Just in case you weren’t sufficiently convinced that Obama is a corporatist lackey, the President has finally decided on a new Chief of Staff to replace Rahm “Sweet Cheeks” Emanuel. His name is William Daley, and he’s a millionaire former investment banker, former head of SBC Communications (I think we can officially kiss Net Neutrality goodbye), and son of the epitome of all things ethical, Chicago’s original (and still the best) Mayor Richard Daley. Still have doubts (or should I say hopes)? Consider this:

Republicans and business leaders were more enthusiastic. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the choice sounded like ” a good idea.” Thomas Donahue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, called it a “strong appointment.”

Endorsed by Ferret Face and Tom Donahue? Golly, he must be good.

With extensive experience as a businessman and Wall Street executive, Daley comes to the administration positioned to help the president rebuild his frayed relationship with the corporate world.

Yes, because Obama just hasn’t sucked enough Republican and Wall Street dick in his first two years.

Daley…[has served] as Midwestern chairman of J.P. Morgan Chase…has been a bank president, vice chairman of a boutique investment firm and president of a communications giant. He has been on the boards of Boeing, Fannie Mae and Electronic Data Systems, earning a sizable fortune along the way.

Announcing Daley on Thursday, Obama said his new chief of staff has “led major corporations; he possesses a deep understanding of how jobs are created and how to grow our economy.”

And of course he parrots that most Republican of of talking points – that huge mega corporations and investment banks “create jobs” (as opposed to moving them offshore in order to maximize profits for their shareholders).

Well done, Mister Crazy Liberal Nigerian President. Well done indeed.

More snow on the way, but not too much here. Your basic 2 to 5 inches (which probably means at least 5 where I live, which is OK by me – as long as the commute in to work is OK).

Unfortunately, I got a letter from the country water authority (which has perhaps the best acronym ever invented – the Onondaga County Water Authority, or OCWA), stating that the jig is up and they know I live here now. They want my information (which is odd, ‘cuz they appear to have it already), and my meter reading. Water meters are typically in the basement (by, like, where the water comes in), but out here in God’s Country, we don’t play that. It’s out by the street someplace – about 300 feet from the house, and buried under quite a bit of snow.

I’m afraid if they want the meter reading before spring, they’re just gonna have to come and get it themselves.

Normally, “homemade” and “bungee” are two words that don’t go together. At least, not if you’re tied to one and thrown off a building. And, despite the screams, apparently willingly. I don’t know if this can be chalked up to the stupidity of youth, or that things are so crappy in Russia the kids just don’t give a shit. Either way, while it looks like fun, better this chick than me.

So I was watching the news this morning, and for some reason they had a story about Starbucks getting a new logo to celebrate its 40th anniversary this year. Forty years of shitty, overpriced coffee sold in cups with stupid names, like Vente and Grande (what’s the difference between a Starbucks 20oz Grande and a Dunkin’ Donuts 20oz large? About $4). Amazing what marketing will do. Not that they were ubiquitous from day one back in 1971, I guess. Seems like back then, there wasn’t a Starbucks on every corner (sometimes across the street from each other). And I don’t think I was drinking coffee back then, though it was often my job to make it, ‘cuz I was good at it as a kid (back then, it took a little skill, sort of, as I either used the electric percolator or – my personal favorite – the glass vacuum coffee maker with the two globes and the glass rod that you cooked on the stove. I wish I still had that sucker). Ah, those were the days.

I haven’t looked out at the driveway this morning, but I suppose I ought to take a look. Yesterday, the weather caught me a but by surprise, and it wasn’t until I went to leave the house that I realized we’d gotten about a foot of snow. I had to jump on the tractor and plow things out real quick like, and there was another six inches or so waiting for me when I got back home last night. Things weren’t so bad as I got closer to work, but if it’s gonna snow anywhere around here, it’s gonna be where I live these days. And it’s pretty consistently 5 degrees colder (which will be nice come summer – though I have a pool now, so, assuming I can afford to open and run it, maybe I won’t hate the heat so much).

It appears our new Guv likes him some PowerPoint, and his State of the State address yesterday was PP intensive as he described how he’s gonna reform the NY State government and balance the budget by cutting Medicaid, capping property taxes, freezing the pay of state workers, and preserving tax cuts for rich people (but he’s taking a 5% pay cut, so I guess he’ll be suffering, too; no doubt, he and his girlfriend from the Food Network live paycheck-to-paycheck).

