As if things weren’t tough enough for Democrats (and it’s all their own damn fault), it looks like both Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd are retiring. This means Democrats will likely lose Dorgan’s North Dakota Senate seat, and have a good chance at losing Dodd’s Connecticut seat as well (after all, CT gave us the gift that keeps on giving – Joe Lieberman). You know, I got a “survey” (aka, a request for donations) yesterday from the Obama camp, asking what I’d be willing to do to further Obama’s commitment to “change,” and work to get “his kind” of candidates elected. Choices were things like host “house parties,” call people on the phone, work to register voters, and “other,” which allowed for free text entries. So I went for those.

Not that I expect anybody to look at what I wrote, but I basically told them that I’d be willing to work for true progressive candidates, have no intention of devoting any of my time or money to mainstream Democrats, thought that Obama and the Democrats’ abandonment of progressives issues was a bad mistake that would lead to Republican takeover of the Senate in 2012 and losses in the House, and that I was disappointed and disillusioned by both Obama and my own Congressional representative for what I consider to be major a failure in health care reform, failure to enact meaningful regulation of the financial industry, and the escalation of the US presence in Afghanistan (among other things).

Progressive issues are populist issues, and Obama and the Democrats were destined to fail as soon as they abandoned them. We’re the mainstream, not Rahm Emmanuel or Max Baucus or Joe Lieberman. Too bad those are the people that get to call the shots, because they’re sticking us with Republican control of everything, and as bad as Democrats are, Republicans are even worse, and (unlike Democrats) have no problem ramming through their agendas without 60 votes. Oh well, at least we have the end of the world in 2011 to look forward to.

So, I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to remove myself from all the various e-mail lists I’m on. I’d like to get down to under a hundred e-mails a day (not counting spam). I’m getting especially tired of Democrats coming at me with one hand out looking for contributions, while getting ready to stick a knife in my back with the other. And once you get on their “sucker” list, you start getting mail from all of them. Well, screw ’em. When I get these self-aggrandizing e-mails boasting of their “historic” legislative feats (and, oh by the way, can you send us a few bucks?), I just want to puke.

Speaking of puke, time to get ready for work. Bleh. Traffic is heavy today, so I guess I better hurry. I hear the snowmobile trails are at a standstill.

Back to work today, and, as Chester A. Riley used to say, “aint that a revoltin’ development?” I wish I could count on the world ending in 2011 (or even 2012). I could quit working and live off savings and credit cards for a year or two. But when the Apocalypse didn’t come, I’d be screwed. I’m just really not in the mood to go to work this morning. At least it’s supposed to be warm today – up to 20° or so – and only another three inches of snow (give or take). From Friday through yesterday, we got about two feet, putting us a few inches above normal for the first time this season (and back in our rightful place at #1 in the Golden Snowball contest).

Before you do anything else today, be sure to go over to the Huff Post and rate Michelle Obama’s Hawaiian vacation outfits. I really don’t get it.

Some Democrats want to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to at least put some regulation on banks and other financial institutions. This, of course, is strongly opposed by Republicans. Since Democrats need 60 votes to do anything, and since there are plenty of Democrats that can be bought off by lobbyists (and that’s not even counting Joe Lieberman), my prediction is that either nothing will happen, or the Democrats will compromise this into some toothless joke of an agency that Republicans will point to as evidence of just how shitty Democrats are. Just like health care.

Speaking of the GOP, is it too early to start wondering which Republican will wind up being President in 2013? That’s assuming Obama keeps sticking it to the progressive-minded people out there who donated so much time and money to his first run, while failing to woo the wingnuts and bigots on the right, of course. At this point, he looks like one-and-done to me, but things can change awfully fast, so who knows?

Oh well, I guess I better get my shit together, get out the door, and be a good little citizen taxpayer.

