In general, how do you view pawn shops? Have you ever been inside a pawn shop?

Are you generally more focused these days on your own physical fitness or your financial fitness?

Which St Louis companies do you consider to be the best managed?

The world's capital for geniuses

How often do you go out? Do you think there are more places to go in the City at night than there were five years ago?

Regardless of whether you own any stock yourself, do you think now is a good time to buy stock?

Mayor Slay says: "the national election will be decided in St. Louis and St. Louis county, because we have the votes that will swing the most important swing state." Do you agree?

Are you ready for swimsuit season?

Do you believe that listening to some sorts of classical music can make you smarter?

Are City residents more fun to date than county residents? Who picked the restaurant on your most recent dinner date?

Do you think that relations between blacks and whites will always be a problem for the United States, or that a solution will eventually be worked out?

With controversial line items in the municipal budget making news this week, MayorSlay.com is once again going to let you try your hand at building the annual municipal budget.

What is the financial situation in your own household right now? Do you think the national economy will be better in a year?

If Pope Benedict came to St. Louis, would you come out to watch the motorcade or attend one of the rallies?

Does it matter to you what people think of what you do for a living? Which occupations do you hold in the highest regard?

In general, what letter grade would you give the school choices parents have for their children in the City of St. Louis? Do you want the St. Louis public school district to open more charter schools?

Do you think the voters in this country are ready to elect a qualified person over age seventy as president? A woman? An African American?

Would you do volunteer work in the community if your employer gave you paid time off to do it? What do you think is the most important reason people volunteer their time?

What do you think are the most underrated aspects of living and working in the City of St. Louis?

Our first Unremittingly Negative Mini-Poll. Think of it as an opportunity to exorcise your innate St. Louis cynicism.

Do you shop downtown, in your own neighborhood, during lunch, or on Saturdays? What stores could the City attract that would make your life easier, better, more fun, or more economical?

Most of us at MayorSlay.com believe that St. Louis holds pride of place as the birthplace of the hamburger. What do you think about St. Louis' favorite sandwich?

Do you think Missouri should join Illinois and 20 or so other states to ban smoking in public places, or do you think that Missourians are smart enough to figure it out themselves?

How do you feel about the spread of commercial gambling? Have you ever been to a local casino? Or, are you someone who feels that gambling is a vice you'd best avoid?

Valentine's Day is here again and, with it, insecurity for many us. How do you feel about Valentine's Day? Has it been one of your favorites ever since elementary school, or do you hide in your office cube while florists' deliveries are made to your office mates.

On February 5, St. Louisans on both sides of the Mississippi River will have their chance to pick which of the Donkeys and Elephants will most likely sit in the Oval Office in January of 2009. Who will you support, and what factors you are most likely to be considering as you vote.

Thirty-one separate zoned Suburban Journals editions are distributed free to nearly 660,000 households in the metro area. Are the Suburban Journals a newspaper that you rush to read, do you completely ignore them?

How likely are you to base your vote in November on a candidate's views on immigration? Would you be willing to carry a national ID card? Do you think St. Louis should be handling immigration matters differently?

How did you prepare for the Highway 40/I-64 shutdown -- and how you are coping. Are you taking advantage of Happy Hours, flex time, and the chance to learn Chinese while you are sitting in your car on Page Avenue?

One of the most popular features on MayorSlay.com is Mayor Francis Slay's annual predictions. Do you agree with the mayor? Do you have your own pet predictions? Do you even believe in predictions, and if so, which ones?

The New Year is a pretty good time to look back — an occasion to take stock of ourselves, our neighborhoods, our City. What things or people were memorable and which better forgotten?

In a sort of People's Choice Awards for the area's youngest artists, MayorSlay.com's Mini-Poll this week presents ten student-drawn Christmas Cards from which you may select your favorite -- and, if you want, e-mail it to your friends.

Immigrants are responsible for most of St. Louis's interesting holiday traditions, including the endless styles of holiday cookies St. Louisans make - and eat. Which holiday traditions do you and your family observe at this time of year?

How do you feel about public transportation in St. Louis -- particularly in light of skyrocketing gas prices and the imminent closure of Highway 40/I-64?

Is print dead? Do you still read printed books, magazines, and newspapers, or does the thought of Amazon's new electronic book reader make you all tingly?

Our traditional Thanksgiving poll is your chance to tally up some blessings and to compare your own family's holiday habits with those of your fellow St. Louisans and Americans.