Everybody hates State workers, of course, and when you work for a State hospital, cuts to Medicaid are a double whammy – not only do you lose the State funding, but also the Federal matching funds (not that the mandate to treat the poor people goes away, of course). So there could be tough times ahead for yours truly (and Mrs. Yours Truly). On the bright side, though, the place where we work is actually run well, takes in more money than it has in expenses, and gets a pretty small amount of its funding from the State – only 11% last year, and that includes SUNY funding. In fact, according to the bean counters, every $1 invested by the State in our institution returns $19.

Uncle Andy will no doubt also want to cut (or at least freeze) aid to schools, and if districts aren’t able to raise property taxes, then, well, the public schools are just gonna have to take the hit.

They’re saying that the Syracuse school district alone is facing a loss of at least 700 positions. I can’t imagine what NYC will have to do.

But as long as all those investment bankers and stock brokers, and all the other folks that hob Andy’s nob get their tax cuts, it’s all worth it, I guess.

I really shoulda moved to Canada when I had the chance.

Oh well, time to go see how much snow is in the driveway.

Every once in a while, you see a dead bird lying dead on the side of the road for no apparent reason. This is a big deal when we have our West Nile Virus scares around here (don’t be picking up the dead crows and making soup out of ’em), and it’s always kinda creepy. But when the birds start falling out of the sky by the hundreds – thousands, even – that’s beyond creepy. A portent of the end times, perhaps? Is this what we have to look forward to in the lead-up to 12/21/2012? Dead birds, locusts, tap water that ignites, Republicans in control of all three branches of government? Sounds pretty horrible.

Of course the “government” wants to keep us in the dark and has an excuse for everything. In the case of the giant bird kill in Arkansas, they say a fireworks celebration killed some 3,000 birds (who got all shook up from the boom-booms, and started flying into things). Funny how I never heard of that happening before, what with there being fireworks every July 4th – among other occasions – for my whole life. Maybe that’s ‘cuz fireworks typically happen a night, and birds (the non-night hunter ones, anyway) don’t really do a lot of flying at night (so they don’t fly into shit)?

Now the demise of a few hundred birds in Louisiana is being blamed on power lines. Presumably, from flying into them and breaking their backs, wings, and beaks. Because power lines are such a new invention and all, and we’ve just never heard of that before.

The next thing you know, they’ll be telling us that those trails that jets leave across the sky are condensation, and that the Twin Towers fell because airplanes flew into them. Puh-leeze. You expect me to fall for that?

We know that the world as we know it is about to wrap it up, partly because the Mayan calendar ends (not that they made any kind of a notation or anything; you’d think the end of times would at least rate the Mayan equivalent of an asterisk or something), but because some guy has a website with painfully small font mixing sciencey sounding terms like “quantum” and “electrogravitational symmetry” with cool pictures that says so. And that’s good enough for me.

“Officials” go on to say that

…massive wildlife kills are not uncommon.

Well, that’s reassuring.

I just wish I could know for sure that everything’s gonna be over in less than two years. Then I’d just max out my credit cards and enjoy myself for a couple of years.

But the government wants to make sure we keep working and paying our taxes so that the elite can continue to build their underground bunkers where they’ll ride out the coming global super storm with their master – Dick Cheney.

So I guess I better get going.

Back to work today, after a”day off” that’s left me exhausted. Right now, I can’t imagine how I’ll make it through the day, but after a relaxing hour or so in the dentist’s chair, I’m sure I’ll perk right up. I really wish it was Friday.

Oops. Went off to Home Depot and forget to put something up. So, like, Happy Sunday.

I actually made it ’til midnight last night. But not much past. Didn’t even get to the Champagne NY State Sparkling Wine. Oh well, maybe next year. Turns out, beer isn’t as great as I remembered it. Not on this end of things, anyway. Holy Crap! Look up there on the right corner – it’s twenty frickin’ eleven! 😯 When did that happen? Damn, I must be old now. Happy New Year, everybody.

And so, another year winds down. This year kind sucked in a lot of ways, though, as most years do, it had a couple of good moments. Mostly, it’s good to get it over with, I guess (other than being that much closer to death, of course – but then I tend to look on the bright side most of time). Yesterday was one of those bright moments. Not only did SU go to a bowl game for the first time since 2004, and win a bowl game (and have a winning season and at least eight wins) for the first time since 2001, but they were actually fun to watch in the most entertaining bowl game of the season so far, racking up almost 500 yards of offense, and scoring 22 points in the second half of a “shootout” type of game to win by two points. This, for an offense that has pretty much sucked and was boring to watch all year, even when it won. So that was a pleasant surprise. Now we can fully devote our attention to basketball. Notre Dame tomorrow in the Dome. And I hate Notre Dame (quite possibly even more than I hate Georgetown, though that’s a tough call).

