Today we celebrate the birthday of Abe Lincoln. Well, I do, anyway. Turns out today is a holiday for me for some reason or other (Monday, however, is not – go figure) . Normally, I’d just work today and get a day to use later, but, well, screw that; I’m taking today off. I was always pretty interested in the Civil War, for some reason, and I can kind of relate to Lincoln – an ugly guy with a beard, married to a short woman that was kinda nuts (doesn’t seem right that that they picked the date of his death as tax day). Of course, Lincoln was also tall, skinny, and smart, while I’m, well, not. Then again, I’m hoping to not get assassinated anytime soon. There are always tradeoffs. Naturally, the dogs figured out I was off today, and got me out of bed to go out at about 4:30. This wasn’t good enough, so they got me up for keeps by about 5:20 (I think the noise of the snowplow going by repeatedly was freakin’ ’em out; they’re just not used to it, with this relatively snowless winter we’ve been having).<\/p>\n
Speaking of lack of snow, we’ve been knocked out of first place in the Golden Snow Globe<\/a> competition, and are now four inches behind Baltimore, of all places. Baltimore? Really? It’s the middle of February, and Baltimore<\/em> has more snow than we do? Oh, the shame. And to think, I was gonna buy my wife a new shovel for Valentine’s Day.<\/p>\n In what passes for a “victory” these days, Republicans “allowed” the confirmation of 27 Obama nominees<\/a> yesterday. Woo-hoo. Of course, that’s less than half of his outstanding nominees, but when you’re 25% of the way into your failed one-term presidency, I guess you gotta take what you can get. Why he doesn’t send Michelle down to the Capitol Building to punch Mitch McConnell in his chinless fucking face is beyond me. <\/p>\n Speaking of old white men that need their asses kicked, feckless fuck Harry Reid is soundly poo-pooing the idea of getting rid of the Senate filibuster<\/a>. No matter how large a majority Democrats have, Harry always keeps his “minority mentality.” <\/p>\n Now that I’ve replaced my appliances, NY is offering rebates for replacing your appliances – if you do it between today and Feb 21st. Wow, they’re giving us a whole friggin’ week. Did you know that<\/a> “[i]t is recommended you change your appliances every 4 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 6 years given the rapid changes in appliance technology”?<\/p>\n What world do these freakin’ people live in? Hey, I’d love<\/em><\/strong> to spend a few thousand dollars on new appliances every 5 years. I mean, I could potentially save tens of dollars a year on my utility bill. I’ll be needing a little bit bigger rebate, though – and more than a week to save up for it. <\/p>\n I wonder if they’d consider giving a rebate for a new energy efficient dual-band wireless router? <\/p>\n The Olympics, apparently, are scheduled to open tonight. This has driven the “cast” of the Today Show (aka, the “rainbow coalition” of the ratfaced white guy, Matt Lauer, the Portugese shriveled husk of Meredith Vieira, the comic relief of non-threatening black guy Al Roker, and the exotic – and least annoying of the bunch – Japanese, Cherokee, French, German, Irish, Scottish mutt, Anne Curry) to unprecedented levels of insipidness. I guess I gotta go put my CANADA sweatshirt on.<\/p>\n This will be the first time ever that the Winter opening ceremonies will be held indoors. Not because Canadians are pussies afraid of the cold, but because they’re pussies afraid of rain, which apparently happens rather frequently in Vancouver on Lincoln’s Birthday. I know this, because Bob Costas told me so (and, since he went to SU, I trust him).<\/p>\n