Yesterday was a tough day for us. We lost Siggy. I was gonna put up a picture of him, but, well, I can’t quite bring myself to look through my pictures right now. To tell you the truth, today actually feels worse than yesterday.

Again this week, I have to ask: “why?” What purpose does it serve to have Rick Lazio as a guest on Bill Maher. Let me be clear, Ricky is nowhere near as annoying as Dana Pigfucker Rohrbacher. He’s just as stupid, though. Maybe even more stupid (assuming there are negative numbers on the IQ scale). I was rather surprised by Suze Orman, though. I never really paid much attention to her before (other than thinking she was an annoying pain in the ass), but I’ll be damned if she didn’t sound like a lefty. Go figure.

Also interesting was Mike Daisey. Bill should probably have had him for the whole hour. I highly recommend you listen to him on This American Life. Listen online, or, if you want to be really ironic (or iRonic), you can get it on iTunes for a buck and listen to it on your iPhone.

It’s Saturday, which is nice. It means I can be exhausted at home, instead of at work. Though I’ll be spending a large part of the day being exhausted at my sister’ house, so I can watch the game (yeah, the SU game; nobody else cares, of course, but it’s about all I’ve got going on that doesn’t suck right now – and that can change at any moment), and so my younger dog can play with his cousins and get away from the stressful house of misery that we have going on with his brother here. He needs a break (and, frankly, so do I).

If I had my shot together, I’d go get some plate steel so I can do some welding later on (or tomorrow). But my shit is typically not together, and today is no different.

God, Rick Lazio really is an idiot. At least he seems capable of keeping his mouth shut. I hope he runs for something.

It’s Friday, and not a day too soon. In fact, it’s a day too late. At least. I was pretty thrilled to see how thrilled Mitt Romney was to get the coveted Trump endorsement. Oh, that Donald. He played pretty coy, didn’t he? He teased Newt rather mercilessly. As Charles Barkley would say, it was “turrible. Just turrible.” But I guess millionaires have to stick together (not that Newt isn’t a millionaire, of course, but he’s been pandering to the socialist wing of the Republican party – which makes you wonder why people seem to think Newt is so smart; I guess that’s just in comparison to the rest of the Republicans). And I’m sure Mitt and Donald both share that whole “I don’t give a shit about the poor” thing.

In other exciting news, I got the welding station attachment for my Jawhorse yesterday. Very exciting indeed. Now I will attempt to fabricate an adapter bracket for my Quick Hitch. It’s been quite a while since I did any welding, and I wasn’t any great shakes at it. My welding experience is strictly related the the 10-week welding course I took back about, oh, maybe 15 years ago. The course consisted of a guy who had a day job welding at a local company who said: “those things over there are welders. Go weld.” And, so, that’s what I did. I stuck pieces of metal together, and got a certificate when it all was over.

My biggest problem was trying to strike an arc while wearing a helmet through which I couldn’t see (until the arc was struck). Consequently, I often struck up an arc on the table, missing my target. I think I laid some of my best beads on the welding table.

But my friend john gave me a 120-volt light-duty stick welder over the summer, so I am determined to use it (which I have not yet done). I really should buy an auto-darkening helmet, but am not sure I want to spend the money for the amount of welding I’ll probably be doing. But, maybe down the road. In addition to my adapter bracket, there’s a leg on my fire pit that needs to be tacked back on.

First, though, I need to get through today.

I had an idea of something to say, but now I have no idea what it was. Lack of sleep will do that, I guess. If you stop hearing from me, it’s probably because I nodded off, went off the road, and died in a fiery car wreck. Not that car wrecks are usually fiery (except on teevee).

The lo-cal weather dude did a comparison of how much snow we typically get here when Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow vs. when he doesn’t (why we outsource this shit to PA, I don’t know; we could use the jobs here, and I’m sure there are plenty of people locally who’d be willing to hang out in a stump for a few hours). Seems that if Phil predicts six more weeks of winter, we average 47″ of snow. Whereas, when he predicts an early spring, we average 49″. So, by my reckoning, that means we average four feet of snow between now and the end of the season. Which I guess is about 40% of our annual average.

Of course, we’ve had a real snow dearth here (no complaints), and have only had like 32″ or something. That doesn’t mean we won’t get another four feet. Hell, we’ve had four feet in one storm before. But we’re just gonna have to hope that doesn’t happen.

I’m hoping things get warm and stay warm.

Well, another January is in the books, and it was a strange one here, as we had hardly any snow, and other than the odd day or two, it was pretty warm. In fact, it was 55 degrees yesterday (it’s actually 55 degrees right now). Even if it all turns to crap right now, we’ve gotten quite a break this year – whether the woodchuck sees his shadow or not.

Mitt Romney stomped Newt Gingrich in Florida yesterday, taking all of the state’s 54 (or something) delegates to the Republican National Convention. Although the circus will continue, Mitt is now the nominee. That’s what everybody says, anyway. So there you have it. Iowa was the biggest thing in the world, but it didn’t really count. Same with New Hampshire. South Carolina was huge for the Newt, but, sadly for him, it doesn’t really count either. Florida. That’s where it’s at.

I don’t really care for Florida, but I’ve only been there a couple of times, so I don’t really know much about it. It’s flat, which I don’t find appealing, since I come from a place with lots of hills. And it’s hot, which maybe would’ve been OK when I was younger, but not something I’m into these days. Though I’d like to be able to use the pool all year long, so that would be an advantage. But from what I see on the teevee, there seems to be a lot of rednecks down there. And serial killers. But I guess there are lots of rednecks and serial killers everywhere these days.

Still, it seems odd that Florida ought to dictate who the potential President is gonna be.

Oh well, I guess maybe I should make some coffee.