This is the sixth New Year’s Eve that this place has been around (I know – pretty hard to believe), and if you’ve been around here all that time, you probably know that our family tradition is to watch the Twilight Zone Marathon on what, as part of the dumbing down of America, they now call the SyFy channel. It commences at 8AM eastern with “Perchance To Dream” and wraps up with “The Last Rights Of Jeff Myrtlebank” on Sunday morning at 5:30.

Our little tradition started on New Year’s Eve, 1998, and this year, we’re kind of coming full circle. It was back in August ’98 that I got off dialup, and got RoadRunner. Back then, they didn’t have these cheap SOHO routers for sharing your Internet connection, and I’d been using one of my computers to share my dial-up connection with the other computers in the house (if somebody tried to load a web page, my computer in the basement would automatically dial out). When they installed RoadRunner, my plan was to continue with that – except I’d need to install 2 NICs in the computer. The installation tech assured me that was just not possible, and I said “ok” and then went ahead and did it as soon as he left. It was, of course, quite possible. But anyways…

I’d moved into my wife’s house, and she only had crappy basic cable back then. No Sci Fi channel (very few channels at all, really, and one crappy little TV the size of a postage stamp without surround sound or anything; I shudder to think of those days, though I upgraded the equipment, at least, when I got there). Anyhow, the cable signal was really crappy, and the tech guy (different tech; back then, it took two installers, believe it or not) had to go out on the pole and remove an old trap that was used to limit us to basic cable. He informed me that I’d be getting all the channels for a day or two, until they came out and replaced the trap.

I was sad, of course, but figured I could live with it. That year, by the way, SU finished with eight wins (going 8-4, losing to Florida in the Orange Bowl on Jan 2, 1999).

So, fast forward to the afternoon of New Year’s Eve in the year 2000 (that was the one after the world was gonna come to and end because computers would think it was the year 1900, and when Bill Clinton was quietly keeping America safe from the terrorists, unlike his successor, who, about 9 months later, would sit on his ass in Florida while the Twin Towers fell).

Back on 12/31/2000, I was off from work (things were more civilized back then), and we were watching the TZ Marathon as we had been for the past couple of years, when suddenly the door bell rang. It was a cable dude, informing me that he needed to put a trap on the cable line, because we were getting all the channels.

And so, just like that, no more Twilight Zone. Bummer.

The thought of life w/ basic cable was rather sobering (which is no way to go through New Year’s Eve), so the next day I went to Best Buy and got a DirecTV package, which was installed a couple of days later. So, on New Year’s Eve 2001, the tradition continued.

DirecTV had gotten to kind of suck in a lot of ways over the years, and so, when we moved out here this yesr, I decided to dump them and go with cable again. So, here we are, ready for the Marathon, and with SU winning eight games once again.

In 1998, basic analog cable was about 8 bucks a month. Now, for digital “surf and view” with HBO and DVR, I pay, well, I’d just as soon not think about what I pay. Let’s just say it’s more than $8. But then gas was about a buck a gallon back then, too.

Even worse, I have to go to f*ckin’ work today.

Have a good day, and whatever y’all do to ring in the new year tonight, stay safe and happy.

It’s not often I agree with that pissy little bitch (credit to Andy Sipowicz for that phrase) Fucker Carlson, but I find it hard to disagree with his assertion that Michael Vick should have been executed for his crimes against Caninity. Of course, the Tuckster’s motivation was no doubt that he wanted to diss Obama, but still. I’m not ordinarily one to embrace the death penalty, but in this case, well….

The week (and the year) are winding down, and the end is finally in sight. Today, of course, is the day that college football fans (nay, all real Americans) have been waiting for: the inaugural New Era Pinstripe Bowl – “New Era” (which turns out to be the maker of hats or something; I thought it was laundry detergent) being the sponsor, and pinstripes being for the Yankees, at whose stadium the game is taking place. A football game between two 7-5 teams on the final Thursday in December in the Bronx (outdoors) at 3:30PM Eastern time? It doesn’t get more prestigious than that. Of course, for Syracuse fans, this is actually a pretty good deal. Someplace warm might sound nice, but, being about a 4-5 hour ride away by car, this is a day trip for the folks up here, or they can take a long New Year’s weekend in New York.