Looks like the snow has tapered off, here (still coming down some, though). We’re still a little bit below average for the season, but with the 14+ inches we got yesterday (not much compared to “up north” where they got 42), and what we got on Saturday, we’re catching up. It was kind of nice to get the shovel working again. I’d rather shovel snow all day long than go to an airport, that’s for sure. This guy at Newark certainly caused quite a commotion, didn’t he? You’d think they’d have somebody keeping a closer eye on the exits, wouldn’t you?

Why dogs are better than cats, Reason #4237: Cougar Attacks. Yep, it you’re out getting firewood and a cougar (which is just a big damn cat) attacks, you stand a much better chance of surviving if you have a dog. It’s very rare that you see “cat saves boy from wild animal attack” headlines. If you’re stupid enough to mess with a bull, though, you’re on your own.

Brit Hume says Tiger Woods needs to become a Christian if he wants to get through all this sex scandal stuff. That’s because when it comes to deceit and betrayal, nobody does it as well as Christians do. It’s pretty much what it’s founded on. Well, that and torture. Judas betrays Jesus, Peter betrays Jesus by denying to be one of his followers (he got his later, though, when the Romans crucified him upside-down), and of course even Jesus’ “father” betrayed him on the cross.

The other thing is that Christians have an external locus of control. They may blather on about how God gave us free will, but when push comes to shove, just say you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, the devil made you do it, and you’re really, really sorry. That’s only if you get caught, though. Otherwise, you can do whatever the hell you want.

Just make sure you’ve repented by May, 2011. That’s when the end of the world is coming, according to “bible scholar” Harold Camping. He’s got a mathematical “system” worked out to interpret biblical prophecies, and he’s crunched the numbers. It’s all over on May 21, 2011. Of course, he also said Armageddon was coming on Sep 6, 1994 (whoopsies), but he’s refined his system, and this time he’s definitely got it.

It’s, like, really scientific, too. You see, the number 5 equals “atonement.” Never mind “why,” it just does. Ten is “completeness.” Seventeen = “heaven.” Furthermore, Christ hung on the cross April 1, 33 A.D. (must be the origin of “April Fool’s Day.” So, if you go to April 1 of 2011 A.D., that’s 1,978 years. Why go to 1/1/11? Beats me. But if you multiply 1,978 by 365.2422 days in a year and then add 51 (which is the number of days between April 1 and May 21 (OK, not really sure where May 21 comes from, but anyways) it equals 722,500. Well, clearly, (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17) = 722,500. Or (Atonement x Completeness x Heaven), squared.

No way you can argue with that – it’s math.

But I still better get out there and shovel the driveway.

It’s the first batch-o-boobleheads of 2010, and today looks like it’ll be terror day. First up, on Press the Meat there’s Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan. Then, to tell us how we’re all gonna die because Obama let all the terrorists loose, it’s Michael “Skeletor” Chertoff and ex-CIA chief Michael “the Fudd” Hayden. Plus a woundtable with Tom Bwokaw, David “Our Miss” Brooks, EJ Grey Poupon Dionne, and Presidential Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.

On Faze the Nation, CBS News reporters Nancy Cordes, Jan Crawford, David Martin, Bob Orr and Chip Reid talk about the Christmas Terror Plot, Health Care, the War in Afghanistan and Jobs.

John Brennan trots on over to Fux News Sunday to chat with Weaselface Wallace. Also on, Missouri cracker Kit Bond, and the usual fuxheads.

I guess it’s John Brennan day, as Brennan heads on over to the Goebbels network to join George Snufalufagus on This Weak. Also up, a collection of Republicans, DINOs, and just plain assholes with Pete “Hokie” Hoekstra, Susan Collins, Joey Lieberman and Jane Harman, and, at the roundtable, George :jerk: Will, Cynthia Tucker, Ron Brownstein and David Sanger.

Over at CNN, Fareed Zakaria looks back at Obama’s first year in office, plus Tom Ricks on the Battle of Wanat and what it means for the troops heading to Afghanistan, and Asia expert Kishore Mahbubahni on whether China’s economic and political strength will continue to grow and what that means for the rest of the world.

And then hopefully the Eagles will beat Dallas.