Do you think we observe enough holidays in the US? Do we celebrate or remember the right things? Is it time to add a few more to the calendar? Or switch a few around? And should there be a St. Louis Day?

The City of St. Louis holds a special place in the international pantheon of pizza. "St. Louis-style" pizza has hundreds of thousands of devoted diners and its own Wikipedia entry. Let us calibrate your feelings about your favorite flatbreads.

This week, MayorSlay.com takes on the issue of debt. Yours, not ours. What things or experiences are worth going into debt? A house, a newer car, an extended education, holiday gifts, season tickets in the Orchestra Circle, an appendectomy? How many credit cards are in your classic quilted Chanel bag?

From our first line in school, straight and quiet, St. Louisans spend innumerable hours of their lives waiting patiently in queue. How do you spend your time in line?

MayorSlay.com wants to measure your particular shade of green. How involved are you, your family, and your neighbors in saving the earth — or, at least, the City?

How far would you go for some St. Louis favorite things — Ted Drewes, the "Rock", Tony's Lobster Albanello, a Cards/Cubs game with the team president?

Are the area's urban critters more of a curiosity or a curse? Does the thrill of beaver dams on the River Des Peres and city foxes make up for the relentless backyard battles against bunnies, moles, voles and slugs?

Should the City and county of St. Louis become parts of some sort of larger entity? Should the many municipalities in St. Louis county be merged into fewer so that duplication of services is reduced?

This week's Mini-Poll from MayorSlay.com attempts to measure your coffee-sense. Do you drink it? Could you ever do without it? Is it healthy or a menace? Are you linked to chain coffee -- or do you make it a point to drink the local stuff?

Are you part of the furniture crowd? Is your living room planned, or did it just happen? Do you seek out eco friendly or recycled furniture? Or is "found in the alley behind Delor" as much recycling as you want to do?

This week's Mini Poll is about luxury items, their worth, and what you are willing to pay or forgo.Is a product worth what someone is willing to pay? Or, are we getting ripped off because we can't control our status envy?

This week's Mini Poll from MayorSlay.com is about secrets and how well you keep them. Are you someone who can't wait to tell a secret, or could Charles Jaco stick bamboo slivers under your fingernails and you still wouldn't tell?

Even though crime is down in St. Louis this year, we don't always feel safe -- and the police can't be everywhere. How can our cities be safer and what can we do to make it so? What are your thoughts about crime, safety, and justice in St. Louis?

YouTube has become one of the Internet's most visited forums for entertainment, edification, and expression. What do you think of it and other online file sharing sites? Do you YouTube? And what do you think of candidates putting their videos online?

Which flags do you wave? Does a tattered US flag or a vintage Confederate battle flag cause you more heartburn? Is it time for the City of St. Louis to find a new flag -- or adopt a symbol? Let us know what you think, and MayorSlay.com will run it up the flagpole.

E-mails and their telephonic cousins, text messages, carry a great deal of the business and personal communications that letters formerly did -- and the general lack of rules for cyber-correspondence has sent appalled bosses and teachers scrambling for a new etiquette for modern communications. What is it that you like most, and hate most, about our ability to communicate at all hours and in all states of sobriety?

Deep summer is when St. Louisans sit by the sides of pools, when we value a theater's climate control more than the movie, when we envy the penguins at the Zoo, when we count down the days until the cooler days of fall. What do you most enjoy in these deep summer days in St. Louis?

Homelessness is a serious and complex challenge for our society. This week's Mini-Poll hopes to measure your attitudes about some of the many issues raised by homelessness -- and, as usual, to encourage civic discussion.

Our City is thick with brewery ghosts, bed-and-breakfast ghosts, cave ghosts, mansion ghosts, church ghosts, theater ghosts, museum ghosts, baseball ghosts, and cemetery ghosts. What about you? Do you believe in ghosts?

This week's Mini Poll wants to count some noses on guns and gun controls. What is your view of the rights accorded citizens by the Second Amendment: Does it establish an absolute right of self defense or merely the right of the State to maintain an armed militia?

If James Madison envisioned our country having public schools for all children, he probably did not consider how free speech would be interpreted within those hallowed halls. What do you think about student first amendment rights?

This week's Mini-Poll focuses on bubbling thermometers and our own little slice of global warming. How does your summer go, and what do you do to cope with soaring outdoor temperatures?

