Every now and then, Halloween and Election Day fall side by side. It's an interesting dynamic, since one features people canvassing the neighborhood, pretending to be something they're not, and the other is called "Halloween."

You see what I did there? You thought I was going one way, and I went the other. Classic misdirection. Like the news organizations and candidates have already been doing for months. (Oh, snap!)

As frightened as I am about the possible results of this election, the thing I am most looking forward to is not having to hear about it anymore. In the last three days, I've gotten more than 10 emails from the Kerry campaign explaining why it's important for me to vote for him. I understand and appreciate what they're trying to do, but that's more than the emails I get about how to decrease my mortgage and increase my manhood combined.

The emails are for naught, however, since I already voted (and am perfectly happy with the size of my, um, mortgage). I sent in my absentee ballot earlier this week, paying $13.65 so that express mail would get it there on time. It never cost me anything to vote before, unless you count the time I was stuck in line behind a really chatty woman. But that's how important voting was to me this year - even more important than a firm I never contacted accepting my mortgage application for a house I don't own.

I have always supported the idea of everyone going out and voting, but seeing the ballot made me change my mind. There's a lot on there that the vast majority of voters know nothing about. And even if you vote along party lines, I bet you don't know which judges to vote for. I decided to research them before I voted. Thankfully, they all had websites. I know that because a number of them e-mailed me.

One of the judge's websites particularly caught my eye. In Los Angeles County, while most of the judges are running on platforms of supporting legislation for inner city education programs, she posted a picture of herself skiing. I don't know if you've ever been to Los Angeles, but those who ski and those who actually live within Los Angeles County aren't often the same people. I voted for the other judge (who sent me fewer emails).

The thing that concerns me most, however, is not how well we know a judge or a congressman or even a senator. It's how many people will be voting for our president without knowing much about either candidate. Okay, there are several presidential candidates on the ballot, most of whom we've never heard of. But let's concentrate on the two that could win.

Earlier this week, I was in the Dallas area, where "New York liberals" (being from New York, I was automatically labeled a liberal) are not always agreed with. When I ordered the vegetarian meal at the hotel, the waitress tried to give me chicken. The logic there must be that it's not quite as meaty as a cow.

One girl was explaining to me that she supported Bush because he knows more about war than Kerry. When I asked her about Kerry's experience in the military vs. Bush's, she was shocked to find out that Kerry had served and Bush hadn't. That's right - she somehow mistakenly thought Bush had been a soldier and Kerry had been a deserter. It's okay though - turned out she's allergic to TV, newspaper, and conversation, so she had no real way of knowing the truth before we talked. After our chat, she broke out into hives.

I'm not using her as an example of the political knowledge of the Dallas area, as I came across a number of very well read and educated voters while there (who all very much enjoyed their steak). But she is an example of the political knowledge of a lot of voters in this country.

With Election Day so close, it will be hard to learn enough about the issues in time to vote the way you truly believe (especially if you don't have access to email). But I want to through a caveat into the whole "Rock the Vote" concept. Please go vote - but know something about who you're voting for.

When you have 10 minutes to spare, check out presidentmatch.com. It's a non-partisan site that matches your views with the candidate closest to you. Regardless of if you ski or not, it's worth the time.

Now if you'll excuse me, Interest Rates are at Their Lowest Point in 40 Years!

Steve Hofstetter is the author of Student Body Shots, which is available at www.SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@observationalhumor.com.

I strongly support freedom of speech. But lately I've been torn between supporting it and wanting people to shut their idiot mouths.

Freedom of speech, by the way, does not apply to the private sector. When John Rocker was fined by Major League Baseball for publicly spouting racist drivel, people defended his "freedom of speech." Those people are morons; freedom of speech means you can't get arrested for saying something. It does not mean you can mouth off in a magazine and keep your job.

The basic concept of the Bill of Rights is that we all have freedoms as long as they don't infringe on the freedoms of anyone else. In other words, you are free to mow your lawn because it's your property. But you are not free to mow your lawn at 4:00 AM, because then you're infringing on your neighbor's freedom of sleep.

Freedom of speech is one of the most important concepts in America. But I also believe that, as citizens of this great country, we should also have the freedom to not be barraged by morons.