We went up to visit my sister yesterday and, lo and behold, she somehow managed to talk her husband into getting another puppy – and what a little cutie he is. He’s one of a pair of what they’re guessing is a purebred German Shepherd, snatched from death row in Ohio just a day before they were scheduled to be put down. Ohio is apparently one of the worst places in the country in terms of perfectly beautiful dogs being put down. Worse, even, than the Southern states. So, it seems pretty clear that we need a new puppy (though I’m not sure I can keep an eye on three dogs at the park; it gets to be a but of sensory overload, and my brain is beginning to atrophy. I see dementia and Alzheimer’s in my not so distant future).

Otherwise, I guess all this holiday hoo-ha is finally over. I’m taking Monday off, and then it’s a long slog through ’til the next holiday (which would by MLK day on the 18th). That’s two long weeks.

Did you know that one of the benefits of hydrofracking is that you can ignite your tap water? Pretty cool, eh? Seems like it would save you quite a bit of money, since you wouldn’t need a hot water heater. Just run the water, light it, and you’re good to go (as long as your house doesn’t blow up). I’m sure it’s safe to drink, too.

Happy New Year. That’s all I got.

And so, the first decade of the 21st Century (and 2nd Millennium) comes to an end. Oh, I know, there are some smarty-pants types out there who will insist that, no, the decade actually ends next year, and the millennium didn’t begin on Jan 1, 2000, but actually on Jan 1, 2001. This is because certain people like to be contrarians and need to feel superior to others. Then it gets picked up by the wannabe smarty-pantses who think it sounds good, so then mindlessly repeat it with an air of smugness (as if they thought of it first). The most common reason given for this point of view is that “you start counting with one, not zero” – that you count from 1 to 10, not from 0 to 9. That, of course, is nonsense. Zero is most definitely where you start, even if it’s so obvious that it’s kind of implied. I mean, count all the honest Republicans in Washington, and tell me what number you start with. One? I don’t think so.

More important, though, is that we’re not counting the number of apples in a bushel or something. I mean, yeah, if you pay for ten apples, I don’t give you apples zero through nine. But we’re talking about spans of time (you don’t ask me for a decade of apples now, do you?). I mean (setting aside the gestation period), when does your first year of life begin? On your first birthday? Of course not. It begins the day you’re born. Your first birthday marks the beginning of your second year of life, just as Jan 1, 2010 is the first day of the second decade of this century. So don’t listen to those other people who think they’re so damn smart. They’re just being pains in the ass.

So, anyway, has it really been 10 years already? Where has the time gone?

2000

Remember all the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) generated by the whole “Y2K” thing? The power grid was gonna collapse, financial institutions would crumble, your microwave would stop working, and there was a pretty good possibility of the Apocalypse. I’d just embarked on my new career as a Web Administrator, having somehow managed to get hired with my web portfolio consisting of my personal web page, and one I’d one for my CSEA union local (which actually got a lot of attention, I must say, what with it being the first CSEA local with a web page, and the fact that it vastly outclassed the statewide one), and we had to make sure we applied all of our Y2K patches to everything.

Of course, turned out there were no real Y2K-related problems to speak of, though what we didn’t know at the time was that the Clinton Administration was “running around with their hair on fire” preventing the Millennium Bomb Plot. Thanks to good police work, lots of luck, and Clinton (whatever else you want to say about him) not being asleep at the wheel, terrorist attacks at a hotel in Amman Jordan and LAX were thwarted.

On Memorial Day, SU beat Princeton 13-7 to win their sixth Lacrosse National Championship. Other than that, I don’t recall much else going on that year – at least not until the election in November. Here in NY, we elected our first female to the US Senate – former First Lady Hillary Clinton – to fill a seat that had been held for 24 years by Daniel Patrick Moynihan (who would go on to teach at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs after retiring from the Senate). Sadly, Moynihan would pass away just three years later.

More infamous, of course, was that year’s Presidential election, when Al Gore defeated George W. Bush by a small plurality of the popular vote. Thanks to the shenanigans in Florida and the non-precedent setting precedent set by the Republican controlled Supreme Court, Dubya was eventually declared President.