Answer this week's questions about fathers and Father's Day, and we promise to give you some gift suggestions, even if Old Dad still insists that he doesn't want anything.

This week, MayorSlay.com offers its second reading of the Presidential preferences of our readers. Our questions this time around are simple ones: Who do you think will win the Democratic – and Republican – primaries?

Straighten your tie, shine your shoes, and, please, put away that fanny pack. MayorSlay.com -- the most fashion-forward of all the St. Louis websites -- wants to measure your opinions about fashion -- St. Louis-style.

MayorSlay.com wants to set a kind of baseline about how St. Louisans already use the riverfront. So let us know, how many times have you gone down to the river?

When Henry VIII wanted a divorce from Anne Boleyn, he had her beheaded. That is a simple solution that is generally unavailable in contemporary St. Louis. Answer this week's Mini-Poll about your attitudes and observations about divorce.

There are many different kinds of mothers -- ranging from Dickensian disciplinarians to Spockistic softies to the absolutely indifferent. Tell us, do you celebrate Mother's Day with joy or under the pain of some very guilty feelings?

How often have you been trapped in the Land of Hold Please? Can you navigate a phone maze without a compass? Are you an overcharged pushover when pursuing customer satisfaction, or a relentless retail warrior?

On May 18, the Missouri General Assembly will complete a legislative session. This week's Mini-Poll from MayorSlay.com puts you in a seat in the state senate lobby – and gives you the chance to vote Yea, Nay, or Present to several pieces of legislation now being considered in Jefferson City.

With Spring, though, comes the hope of renewal – and a reminder from MayorSlay.com that spring cleaning is still a Must Do in plenty of St. Louis households. So, come clean and tell us all your dirty little secrets in this week's Mini-Poll.

Don't fib, provide proper documentation, file this week's Mini Poll in a timely fashion, and we promise not to disclose your confidential answers to anyone from the IRS.

If Canada and Sri Lanka can have universal health care, why can't we? Answer this week's Mini Poll about the health of health care in our country and let us know whether you really believe that an apple a day actually keeps the doctor away.

St. Louisans love baseball, and for us fans, there is no better time of year than the home opener. Answer MayorSlay.com's second annual Opening Day mini-poll: let's play ball!

With the spring vacation season fast approaching -- and Mayor Slay himself out of City Hall on one of his Mayor-Gone-Wild adventures that will likely include reading a public policy tome in hardback, wearing white sox, and re-painting his garage -- this week's Mini-Poll from MayorSlay.com offers you the opportunity to share your own holiday likes and dislikes.

Are you a gadget person? On which gadgets are you most dependent these days? Which gadgets do you worry about most? And which ones are the best? Answer this week's Mini Poll and tell us what gadgets do for you.

Mayor Francis Slay's announced renovation of Lambert Airport inspired some e-mailers to MayorSlay.com to discuss the general topic of air travel. Check in here to comment about the state of Lambert, air travel, and the foibles of your fellow travelers.

Do you think purchasing power affects social justice? Should it? How much are you willing to pay — or forgo — to eliminate worker exploitation, destruction of the environment, or terrorism?

Have you ever considered how you want your passing to be celebrated or recognized? Share your thoughts with us in this week's Mini-Poll, because — as we all know — there are only two sure things in life: death and taxes.

MayorSlay.com is hardly impartial. We all love Mardi Gras. But, we always want to know if you agree. Answer this week's mini poll, and (as far as we're concerned) laisser les bons temps rouler!

This week's Mini Poll explores the many ways in which to celebrate. How will you celebrate Valentine's Day this year? Share your plans with us, or at the very least, your heartfelt good intentions.

As the debate about our environment continues to heat up, this week's Mini-Poll wants to register your opinion on the subject (and science) of global warming and to let you suggest some national priorities.

No matter whether you root for the Cubs or Cardinals, Bears or Rams, as a region we stand or fall together: We are on the same team. This week's Mini Poll from MayorSlay.com explores the strengths of our connections and whether the region needs another tie to bind us.

Those of us who are cat-people, and we know who we are, smugly boast about our pets' superior intelligence to our sad dog-people friends. What about you? Are you dog-people or cat-peeps? Answer this week's Mini-Poll and don't let your cat cheat and vote more than once.

MayorSlay.com kicks off the 2008 presidential campaign season this week. This is your best chance to establish an important MayorSlay.com baseline: of the donkeys and elephants now being mentioned for president, which one is most likely to be sitting in the Oval Office in January 2009?