And, unlike most of NYC, Yankee Stadium had actually been plowed out for the game.

I’ll be recording the game because I have to work today. The last time I had to work during an SU bowl game was way back on January 1, 1988, when undefeated Syracuse took on Auburn in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. I was running movies at the time, and brought a TV to work so I could watch in my office.

You no doubt recall that, with 4 seconds remaining and SU leading 16-13, Auburn – which had marched down the field and had the ball on the Syracuse 13 yard line – had time for one final play. And in perhaps the biggest wuss move in the history of college football, Pat Dye decided to kick a field goal and tie the game. A tie, in a bowl game, fer chrissakes. This was, I might add, back before there was such a thing as overtime in college football.

Pat Dye will forever be known as a coward and a schmuck up here in these parts, and his behavior explains why the South lost the Civil War. Apparently they were playing for a tie.

Anyhow, thanks to OT and the fact that neither Syracuse nor its opponent, Kansas State, are from south of the Mason-Dixon line (love that song, BTW), there will be no ties today. Actually, Syracuse is more likely to get killed, what with a vast number of its players missing from an already decimated lineup. We may have to go old school and have some of these kids play both ways today.

But, hey. We’re in a bowl game again, which is something that seemed would never happen again after the 5 year reign of the previous coach, whose name we do not speak up here.

First, though, there’s business to attend to today. It all starts with a trip to get the car inspected. As far as I know, there are no problems with it (new tires, new wiper blades, brakes should be good), but it’s just a hassle dealing with it. I’d blow it off until next month, but we’re at the end of the year here, so it’s a whole new color sticker, and hard to hide (especially now that I drive a million miles a week).

Oh well, off I go. Yesterday was almost unbearably slow – I hope today goes a bit quicker.

Golly, NYC sure knows how to whine about a little snow. The storm’s been over for, what, like two days now, and they still haven’t got their act together? Well, it’s no wonder, I guess, seeing as they apparently don’t know how to use a front end loader (by the way, is that a Kubota?). :kub:

I mean, a tow truck? Look, the beauty of having that bucket on the front end is that you drop the bucket and use it to push your front end up and off the ground, and then scooch the whole thing back (haven’t got much experience with it myself, but have had to perform that particular maneuver on more than one occasion, having buried my tractor up above the hood in snow many times already). Kinda like an inch worm. Short of being buried halfway up in mud, you can extricate yourself out of pretty much anything. Especially a little bit of snow on pavement.

Looks like he doesn’t have any tire chains, either (mayor Bloomie might want to buy a set for all the City’s snow removal equipment; they aint cheap, but they’re a helluva lot cheaper than an SUV, and he can take the money out of the school budget or something). Silly city slickers. Let’s just hope they get everything cleared up before tomorrow’s Pinstripe Bowl (aka, the unofficial National Championship game).

I dunno about you all, but I’ve been having a pretty tough time getting through the days at work this week. More than usual, even with the added boost of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee (which isn’t bad, but, as the chick behind the counter informed me yesterday, the travel mug they sold me “sucks” because you have to really wank the lid on to prevent it from leaking – tough enough for a manly fella like myself, but for a young DD counter babe, pretty close to impossible). It’s even more difficult to get the damn lid back off again (nothing to grab on to; it should be a hex head so you can get a wrench on it). Oh well, only another $13 worth left on the two cards, and then I can be done with it (at $2.01 for a refill, that won’t take long – and I damn sure aint gonna shell out that kinda jack for a cup of coffee on my own dime). I’ll miss it though.

I should buy Fair Trade coffee, of course. And I do get it every once in a while in order to assuage my liberal guilt, but, well, it’s just too goddamn expensive. A shame that those who could easily afford it are getting huge tax cuts that they’re no doubt spending on coffee that comes from Civet shit, while a sensitive liberal such as myself is on an Eight O’Clock kinda budget (I really should be getting Paul deLima; not only is it local – well, as local to Syracuse as coffee can get; they roast it here – but the current deLima is a graduate of the SU Law School, they sell Fair Trade products, and have windmills and a solar farm to generate the electricity for roasting the beans and running the plant).