2001

On Jan 31 2001, Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in Scotland for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. On Memorial Day, SU lost to Princeton in the Lacrosse National Championship game 10-9 in OT. Other than that, and a little incident in April when a US spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet, the first eight months of the year 2001 were fairly quiet (and not at all like the Stanley Kubrick movie). Our new president mostly laid low and did a lot of brush clearing on his “ranch,” where he all but ignored a daily briefing titled, oh, gee, I dunno, something like “Bin Laden determined to attack inside the US.”

About a month later, Bin Laden attacked inside the US as our brave President sat, paralyzed with terror, in a classroom in Florida.

There were some anthrax attacks, as I recall, and then we invaded Afghanistan in order to “smoke out” Bin Laden. We got bored with that pretty fast, though (nothing really good to bomb there), and decided to gear up to attack Iraq instead.

2002

On Memorial Day of 2002, SU beat Princeton 13-12 in the Lacrosse National Championship game.

2003

In February 2003, the Space Shuttle Challenger burnt up on reentry, killing all 7 aboard. In March, the US invaded Iraq with the Army it had, rather than the Army it wanted to have. On April 7th, Syracuse won the NCAA Basketball National Championship at the Super Dome in New Orleans, and on April 8th, everyone in Central New York happily nursed their hangovers at work (except for my wife, who said “oh, was there a game last night?”). On April 9th, the US military seized control of Baghdad, paving the way for our glorious President and his magnificent codpiece to land on the USS Abraham Lincoln and declare “Mission Accomplished” on May 1st.

In July, US forces killed Uday and Qusay Hussein, and then proudly displayed their bodies on international teevee (a practice that the US loudly howls about when the dead are Americans). And in December the US finally pulled a very scruffy-looking Saddam Hussein out of his hidey hole.

2004

2004 saw the CIA admitting that the whole Iraq WMD thing was bullshit, and we broke ground on the “Freedom Tower” at Ground Zero in New York, which now towers 1,776 feet above former World Trade Center site. A new “progressive” radio station went on the air on March 31st, with comedian Al Franken locking Ann Coulter (played by Bebe Neuworth) in a closet. On April Fools Day, “Morning Sedition” made its debut at six past six AM. Then, on Memorial Day that year, SU beat Navy 14-13 to win the Lacrosse National Championship. On the morning after another close Presidential election, John Kerry – who had vowed to make every vote count – rolled over and quit, consigning us to a second Bush term. The day after Christmas that year, an earthquake measuring 9.3 on the Richter scale caused a Tsunami that killed something like 300,000 people (though we’ll never know exactly how many).

2005

In May of 2005, we found out who Deep Throat was, and he turned out to be somebody most of us had never heard of. In August, I started grad school on the same weekend a hurricane named Katrina made its way up the Gulf of Mexico, heading for New Orleans as George Bush vacationed. New Orleans was drowned and Americans were, at first, shocked at the lack of response to the emergency (except for Bush, who thought his FEMA Chief was doing a heckuva job). The President’s mother, Barbara, saw all the colored folks sleeping on cots at the Astrodome in Houston, and declared that this whole hurricane thing “…is working very well for them.” By October, most Americans had pretty much forgotten about New Orleans. On December 16th, Marc Maron “landed” Morning Sedition for the last time.

2006

The Marc Maron Show began its short run on Feb 28, 2006. It wouldn’t last long enough to see the the Super Dome in New Orleans reopen in September. I spent most of that summer in a sweltering dorm room at Catholic University in DC. I wasn’t crazy about it, but of course I never complained. 🙄 In October, the US population hit the 300 million mark, and in November, Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate, a feat which allowed them to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein was executed on December 30, 2006. Thanks to cell phones, video of his hanging is still available on the Internet.

2007

Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the House in January, 2007, and Bush countered by escalating the war in Iraq. By the end of the year, the nation was obsessed with much more important matters, as the Mitchel Report on Steroids in Baseball is released.