MayorSlay.com loves a good food fight. So, we’re giving you the chance to weigh in (a pun we’ve been dying to make) on the issues – Pro and Con – regarding the government regulation of trans fats levels in our food.

Well used to controversy with its Mini-Polls, MayorSlay.com has decided to offer its readers a special opportunity to vote -- and carp -- on our own version of Time's Person of the Year. Help us name the 2006 St. Louis Person of the Year from this list of influential persons, groups, ideas, trends, and places.

In a sort of People's Choice Awards for the area's youngest artists, this week's mini-poll presents ten student-drawn cards from which you may select your favorite. Find out if you agree with Mayor Slay's pick for the offical winner -- and, if you want, e-mail your favorite card to your friends.

How do you think we ought to show off our beliefs in public places at this time of year? And, how do we respect others' rights not to share our beliefs? How do you feel about public displays of seasonal cheer, office parties, and the separation of church and state?

If you spent some part of the last week shivering in your home, or a week or so this summer sweltering in it, you may or may not agree that the Missouri Public Service Commission is fulfilling the letter of its mission. Start the buzz by answering these questions.

St. Louis has some of the best architecture in the country, and we are restoring and renovating some of its best parts. But, hardly any of it is modern or new. That could, however, be changing. Newspapers, magazines, and blogs have begun reporting the hopes and dreams of some local developers to build up, and up, and up.

Thanksgiving is a time for taking stock: counting blessings, family members, friends, marching bands, and — much less often — calories. MayorSlay.com hopes to capitalize on your calculating mood by asking you some questions about the country's — and the state's — economic direction and about your hopes and fears for the near future.

Take a good honest look at yourself in the mirror and let the rest of us know some of the more interesting things you see about yourself. As Mr. Hamlet said: Hold the mirror up to nature.

This week, MayorSlay.com begins a conversation about the present -- and future -- of technology by asking you to share your baseline views. Has rapidly-changing technology improved your life, or made it frustrating or difficult? Which new tech tools do you use most, and which do you shun? What technological advances would you like to see in the near future?

Political pundits are fond of saying that the only poll "that matters" is the final one on Election Day. With the political polls in both Missouri and Illinois swinging back and forth like the tail on a Kit Kat clock, that bit of campaign wisdom may be even more apt this year. So, MayorSlay.com claims absolutely no electoral significance for the answers to this week's Mini-Poll.

Scientists at Duke University recently announced that they have assembled and tested the prototype of a "cloak of invisibility." With reality beginning to catch up to science fiction, MayorSlay.com wants to use this Mini-Poll to calculate your feelings about the practicality, morality, and utility of invisibility.

With radio, television, and Internet as news media, is the periodically printed -- but perfectly portable -- paper still a relevant source of news? Tell us your news intake habits in this week's Mini-Poll, and we will disperse the results throughout the realm.

Scoundrels and saints come in hues of both Red and Blue. Share your opinions about human nature, political scandals, and the relative electoral worth of a good hair day.

Experts note that we often spend more time with our office mates each week than we do with our own families. So, MayorSlay.com — an interesting workplace in itself — has some questions to measure how well you get along, get ahead, or get by at work.

First seatbelts, then mandatory bicycle helmets, skiing helmets, roller blade helmets ... fines for smoking, drinking, and — at the end of the day — a law banning the sale of glazed donuts in New York City. What's your opinion of using safety belts in cars or in fashion?

Give us your thoughts about space travel, human aspirations, government priorities, Hollywood screenwriters, and about what the discriminating space traveler should eat while floating in space.

Debates on immigration — and immigrant — issues are heard in the ornate halls of Congress in Washington, DC, the more modest town meeting rooms of Valley Park, Mo, and — increasingly — in plenty of other places. Tell us how open or shut you think Miss Liberty's doors should be.

Face it: it's beginning to look a lot like football. What is it that you like about the sport; who are your favorite teams and practitioners; and what are your predictions for this year's champs?

There are compelling arguments to be made for — and against — almost every YES or NO answer in this week's poll. And we fully expect you to spend the long weekend making those good arguments and serving them up to your partners, children, and parents along with the pork steaks, hamburgers, and potato salad of the summer's last real BBQ.

MayorSlay.com wants to gauge your opinions on some back-to-work type issues, including retirement, retirees, compensation, ungrateful offspring, and the November ballot question to raise the state's minimum wage.