But we’re only allowed to drink Hazelnut coffee here – which, surprisingly, I’ve become quite accustomed to over the past 14 years or so and am now hooked on – and Paul only sells that as a grounded blend. And we prefer to grind our own around here.

Speaking of which, our grinder is showing signs of crapping out. It’s always kind of sucked, but I was looking for a a conical burr grinder, and this was the only one I could find locally that was under a million dollars (in fact, it was on sale for like $30). Can anybody recommend a replacement? We’re not talkin’ gourmet here – just your basic drip coffee maker.

I’d like to get a hand grinder (way back during the great Labor Day Storm of ’98, we had no power for two weeks, and I had to grind coffee with a mortar and pestle, which got old in a hurry. Not that I’m anticipating 2 weeks w/o power – I hope – but I like the idea of not using electricity if I can do it myself; I guess I’ve got a little Ed Begley in me), but they get mixed reviews and I’m not sure how much effort is required (I mean, a little Ed Begley is one thing, but if it turns out to be a real hassle, then f*ck it – hook me up to the grid). And these damn things – whether hand or electric – are awfully expensive. Problem is, you read the reviews for things, and you don’t know what the hell to think.

Do they make a PTO-driven one I can hook up to the tractor?

Oh well, I reckon it’s about time to set things in motion to try and force myself through another day. I want more coffee, but I’ve already gone over my daily ration, and I hate to empty the pot entirely. But I might just have to – and then make another pot, lest I suffer the wrath of my wife. But then she won’t drink it all, and we’ll be half a pot off, and, oh, it just gets really complicated at that point. I suppose I could make half a pot. Never tried that before.

Oh well, at least I don’t have to plow the driveway.

Well, looks like the big NE snow storm is over. If you got caught up in it, I hope you emerged unscathed and can get where you were going. There are still delays and canceled flights at Boston, JFK and Newark as airlines try and catch up (I guess they don’t have the world’s largest snow plow, the way some of us do; and it’s orange, too, I might add). On the plus side, business at the Holiday Inn Express at the Syracuse airport is booming. Didn’t look like all that much snow to me, but then of course you can’t really tell unless you’re out there in it; video and pictures just don’t do it justice. Nothing here but a lot of wind and cold, and it’s actually supposed to be relatively warm (though still windy) today.

No snow is good snow, though I’m a bit disappointed that, barring another six inches or so between now and midnight Friday night, it looks like we won’t set the local record for the snowiest month ever. Oh well, better luck in January, I guess.

Much as it sucks to have to go to work this week, the commute has been great with at least half the cars off the road (that is, not traveling, as opposed to off in the ditch; for some reason, when there are cars off in the ditch, people seem compelled to slow down and look at them. “Hey, ma, lookee there! A gosh darn car in the dang old ditch! There’s sumpin’ ya don’t see ever’ day. Get a pitcher wit yer walkie-talkie phone so’s we can show the young’uns).

Yesterday was a pretty exciting day for me. I got a $10 Dunkin’ Donuts gift card back in June or so, for my 20 years of service to my employer (50¢ a year – not bad, especially since I actually had an eight-year gap in there. Just don’t tell anyone), that I haven’t actually used (I mean, I was living 2 minutes from work before, and while there was a DD nearby, it was farther from work than home, and in the opposite direction, so I didn’t see the point). But now I’m, like, 25 miles from work, and there happens to be one right on the way.

I’ve driven past it for a while, but always passed up the opportunity to stop in (because it also happens to be near the County Sheriff, and a Dunkin’ Donuts to cops is like shit to flies – note to my friends in law enforcement: I kid!).

Anyhow, yesterday it looked pretty empty and I was out and about a little early, so I figured what the hell. I went inside and got a nice stainless travel mug for $3.99 – and the coffee was free! On top of already being free, what with the gift card, and all.

My only question is, now that I have the mug, can I use the drive through? Or must I go inside. I hate to throw a monkey wrench into the drive through process by asking for something special (plus, I have no idea what size it’s considered), but then I don’t really like going inside and having to talk to humans in person, either (though they apparently staff the place with cute young girls – probably from the nearby Community College – so that’s a plus, except for the fact that they remind me that they’re young and vital and have their whole lives in front of them, and I’m, well, none of the above – not to mention invisible to them).

See, this is why I hadn’t used the damn card before. If I could just order it online and pick it up, I’d be all set. Even worse, somebody gave me another $10 gift card for Xmas.

Oh well, I guess I have a couple of hours to figure it all out.