2008

In 2008, Michael Phelps won a lot of medals at the Olympics (later, the world would be shocked – shocked, I say – when a photo of him doing a bong surfaced on the Internet), in a very mavericky move, John McCain chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as a running mate, and Bush crams a $700 billion Wall St. bailout through Congress. On Memorial Day, SU beat Johns Hopkins 13-10 to win the Lacrosse National Championship. In November, the US elects its first-ever African American President, Barack Obama (though some doubt the “American” part). With Democrats in control of the House, Senate, and Presidency, they can now end the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and enact Single Payer Health Care.

2009

In March of 2009, SU beat UCONN 127-117 in a six overtime game that ended at 1:22 AM. The next day, all of Syracuse stumbled around half asleep, but happy (except for my wife, who said, “oh, was there a game last night?”). In April, the Tea Baggers began to hold Barack Obama responsible for the Wall St bailout, and protest taxation with representation, while warning politicians to keep their dirty hands off their Medicare. On Memorial Day, Syracuse beat Cornell 10-9 in OT to win its 11th Lacrosse National Championship, which is a record; Johns Hopkins is in second place, with nine (just in case you were wondering, in the 29 years there’s been an NCAA Division I Lacrosse tournament, SU’s tourney record is 54-18, with 11 first-place finishes, 5 runners-up, and a total of 26 final four appearances).

Anyhow, by summer, Swine Flu had all but eradicated the US and World populations (all but 6.7 billion or so). Towards the end of June, SC Governor Mark Sanford goes MIA for a few days, and a new euphemism for having sex – “Hiking the Appalachian Trail” – is born. In July, invoking the famous cliche “winners always quit and quitters always win”, Sarah Palin resigned as Alaska Governor, having served half a term. This half-term as Governor of a state with a population roughly equivalent to that of Charlotte, NC, as well as her two, three-year terms as Mayor of Wasilla, AK (whose population is roughly 1,000 less than the number of employees where I work), makes her the darling of the Teabaggers, and presumptive 2012 GOP nominee. Michael Jackson died somewhere in there, too (not from Swine Flu, though), but Abe Vigoda is still alive. On Aug 20th, the Scottish Government released convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi on compassionate grounds that he had less than three months to live. Like Abe Vigoda, he’s still alive.

A family of morons launched a helium-filled Jiffy Pop bag as a nation of concerned morons watched it over and over again on a loop, thinking it was a live feed (“damn kid must be gettin’ awful dizzy, the way that thing keeps spinnin’ around in circles”).

In November, Sarah Palin’s support for Doug Hoffman in the NY 23rd special election helped win that seat for a Democrat for the first time since the Civil War, and SU’s basketball coach – Jim Boeheim – became just the eight coach in Division I history to win 800 games. As most of us were sleeping off our Thanksgiving dinners, Tiger Woods was getting “rescued” by his 7-iron wielding wife, after she finally caught on to what he really meant when he told her he was going out to play 18 holes.

On Christmas Day, some idiot tried to blow his balls off on an airplane headed to Detroit. As if Detroit didn’t have enough problems. Wingnuts all over the nation are appalled by President Obama vacationing outside of the United States in Hawaii while the US is under attack from underwear bombers, as wingnut in chief Rush Limbaugh is rushed to the hospital with chest pains – in Hawaii.

The last ten years seem like they went by in a blur for me. In some ways, New Years Eve 1999 seems like yesterday, and in other ways, it seems like it was a lifetime ago. Hell, it seems like we’ve been working on our damn kitchen for more than ten years already.

Oh well, I guess it’s time to head out for the last work day of 2009. Have a safe and happy New Year’s Eve. See ya in 2010 (is this the year we make contact?).

My new Jawhorse came yesterday. I haven’t ordered anything else, so I guess that means Christmas is really over now (interesting how, when you get older, you have to buy your own presents). Now it’s back to reality, which for me means having to take my car in to get it inspected. I usually wait until the last minute for these things, but this year I’m actually a couple days ahead. As far as I know, there’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s still a hassle to deal with. I think my van (which is probably filled with snow at this point, since the side windows were left in the pushed-open position) is overdue, too, so I’ll have to deal with that one of these days. I really need to drive it more.

