spring, the last time I felt like this.

I spent 10 minutes in the COLD-ALLERGY aisle at Long's Drugs staring at various pills and syrups and unguents and they all looked the same except for price. So it's Benadryl Cold, some lozenges, more Chloraseptic. All of that's completely useless, of course, but at least it makes me FEEL like I'm doing something.

So forgive the incoherency and the occasional phlegm. I have an excuse. At least for this time.

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Of COURSE they're playing the race card.

Check this from L.A. Times columnist Peter King's "final column on the recall":

Now as always, the anger in California politics appears to be rooted, more than anything else, in the unexplored, nostalgic notion that the state was a far better place to live only a few years before — before "they" swarmed over the border, before all those shabby subdivisions overtook the land, before Davis.

That must be it. It's racism against immigrants- THAT's why the recall happened. Ah, now I see. So it had nothing to do with a governor who, faced with a growing deficit, gave sweetheart deals to unions that contributed to his campaign, then turned around and paid for it by tripling the car tax. It had nothing to do with a governor who, faced with an artificial energy crisis, didn't react at first, then signed deals that left California with the highest energy costs in the country for at least the next decade. It had nothing to do with the granting of drivers' licenses to illegal- illegal, not legal, not supposed to be here, not paying taxes- immigrants at a time when national security is in danger and other states have stopped giving those licenses out. It had nothing to do with the arrogance of career politicians and a news media contingent that abandoned all pretense of objectivity to root, root, root for the incumbent or his fraternal twin Lieutenant Governor. No, it was racism. That must be it.

King isn't alone, of course, in his interpretation of the recall. The liberal pundits, the Democrats, the newspapers would have everyone think this was mob rule. That's what democracy looks like to them. When the public doesn't agree with the elite, it's a mob.

If that's the case, call me Edward G.

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Why is it that at the same time I've been rough on the L.A. Times, they keep quoting me?

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I ordered a new cell phone this morning.

The one I have is a couple of years old and it works fine. It's a Handspring Treo 300, a combination Palm PDA and phone, and it lets me get e-mail and work on the web and write and edit stories. The new one became available this morning- it's a Handspring Treo 600, a combination Palm PDA and phone, and it will let me get e-mail and work on the web and write and edit stories. In other words, it will do for me what the one I already have already does.

But cooler.

It's smaller (and thicker, and the same weight)! It can play MP3s (as if I really need my phone to do that)! The screen's brighter (I don't have a problem with the 300's screen)! It runs the new Palm OS (I have no apps that need the new Palm OS)! It's... uh... way cool.

And that's the bottom line. The thing is way cool. I mean, look at it! You whip one of these babies out, everyone swoons. And it has a slot for a memory card, in the event you need more memory, which has never once happened with the old phone with a lot less memory built in. One clear positive: no lid to snap off and screw up the phone. Otherwise, it's, you know, cool-neat-fab-boss-hep-phat-gear-rad-smashing.

I want to be cool-neat-fab-boss-hep-phat-gear-rad-smashing. I must maintain my gearness, my heptitude. I need this phone.

Women, of course, don't need stuff like this. There was an article in the New York Times today about how the gadgetmakers are designing phones and CD players and radios to appeal to women, including a Sony radio shaped roughly like a clutch purse (!). It won't work. Women are still more practical, and men are still going to drool at plasma HDTVs and PlayStations. That's just how it works. I'm thankful that my wife understands the appeal of gadgets- she not only acquiesces when I come to her after the fact and say "guess what I just dropped $400. on?", she encourages me, pointing out how valuable these things are for business purposes. And they are- as I said, whip this baby out, you're money.

Until, that is, the next, cooler-neater-fabber-bosser-hepper-phatter-gearer-radder-more smashing model comes out. Treo 900? I'm there, dude.

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This is what having a cold does to you: I can't remember what I've already written. Did I write about Rush? The Red Sox? I don't know. Let me check...

Nope. But I had to look.

I don't think it's the actual cold that's fogging my mind, it's the fact that I didn't really sleep much, primarily because I had to cough every 30 seconds. I just wrote another column and I have no idea whether it's coherent or even in English. I don't even know whether THIS is in English. For all I know, I could be channeling Telemundo right now.

Anyway, that's my excuse and you're free to believe it or not. All I'll say now is that the weekend is coming just in time. Puedo utilizar realmente el sueño.

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We were trying to get home tonight but the main road- the only road- that goes to our neighborhood was blocked by two police cars. We were about a block from home when the cops turned us away. The only other way to our house is a half-hour's drive all the way around the peninsula, up and down the hill, and back on the road from the other direction.

When we finally reached the neighborhood from the east. I could see all the way to the roadblock, and I could see that the cause of the traffic diversion was... nothing. No accident, no gas leak, no... nothing.

So why the hell did they send us on the Grand Tour of Los Angeles County? I don't know. I'll check it out and report my findings.

(Don't EVER make me go out of my way.)

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It was fun to watch the Miami-FSU game this morning, not because I like to watch the 'Canes- although I do- but because the game was played on water. Florida's stadium may be called the Swamp, but FSU's LOOKED more like one. Every step was a splash, every handoff a potential disaster.

Games are better when the weather sucks... at the game. And you're not there.

Think about it- does football get any better than those Thanksgiving games in Detroit with snow coming down so hard at Tiger Stadium that the hash marks became rumors? Will they ever stop talking about the Ice Bowl? Would we even know about the tuck rule if it hadn't been practically a white-out at Foxboro? Do I have to even mention the Fog Bowl?

And were you at any of those games? I hope not- the conditions were torture for the attendees, but the rest of us were safe at home with turkey and beer, watching the fiasco, saying stuff like "look at that, you can't even see the sidelines!"

That's why today's game was fun. The rain came down for most of the game, leaving large puddles all over the place and everyone covered with mud. And when the rain let up, the winds kicked up and some of the cameras had raindrops all over, like you were watching the game through your windshield with the wipers broken.

I loved it. But then again, I wasn't there. It was 70 degrees and sunny here. That's perfect- me in the sunshine, everyone else in a Weather Channel Special Report. We always love to see others suffer.

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