For example, if when in the midst of a political debate, you use the words "dillhole," "NASCAR," or "Jesus," you are violating my freedom. Especially if you started the debate against my will while on an airplane, as if the computer system seating us next to each other gave you the right to prevent me from sleeping.

If you're the type of person that always says "just my luck" whenever anything bad happens, you're violating my freedom. To insist that every little thing is just your luck means you think there's some cosmic plan that involves an all-knowing and all-powerful deity purposely getting tartar sauce on your Capri pants. If you spill food on your lap, it's not fate, it's a distinct lack of hand-eye coordination. The rest of us have been eating properly for years - give it a shot sometime.

If you come to a comedy club and speak when you're not spoken to, you're violating my freedom. And the freedom of everyone around you who didn't pay $10 to see you exercise your alcohol problem. Professional comedians have gone through years of training to get where they are. Hecklers have merely gone through their entire table's two drink minimum.

If you ever discuss waiting for a young celebrity to turn 18, you're violating my freedom. Celebrities will not date you. Ever. Especially when they find out that you've been leering at them since they were in middle school. The best chance you have with them is before they turn 18 since the more they mature, the more likely they'll realize that anyone who is sitting and waiting for someone to be legal is a sketchy creep.

If you hang a "God Bless America" sign on an overpass, as if that's going to influence his decision, you're violating my freedom. My god isn't driving down route 12 thinking, "There was something I had to do today. I washed the car, got a haircut, spilled tartar sauce on that girl's Capri pants . . . that's it! I forgot to bless America! Good thing I saw that sign. Speaking of signs, I could really go for a zesty chicken border bowl. I hope I don't spill anything."

If when giving me directions, you assume I'm from the area, you're violating my freedom. I asked you for directions because I swallowed my pride enough to admit I don't know where I'm going, not because I'm testing you. I don't know which way north is. I don't know how to get to 610 on my own. And you should know I don't know this especially if you work at the front desk of a motel. Yesterday I called a Motel 6 asking how to get there and the attendant's first question was "are you from the area?" It's safe to assume I'm not. If I was from the area, odds are I wouldn't be staying at a Motel 6.

If you get into an argument about whether or not your watch has the correct time, you're violating my freedom. Most cell phones are 100% accurate. So are a lot of computer clocks. Your watch is not. And if it is two minutes slow, who cares? That doesn't mean you're a bad person. Just that you'll be two minutes late for the next meeting at the hall of stupid.

And, most importantly, if you write me a letter telling me that you disagree with this column without explaining why, or that you usually like my column but this particular one sucked, or that you think I'm too bitter (as if social criticism is not inherently negative), you're violating my freedom.

Which is totally just my luck.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of Student Body Shots, which is available at www.SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@observationalhumor.com.

The next time someone cuts me off without a turn signal, I will punch them so hard their neck snaps back like a Pez dispenser.

I have only been driving for a few months, but I have already put 6,000 miles on my car. And in those miles, I have learned why there are some people who want to blow up the world.

I have a fairly Zen approach to driving. I believe in driving karma (car-ma! Badum!), where people who drive poorly will get what's coming to them. Sometimes, I even believe I'm the one who should give it to them. For instance, I cut off empty cabs whenever I can. But I don't cut them off without a turn signal. That's just wrong.

I do not have, and don't think I will ever get, road rage. I become annoyed, I talk to myself, I even scream aloud sometimes. But it's all in good fun. The only thing that came close to giving me actual road rage was when someone nailed my car from behind. But the insurance company gave me full price for the car and I can still drive it, so really that gave me road exuberance. No, not THAT kind of road exuberance. That'd be dangerous.

And though I do not get road rage, I'm writing this column in an effort to be less road-annoyed. Perhaps people will read it and say, "he's right! I should stop driving like a decapitated monkey!" I don't know exactly what a decapitated monkey drives like, but I think I was stuck behind one on I-95.

Certain practices, I can understand. If you don't let us merge, well, we've all been late for something. If you demand merging, well, someone didn't let us merge once, so we understand. But if you cut me off without your turn signal, prepare to be Pezzed.