Yesterday was kinda nasty: cold, windy, and snowy. Not that we had all that much snow, but I think we were all kinda thinking this would be the year with no winter. The dream is over. Fortunately, we’ve got basketball to keep our minds occupied. Both the Syracuse mens and womens hoop teams are undefeated and ranked in the Top 25 so far this season. In the case of the women, their 11-0 start is a new record for them (which they’ll hopefully add to tonight when they play New Hampshire). The boys are 13-0 after traveling to New Jersey to play Seton Hall last night. They played lousy but managed to pull out a win in the end. Their best start ever is 19-0, but after watching a documentary the other night on John Wooden, I’m kinda hoping they can go on an 88 game winning streak.

Speaking of sports, the Tiger Woods saga has now entered the obligatory “rehab phase,” following in the footsteps of David Duchovny, and Eliot Spitzer. I still don’t get why anybody (other than his wife, of course) really cares, but my hope is that he’ll lay low until August, and then make his return to the tour at the 2010 Turning Stone Resort Championship (which gets its first summer date this year, but is forced to share that weekend with the World Golf Championship-Bridgestone Invitational). We could use the publicity (tourism dollars), and he’d steal the spotlight from the other tournament. Plus, rumor has it he already has a few babes lined up in the area.

Oh well, I’ve just been informed that it’s time for me to go. So here I go.

Far be it for me to sympathize with a terrorist, but I’m forced to admit that I’m pretty amazed by the dedication of anybody who would sew explosives into the crotch of their undies and try to detonate them. By dedication, of course, I mean freakin’ insanity (and by them, I mean, well, you know what I mean). Oh, sure, on paper, if you’re gonna blow yourself up, it doesn’t matter what part blows up first. But as Umar Fuckedup Abdulmentalcase has clearly demonstrated, you really need to plan for all contingencies, and if there’s only a partial ignition and fire, it damn sure does matter what part of your anatomy the explosives are under. I see that “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” has taken credit for (and seems to be rather proud of) the “underwear bomber.” What is that, a franchise? Is that how far things have fallen, that we don’t even get attacked by the home office anymore, but it gets farmed out to the Al Qaeda equivalent of the Scranton branch? God only knows what kind of twisted screening processes they’ll come up with at the airport after this one. I hope there isn’t anyplace I ever have to fly again, but for those who do, I foresee many crotch-sniffing dogs in your future (and not in a good way).

No failure to launch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome last night, though, as the Russkies successfully delivered the newest DirecTV satellite to orbit. Now it’s a month or two of testing and repositioning, and then hopefully we’ll get more HD programming to go along with the February price increase.

Speaking of successful deliveries, our new refrigerator was successfully delivered yesterday afternoon. It took me about an hour to peel off all the tape and protective wrap, but I not only got it in place and loaded, but also managed to get the old one down to the basement and loaded with beer (and water, and the five bottles of Champagne – actually sparkling whatever it is, ‘cuz it comes from NY, not France – that were left over from the past couple of holiday seasons), and of course I unmounted the bottle opener from the kitchen wall, and mounted it downstairs. Turns out I put it in the wrong place, but that was to be expected (what with my inability to do anything right). I’m not sure why it gives me such a feeling of comfort to know that my beer is just a few steps away from the teevee, but it does. It should come in darn handy for New Year’s Eve.

Max Baucus yelled at some asshole Republican, and now Mark Foley is absolutely outraged at Max’s indecent behavior. Yes, Mark Foley, who until recently could be found hanging around outside the Congressional Page Dormitory wearing black rubber boots and a trench coat, carrying a six-pack of Budweiser and a box of chocolate chip cookies, disapproves of Max Baucus. And good ol’ Mark knows indecent behavior when he sees it.