The upcoming release of New Line Cinema's blog-hyped Snakes on a Plane is sure to elicit phobias of many varieties. What is it that frightens you most? Is being scared silly an acceptable form of recreation to you? Do you run to -- or away from -- movies about things that go bump in the night?

What are your fondest moments of this past summer, and which will you try hardest to forget? Do any of them involve visitors? What have you vowed not to repeat next summer and what do you plan to do differently? Take our poll and let us know what summer has taught you this year.

Readers of MayorSlay.com live throughout the region. This week, we'd like to explore the Demographic Divide and ask some questions of City residents -- and other questions of St. Louis (and other) county residents.

With the Zoo in the news several times recently, MayorSlay.com thought it would be a good week to solicit and quantify your opinions about zoos in general, about our own famous St. Louis Zoo, and about some of the animals with whom we share our urban habitat.

With temperatures flirting with the 100 degree mark, we can really say that we're living in summer's Dog Days. MayorSlay.com has some questions for all our hot neighbors. Answer our Mini-Poll questions honestly and we promise not to tell you what the humidity is doing to your hair.

Pop icon/HD TV producer Dan Rather once said that Americans would put up with anything that didn't block traffic. This Mini-Poll will give you a chance to register your opinions on a variety of traffic and transportation issues.

MayorSlay.com has taken some of the (anatomically possible) polling suggestions that readers have sent us over the last several months and stitched them together into a veritable buffet of Public Opinion. Although we have, as usual, no motive beyond stimulating civic conversation for selecting the questions that we did, we look forward to your theories.

Start the holiday weekend off with a bang, and let us know what you think about our national holiday and how you will be celebrating it.

St. Louis has the top-rated public library system in the country. Do you use it? Are you getting your money's worth out of it? Should it be getting more of your money?

Where — exactly — is the moral plane? The basic principles of right and wrong may stay unchanged, but society's perception of which is witch can change with time and place. Witty Oscar Wilde said that "morality, like art, means drawing a line some place." That thought inspires this week's Mini-Poll.

Are you one of those anarcho-artists who hang out on Cherokee Street? Or the Loop? Or the Landing? Is Clayton your cup of tea? Do you remember listening to Barbara Streisand at a club in Gaslight Square? Or was it Duff's poetry night that drew you out for a cocktail in the evening? Take our poll and let us know what your place is in the St. Louis scene.

With Memorial Day now just another memory, it is (unofficially, at least) Summer. MayorSlay.com, which never takes a vacation, has some questions about your summer plans.

When Dan Brown wrote The Da Vinci Code, did he expect to create a flurry of controversy (for something other than his sometimes turgid prose, that is)? Should any work of fiction create such furor? Do you think there's any truth to Brown's tale? Is Brown attacking and undermining the tenets of a major religion -- or just writing a rip-roaring story?

St. Louis is one of those places where if you didn't have allergies when you arrived here, you soon will. Or that's what some say. How do you handle congestion — yours and others?

Although overall membership in unions has declined, unions remain very influential in some places, including Missouri. MayorSlay.com, like Franklin Roosevelt, unabashedly supports labor unions, but we also want to know what you think.

Today, more parents work and cannot welcome the little ones home. Sometimes, family members can help take care of kids after school. Otherwise, some children head to empty homes or, if we can afford it (and if it's available), to after school day care or structured activities. Life isn't as easy for kids or parents as it used to be. This change has consequences: some of them, likely, far-reaching. What should we do about it?

The start of a new season, the opening of a new landmark, the possibility that a good player will break one his sport's most hallowed records, and the return to the field of the National League's best pitcher and player all combined to suggest the topic of this week's Mini-Poll on MayorSlay.com: Baseball - the ritual described by Walt Whitman as "the American game."

Increasingly, we live our lives in the mirrored glances of traffic cameras, airport security cameras, ATM cameras, street cameras, web cams at construction sites, and store cameras. And all this raises some interesting questions about cameras, public safety, and privacy. Let us know what you think about being watched.

The midpoint of April — this very week — marks that moment in our calendars in which the sum of our unwilling withholding is supposed to equal the demands of an unforgiving government. You know that you deserve a break from poring over those tax schedules and forms, so take a few minutes and let us know what you think.

Was that a yard sign in your zoysia? Do you fib to the pollsters? What do you think about lowering the voting age? About requiring better identification? About the new high-tech voting machines?