That's the worst thing you can do because you're risking killing both of us. If you put your signal on, at least I'll know you're a jackass ahead of time and thus be warned when you decide to take my lane while going slower than I am. If you do so without a signal, I'll have to jam on the breaks as hard as I can, risking death and sending my fries everywhere. And my fries don't belong everywhere. (I am still finding some from the last time).

The second worst thing you can do is to drive ahead of me in the fast lane going 10 under the speed limit. I am SHOCKED at how often this happens. Why would anyone drive that far under the speed limit? And why in the fast lane? And why while a truck is next to them in the slow lane, blocking me from passing them? All these questions and more are answered in Time Life's "Mysteries of the Unknown Pez Dispenser Heads," which is yours for just three easy payments of GET OUT OF MY WAY I HAVE THINGS TO DO!!!!

When I first started driving, my father told me that it wasn't me he worried about, rather it was the other drivers. And he's right. Other drivers are terrible. I failed my road test roughly 37 times, and I am a better driver than a lot of the people I'm driving next to. Or behind. MOVE ALREADY!!!!

Sometimes a car lets me merge or moves to the right when they see me coming or puts their turn signal on, even in a (gasp) turning lane. Once, there was even a driver who, seeing I was trying to move over to the cash toll lane, stopped to block the guy behind him so I could slow down and cut in front of him. Now that's a courteous guy. Of course, the car he was in front of probably wanted to Pez him.

Dave Barry wrote that everyone thinks they're an above average driver. That is mostly true. I think I will be an above average driver once I finish making rookie mistakes. But I know I am trying, which is more than I can say for the black Sentra THAT IS TAKING FOREVER TO GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!!

Want some Pez?

Steve Hofstetter is the author of Student Body Shots, which is available at www.SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@observationalhumor.com.

Shawn, Marlon - I tried watching White Chicks. I did. I desperately tried watching. I even kept watching ten minutes after I wanted to stop watching. I just couldn't do it. I'm sorry. But not as much as you should be.

White Chicks was the in-flight movie during a recent trip to Los Angeles. It was so bad it made me ashamed that I was en route to where they make such terrible films. It was boring, trite, and offensive. Or at least the first eleven minutes were. That's all I watched before deciding to instead do the in-flight crossword puzzle. I figured that with the crossword puzzle, it would actually take me a few seconds before I knew the ending.

That's right - ten minutes after I wanted to stop watching was just 11 minutes in. It's rare that a movie is so bad you can decide it sucks in just a minute. Especially when you're in a situation where you desperately want to be entertained. If I were on a plane with nothing to do, I'd even watch "The Bachelorette." That show, by the way, should not be called "The Bachelorette." It's 25 guys trying to nail one girl. If Carson Daly hadn't have already taken the title, I'd recommend the show be "Last Call."

"White Chicks" opens with the Wayans Spawn in a sting operation where there job is to catch drug dealers by mocking Hispanic people. To "blend in" undercover as two Hispanic guys, the Wayans' yelled random Spanish words and danced a lot. Aside from that being fairly insulting and terribly dull, it also displayed an acute lack of faith in the audience. Their characters, who are smart enough to become undercover FBI agents, are not smart enough to actually be undercover. And somehow, I wasn't smart enough to stop watching for eleven whole minutes.

Martin Lawrence's "Blue Streak" did the same thing. To get cheap laughs (though I can't imagine from who), Lawrence's characters were over the top and horrifically inconsistent. But that might be part of the genre. You know the genre I mean - terribly bad movies that somehow get made anyway.

"White Chicks" is one long race joke. And it's the same joke we saw in "Malibu's Most Wanted" and "Bringing Down the House" and a billion other movies and TV shows, especially if they star anyone from the Wu Tang Clan.

These movies are based on the premise that it's funny when black people are different. Or maybe it's not funny at all because we've seen these same jokes done over and over again, and they weren't even funny the first time. We get it - black people like rap music and white people don't. Black people can dance and white people can't. Shawn Wayans can't make a good movie and neither can Marlon. That's not a generalization that you find in "White Chicks," it's just a conclusion you'll come to after watching it.

In an effort to save money, airlines have cut back severely. The snacks are smaller, passengers have to pay for meals, and most of the flight attendants aren't even hot anymore. But the one thing they've left untouched are the terrible, terrible movies. America West, if you're listing - please take "White Chicks" and give me back my peanuts.