I saw the headline this morning, Ambulance Dispatched To Obama’s Home In Hawaii, and I thought “oh, great, he drove into a fire hydrant and Michelle ‘rescued’ him by smashing out the rear window of his SUV.” Turns out it was just a neighbor kid or something who got slightly hurt. Not much drama there.

Speaking of headlines, here’s one that has “duh” written all over it: “Metallica drummer struggles with ringing in ears.” He probably listens to too much AC/DC or something.

Oh well, it’s in the single-digits, very windy, and snowing this morning, so I reckon I’d better get moving early. I just hope I don’t have to shovel to get out.

See ya.

Today started out great. The showerhead had been left in “blast” mode and not properly seated in its little hook, so when I turned it on, it promptly rose up, spun around (not unlike Linda Blair in “The Exorcist”), and blasted me in the face, soaking the walls (and floor) behind me. As I was trying, in my half-sleep stupor, to shut the stupid thing off (or at least aim it away from my face), I somehow managed to pull the muscle in my ribs that always seems to go into spasm at the most inopportune of times (not that there’s a good time for it to happen, come to think of it). Of course, I couldn’t soak up the water on the floor, ‘cuz there was only one towel in the bathroom, and the little throw rug that’s supposed to be on the floor in front of the tub has been MIA for weeks now, so I figured the next thing that would happen was me slipping on my way out of the shower and smashing my head on the corner of the vanity or something (thanks to the grab bar I installed when my mother was with us for a short time, I managed to avoid that fate; I really don’t want to be found naked and dead in a pool of my own blood on the bathroom floor, like a beached and harpooned white whale).

I’ve started close to 18,000 days in my life – enough to know that when they start out like this, it’s best to just go back to bed if you can. Sadly, that’s not an option this morning. The good news is that Christmas is over. The bad news is that it’s back to work again today. What a bummer that is. The good news is that my new refrigerator is gonna be delivered today (gee, and only a month after it was originally supposed to have been delivered). The bad news is that my wife scheduled it for a day when she was working, so I have to deal with it. The good news is that I could have avoided heading out into this snowy morning by working from home until it got delivered this morning. The bad news is that it isn’t coming until between 2 and 4 this afternoon, so I have to go in to work this morning after all.

I was listening to a podcast in the wee hours of the morning the other night. I don’t know who or what it was (it just happened to be on where I could hear it while I was trying to get some sleep). The premise of the show seemed to be that Obama was the anti-Christ, and the Copenhagen Climate Conference was actually a ruse to implement One World Government (which of course is a harbinger of the apocalypse). Yes, in case you didn’t realize it, international treaties – especially those involving the reduction of carbon emissions – are a threat to the American way of life. As proof, they cited the really cool spiral lights in the sky over northern Norway. The light – according to these folks – was clearly a Star Gate or worm hole or something like that presaging the coming of the end times. And, surely, it was no coincidence that this sign appeared above Copenhagen while Obama was there.

Of course, there are one or two little holes in that story. First, the light was visible over northern Norway. Sightings were reported as far south as Sør-Trøndelag, which is about 800 miles north of Copenhagen (which is just a tad south in latitude of Glasgow). So, as a sign of the second coming, it was off a bit. The other problem is that it appears to have been a failed Russian missile launch from a submarine in the White Sea. Looks like the first two stages worked OK, but the third stage failed, lost guidance, and started to spiral around spewing fuel in a couple of directions.

Of course, you’ll only believe this fake missile launch story if you’ve been duped by the Illuminati. The rest of us are way too smart for that. I mean, 2012, Star Gates, One World Government…. It’s just too damn obvious. And now all these Nigerian terrorists, following the lead of their secret commander, Barack Hussein Obama. The end times are nigh, indeed.

Speaking of Nigeria, if you’re planning on flying anywhere, I recommend you watch what you eat, ‘cuz if you get the shits and spend too much time in the airplane crapper, you’re liable to find yourself under arrest when the plane lands. Sounds reasonable to me. I’ve been in those airplane bathrooms and remember thinking somebody ought to go to prison.

Oh well, I guess it’s about that time.