It got up to 60° here yesterday, which isn’t a record but it sure was nice. The dogs certainly enjoyed getting into the mud (and making more by digging holes – as if they hadn’t already dug enough holes in the lawn. If anybody knows of a strategy to prevent the little varmints from digging hols, let me know. I’m considering filling them all in with QuickCrete®). Almost all the snow is gone (at least in the places where the sun gets above the trees), and it was still warmish this morning, but that’s all supposed to change throughout the day. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

One of the things that sucks about Monday is having to listen to Cokie Roberts on NPR on the way in to work. Monday is her day to appear on Morning Edition and dispense her inside-the-beltway conventional wisdom. Today I think she nearly peed herself cackling over how “ridiculous” the trillion dollar coin idea was, while telling us that the Democrats and Republicans are equally to blame for all this debt ceiling nonsense. I really would like to figuratively smack her upside the head – if anybody deserves a dope slap, it’s her.

Not all was bad on Morning Edition, though, as there was a rather interesting Part One interview of Nina Totenbag with Sonia Sotomayor about Sotomayor’s upcoming (or maybe it’s out already, I dunno) book. She had somewhat of a crappy early childhood, and she actually sounds like a pretty decent person. Not a great humanitarian like Antonin Scalia, of course, but it wouldn’t be fair to expect anybody to fill his britches.

Oh well, I suppose I ought to get back to work. A shame I can’t be working from home.

Working from home is where it’s at, man. I got more done by ten AM than I normally get done all day (for one thing, I got to “work” at about 5:30) – no distractions, no discomforts, a window to look out of, and no stinky fucking public restroom. If only I could do this more than one day a week. Currently, I’m listening to a rerun of a Fresh Air with Lena Dunham of “Girls” fame. For those who don’t know, Girls is a critically acclaimed HBO “comedy.” I used quotes there, because I frankly think the show is not only not funny, but it’s totally uninteresting (though Brian Williams’ daughter is kinda cute, so it’s got that going for it, at least). I tried to give it a chance, I really did. But I finally gave up on it. I guess I’m just too old to appreciate the self-involved characters or something. And it’s not just me, ‘cuz my wife thinks it’s pretty awful, too. If it wasn’t for Bill Maher coming back next week, I’d dump HBO in a second. But I like Realtime, and I’m too lazy to track it down to watch it in an “alternative” method (though I know it’s not really all that hard to find). Enlightened isn’t bad, either. And then in April (I think) Game of Thrones comes back, and then in the summer comes True Blood. That’s how HBO gets you – there’s typically one or a max of two good shows on at any one time, that I keep shelling out $18 a month for. I guess I’d be better off buying them off Amazon. Oh well, back to work.

It’s a big day today, as the Academy Award nominations will be announced at 5:30 AM PST (you’d think they’d bump that up a bit, but I guess not). Now I get to hear which of the movies I haven’t seen are the best of the best. I can hardly wait ’til they come out on Amazon or Netflix.

In other exciting news, due to the fact that they’ve hired way too many people for our electronic medical records project, the parking lot where I work has become ridiculously overcrowded (as has the building; they have people stuffed into conference rooms, and offices designed for two people are now tripled and quadrupled up). It was bad enough before the snow flew, but now with snow piles and plows, we’ve lost even more spaces.

So they’ve come to the monumental decision to let us occasionally work from home (this isn’t a new idea, and is done extensively around the institution – just not in the IT area, because the person or persons who run the IT department are basically Luddites, which kind of goes to show who gets promoted around here). Apparently, we’re starting out a one day per week, and my day will be Friday (aka, tomorrow), which will be very nice indeed. Especially for the dogs, who get to have me around all day.

Speaking of the dogs, one of them chewed up my very expensive universal remote yesterday. I should have known better, but he had kind of ignored it, so I thought it was safe. Guess not. So he’s on my shit list for a while (until I get over it), and I’ve been shunning him. The little bastard.

Now, instead of just pushing one button on the touchscreen and having it turn on (or off) all the appropriate devices and settings, I now have to fart around with four or five remotes and try and remember what gets turned on for each thing. It’s kind of annoying.

Oh well, time to get back to work, I guess.

I’m not exactly an Alabama fan, but anybody that kicks the shit out of Notre Dame is AOK in my book. If ND has to be in the BS BCS Title Game, seeing them get killed (not that I actually watched, I have to admit) is the way to go. Otherwise, there’s not much in the news.

Republicans seem to hate Republican Chuck Hagel. I must confess that I don’t really remember all that much about him when he was a Senator, but if Republicans hate him, then he must be kinda OK. Plus he was an enlisted man in Vietnam, so at least he knows what it’s like to actually be out there getting shot at (and why he apparently seems to be opposed to endless war in the Middle East).