The movie was so bad that actually read the in-flight magazine, which included lots of articles on why every city in America is the best city to visit right now. It also included articles about politics, written by people with such little political expertise that one writer's main credit was working on her father's political campaign 30 years ago. The article was still more entertaining than "White Chicks."

I did glance up at the screen every so often when I was between stories and managed to see a very angry FBI director yelling at his charges (of course), two drunk guys wake up with each other (of course), and an old fashion dance-off (of course). I'd have put the headphones back in to see who won the dance-off, but in that situation, everyone loses.

I was happy to see that very few people on the plane were watching the movie. A black gentleman across the aisle from me seemed equally disgusted at how bad the film was. That's one way that white people and black people are similar - we both think that "White Chicks" is a terrible movie.

Or maybe he just really wanted to do the crossword puzzle.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of Student Body Shots, which is available at www.SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@observationalhumor.com.

Following the ultra successful "I Love the 80s," "I Love the 80s Strikes Back" and "I Still Love the 80s Despite What You Did Last Summer," and the marginally successful "I Love the 70s," "I Love the 90s," and "No One Seems To Remember the 60s," VH1 debuts a new series this week called "I Love September, 2004."

The series is a 30-episode look at the month we all grew up with. The two-hour pilot has already tested extremely well, with audiences enjoying the nostalgia brought on by comedians, actors, and musicians reminiscing about four weeks ago.

"We're really excited about this new project," said VH1 Programming Director Todd Schwartz. "Mainly because we've run out of good ideas."

Other concepts that we're discussed at the network's morning idea meeting that birthed "I Love September, 2004" included, "I Love Last Tuesday," "I Love the Morning Idea Meeting" and "I Love the Guys Who Loved the 80s." That third idea may still go to production, provided the network can land a few big names to riff about how Hal Sparks and Michael Ian Black loved the 80s. Possible panelists are already said to include Hal Sparks and Michael Ian Black.

The pilot is longer than the other 29 episodes because, in addition to panelists discussing the pop music and entertainment trends of September 1st, they also spend an hour discussing the overall mood of September, which was described best by Gilbert Gottfried. Gottfried said the month will be forever remembered for a historic presidential debate, escalated tensions among Iraqi rebels, and clip shows. Though when Gottfried said it, the description sounded more nasal and annoying.

Thankfully for the network, September 1st was an extremely exciting day, featuring the beginnings of a terribly bloody standoff with Chechen separatists, and an exciting 2-1, 11-inning Chicago Cubs win over the Montreal Expos. Now that America knows the results of both stories, it's especially interesting to look back at how the Cubs were playing before the season ended.

"It's mind-blowing," Schwartz said. "Now that it's so many days later, we're armed with the knowledge that the Cubs will lose the Wild Card race and the Expos will be moving to Washington. It's fun to see how naive we were back then. Kerry Wood really pitched a hell of a game."

Other highlights of the series include a raid on Hamas that resulted in 14-deaths, the beheading of more soldiers in Iraq, and Britney Spears' surprise wedding to boy-toy Kevin Federline.

"You know who they should have killed?," panelist Corey Feldman said on the "I Love Sptember, 2004: September 18th" episode. "Britney's wedding planner. Sweat suits? Come on! We all know you can't wear white trash after Labor Day!"

Producers admit that some episodes were lighter on content than others. Not much happened on September 29th, but the same can be said for 1983, and editors found a way to make that show fun. After all, the September 29th announcement that the Haitian death toll from Hurricane Jeanne rose to over 2,400 people was almost as boring as Paul Simon marrying Carrie Fisher.

To create the show, VH1 employed an exhaustive team of researchers who, according to the network's official website, "were saving up to dozens of newspapers at a time."

What's next for the network? No one can be sure. But it will probably involve more rehashing of old content with quick cutaways and lots of music so the public doesn't know the difference. And though Schwartz wouldn't confirm it, the Internet Movie Database is already listing another installment of the "I Love the" series in production for this spring. The working title is "I Love Steve Hofstetter's October 3rd Humor Column."

So do we, Todd. So do we.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of Student Body Shots, which is available at www.SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@observationalhumor.com.