April Fool's Day is celebrated around the world by the perpetration of practical jokes on friends, neighbors, family members, and co-workers, the aim of which is to embarrass the unwary. Tell us, as seriously as you can, what you think of April Fool's Day.

MayorSlay.com once again ventures into the deep waters of public policy — this time to ask your opinions about the police. No, not The Police of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame fame, but the men and women of the region's law enforcement agencies.

That most people don't think twice about the Mayor having a website suggests that the Internet has become as familiar to most people as a window into their own backyards or the aisle of a grocery store. To try to quantify this suggestion a bit, MayorSlay.com would like to ask you some questions about your own use of the Internet. How often do you use it? Have you ever used it to find a book, a song, a vacation, a car, or a boyfriend?

When it comes to public art, acquisitions are sometimes controversial, especially when the art is contemporary and the subject is open to interpretation. Other times, the art is popular with everyone, except — usually — critics. Is this a good thing for our communities? What standards should apply? Who should be picking up the tab?

With the traditional high school Spring vacation months of March and April just ahead of us — and the family vacation and summer camp months beginning to loom large — we thought we'd help you ease into the proper spirit of vacationing by asking your opinions on some holiday-related travel issues.

The international furor surrounding a portfolio of Danish political cartoons should be no surprise to any student of US history. Political cartoonists have informed and inflamed readers throughout our own history — and continue to do so today. MayorSlay.com would like to get your opinion on political cartoons in general — and some of the important issues raised by the Danish cartoons.

This week, St. Louis School Board president Darnetta Clinkscale and Superintendent Creg Williams presented St. Louis with a range of dramatic changes to the District, including smaller schools, longer terms, new classes, same-sex classrooms, and school uniforms. So, MayorSlay.com — always quick to spot a bandwagon — has decided to ask you for your opinions about a lunchbox full of possible reforms, including some of the ones already proposed for the St. Louis Public Schools.

The recent controversies over attempts to regulate noisy car stereos, indiscreet revelers, and raw milk sales reminded MayorSlay.com that there is no subject discussed at the Board of Aldermen that won't find fierce partisans on every side of the issue. We've skipped the obvious question of whether doggie or human misdeeds should be more sternly punished, but we'd like your opinions on pretty much everything else.

This week's Mini-Poll asks you to evaluate the performance of some of our region's household names; measure your satisfactions with how things get done; and pick a favorite local brand name. And, we throw in a Bonus Question that will have the White House on pins and needles.

Channeling the spirit Roone Arledge, MayorSlay.com skips right over all those painful questions about the Rams-less Super Bowl and asks you, instead, to share your thoughts about the upcoming Winter Olympics.

For this week's poll, we've taken the concept of the Golden Globe awards (obscure categories, unspecified nominating process) and applied it to some of the issues most usually discussed over draft beers at the Cat's Meow or the Cabin Inn — right before the fur flies and the Inn's lights go out. And the nominees are ...

Have highly publicized stories about innocent people wrongly convicted or about the passionate contentions of advocates that the race, gender, and income of the convicted person affect his sentence changed any minds about capital punishment? MayorSlay.com's Mini-Poll is not a scientific instrument, but it is — sometimes — a good way to start a conversation.

What should one think about a school district that has some of the state's top-ranked — and worst — public schools? Is it on track? Does it have the resources it needs? MayorSlay.com has the questions — and we want your answers.

Sooner or later, MayorSlay.com was going to have to do a Mini-Poll about bird flu, a virus that can infect humans as well as birds. So, we’d like to know how worried you are about pandemics — natural and unnatural — and other possible disasters.

Is it the time of year? Has there been a gradual decline from the plateau of Midwestern friendliness? Is the ledger longer on the Naughty or the Nice side? To find out what you think, MayorSlay.com has some questions about modern manners for you.

This week's Mini-Poll takes its inspiration from Sim City, Will Wright's wildly successful computer game that allows its players to design and build a city. Instead of asking your opinions on civic issues, MayorSlay.com is going to let you try your hand at the task undertaken by City officials to build the annual municipal budget.

Mayorslay.com sticks its cyber-toe into the deep waters of national politics. For the first time in a long while, the nominations of both major political parties are pretty much up for grabs — without an incumbent or a veep with a leg up on the competition.

The past five years have been tough on a lot of people — and great for many others. We'd like to know how well — or badly — you and your family are doing — and where you think the country and state are going.