Then there’s the relentless march to the “debt limit” crisis, which Democrats (swear to god, hope to dies) claim they are absolutely unwilling to negotiate over. I kind of like the trillion dollar platinum coin idea, personally. Paul Krugman likes it, too. His idea is to pass legislation that abolishes the stupid debt ceiling in exchange for removing the loophole that lets the President mint trillion dollar coins to stick in the bank. Sounds fair to me.

Oh well, time to get back to obsessing on the current state of the SU football program.

So, from what I’m reading, it appears that Republicans are willing to shut down the government over the debt ceiling nonsense unless Democrats come up with massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. Obama says he is unwilling to include cuts as part of raising the ceiling, so we appear to be at a standstill. I’m sure Republicans are worried, because Obama never backs down on this kind of stuff, and he has tons of leverage on them, thanks to the Fiscal Cli…. Oh, yeah, forgot about that. Anyhow, I’m sure both sides will get cracking and this will all be solved long before the Feds have to default on their obligations in March. Because when I think if our government (especially the House of Representatives), the one word that comes to mind for me is “proactive.”

I must say, I was doing pretty well with the whole going back to work thing this morning. Right up until I walked in the front door of the building, at which point I was engulfed in a dark cloud of depression. I’ll be most happy to see this day end.

Sad news today, as it appears that our football head coach – the SU alum who said every move he ever made in his coaching career was a step along the way to getting his “dream job” of Syracuse head coach – is reportedly taking the head coaching job with the Buffalo Bills. One cannot help but feel betrayed. Plus, Buffalo? My god, am I supposed to be a Bills fan now? That will be tough. Of course, beyond the betrayal is the fact that this comes during peak recruiting season for college football, and it’ll be hard to find and hire a quality coach in such a short time (not to mention we don’t know what assistants, if any, will get poached from the program). I won’t belabor the point, but suffice it to say, this sucks.

As if that wasn’t depressing enough, my week off is over and I have to go back to work tomorrow. This is, basically, horrible. Not that I did anything outrageously fun over this past week, but it was nice to be home with the dogs. I really wish I could work from home (which, of course, I could, if the head of IT wasn’t totally clueless when it come to IT). But, sadly, no.

Oh well, time to get ready for my trip to Pixley to get vittles, and then a fun day of doing laundry and trying not to think about sitting in my windowless office all day tomorrow.

Yesterday was officially payday for me, and thanks to direct deposit I saw that the 2% hike in the payroll tax is already in effect (it’s a shame payday couldn’t have been on 12/31). So if you’re making $110,100 a year in salary, you’ll be paying $2,202 more a year. And if you’re making $500,000 a year, you’ll be paying $2,202 more a year (or about .04% more). And if you’re making all your money in capital gains or investments, you’ll be paying $0 more. Seems fair, doesn’t it?

Republicans are now saying that they’ve “taken care” of the revenue side of things, and now it’s time to cut spending (in fact, according to the CBO, rather than cut the deficit, this bill will add $4 trillion in debt over the next 10 years). So we’ll see what they come up with to cut. I doubt it’ll be military spending, and there’s really not a whole lot left to cut after that. Except for Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security, of course. Medicare and Medicaid account for about 23% of the budget, Social Security 20%, and Defense is about 19%. Assuming we’ll never seem them raise the cap on the payroll tax (which would be a pretty easy fix for Social Security, in my opinion), I don’t see them doing anything more than making deep cuts. Whether that means cutting benefits, raising the eligibility age, or both, we’ll have to see. Medicaid will probably get big cuts, because nobody cares what poor people think (and it just makes things harder for the non-profit hospitals that have no choice but to treat the indigent and swallow the costs).

Oh well, I guess we’ll see what happens.

Happy New Year everybody. I hope you survived unscathed. I actually managed to watch the ball drop at midnight, but I had to go lay down for an hour or two first. Then it was watch the countdown (just not the same w/o Dick Clark) and straight to bed. Funny thing is, despite having gotten up at about 3:30 yesterday morning and being terribly tired, I couldn’t sleep. The one time I sort of drifted off at about 4:45 this morning, the dog woke me up to go out. So I’m pretty beat today, and feeling kinda crappy (mostly due to eating pizza and wings for the first time in longer than I can remember – I just can’t tolerate that stuff anymore, which sucks ‘cuz I sure do love those wings). And today, it’s snowing. How unusual.

Otherwise, it appears that the Senate overwhelmingly passed what appears to be a “fiscal cliff” deal that is slightly less than shitty in the short term and potentially very, very shitty in the long term. Like, in about two months as they go through this whole debt limit nonsense again. And Obama has pretty much pissed any leverage he might have had away. The Republicans can always count on Obama caving in. Well, maybe Boehner won’t bring it up for a vote in the House.

Oh well, enjoy the day off today (of you’re off – if not, bummer). Looks like I’ll be plowing the driveway.