OK, things aren’t quite thawed out yet, but when I got out of work yesterday, it was sunny and 27°. That may not sound like much, but you’d be amazed at how warm that felt. Not exactly summer-like, but certainly don’t bother to zip up your jacket, no need for the hat and gloves springlike weather for sure. And as I write this at 5:30 AM or so, it’s already 29°, on its way to 33 – and tomorrow they’re projecting a high of 39 (by golly, that ought to get the sump pumps humming again)!

This warm weather comes at quite a timely moment, because – as you may have heard but probably not – this is a big sports-type weekend around here. I mean, yeah, Sunday’s the Super Bowl and even if you care nothing at all about that, you’d have to be living under a rock (or be my wife) to not know that. I have no “dog” in that fight, personally. I don’t really follow either team, and I don’t hate either one of them, either (not like it’s Dallas vs. Anybody, where it’s a no-brainer to root for Anybody). And no matter who wins, I hope to see a shot of their fans celebrating by firing up a nice big fatty on national teevee – and then instead of flipping over cars and starting them on fire, devastating a few bags of Doritos (warning: you will have severe internal cheek lacerations the next morning – take it from one who knows. Those things have very pointy corners and shatter into shards with every chew) and taking a nap.

But when it comes down to it, I’m sure I’ll be pulling for the Denver Broncos. First, their color is orange, so, like, “duh.” Also, I’m sure Floyd Little is rooting for them, and what’s good enough for Floyd is good enough for me. And then there’s Peyton Manning.

I’ve never been a huge fan, but not a hater, either – I enjoyed seeing him throw to Marvin Harrison (who we kinda don’t talk about much here these days what with him having maybe kinda murdered somebody or having somebody murdered, but there’s no conviction, so, hey, whattya gonna do?) and back then the Colts also had Dwight Freeney (who was an undergrad when I was in my 26th or so year of college).

But, anyway, as an old man, I can’t help but pull for another old man (I never really liked John Elway until he got “old” – born the same year as me, by the way – and ended his career with a couple of Super Bowl wins), and Manning is not only old (at least in NFL years – what I wouldn’t give to be 37 again!) but had a freakin’ “anterior cervical discectomy and fusion.”

Now, from what I’ve read, surgeons consider this ACDF to be no big deal, same day surgery, but the description of his procedure includes:

…a 1- to 2-inch horizontal incision in the front of his neck, carefully moving away muscle, retracting the esophagus, the trachea and the carotid artery, cutting through a membranous sheath that covers the cervical spine and finally exposing the crushed disc.

There are seven cervical vertebrae extending from the base of the skull to the top of the chest. The damaged disc in Manning’s neck was located between the C6 and C7 vertebrae, at the bottom of the neck. Using scissor-like instruments and high speed drills, surgeons removed the disc fragments between the two vertebrae and grafted a piece of Manning’s hip bone into the empty space between the vertebrae. A titanium “bridge” spanning the disc stabilized the spine.

Sorry, but once you do that to me (assuming I let you, which is pretty fucking doubtful since I won’t even go to a foot doctor), aint no way I’m playing football again. Not that I play it now that my XBox died, but you know what I mean.

So, anyway, it’s not like I’ll cry if the Seahawks win, and hopefully it’ll be a good game and all that. And the NFL dodged a bullet, ‘cuz after some really shitty weather, the forecast for East Rutherford NJ for Sunday is probably dry and relatively warm – high in the 40s maybe even 50.

But – at least in these here parts – Sunday is the #2 event of the weekend. The real news is that the Duke Blue Devils are coming to town tomorrow evening. The two winningest coaches in NCAA Division I basketball – with 1,877 wins between them – not to mention the coaching duo that has gone 62-1 with Team USA and won the past two Olympic basketball gold medals (USA! USA!) will face each other in front of a record on-campus crowd of 35,446 people to see if Syracuse can set a record for best season start (which would be 21-0).

I bring this up now so that I can kind of enjoy it, because last time we set an attendance record (about a year ago), the dreaded Georgetown Hoyas stomped us (though I feel compelled to say that we went on to return the favor by later beating them in our final Big East meeting in the BE Tournament at Madison Square Garden and then advancing to the Final Four with a win on their home court while they choked and went home early as they have typically done for many years now – “Hoya Saxa” apparently being latin for “One and Done”).

There have been very few easy wins on the way to 20-0, so, yeah, we’re ripe for a loss, and on a national stage (ESPN College Game Day) on Super Bowl Eve with lots of people paying attention and everybody south of the Mason-Dixon line hating us even more than usual because our football coach made a teeny-weeny joke on Twitter of all things about a few snowflakes shutting down an entire major metropolitan area

“Oh, my god oh my god oh my god! People are dying, children are trapped on school buses, old people are stranded in their tarpaper shacks, the couch in my front yard is full of snow and you Yankees have the audacity to refer to us with a hashtag of ‘#softnosed’? How dare you, you insensitive lout, I do declay-uh you’ve given me the vapors!”

And Clemson… Most humorless fuckin’ fans in the NCAA. No wonder Lindsey Graham keeps getting elected.

I swear having Syracuse in the ACC is about to reignite the Civil War – and this time we won’t have Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter to bail us out…!

Anyhow, let’s just say a loss tomorrow wouldn’t surprise me.

The SU women started things off well last night, though, by travelling to Chapel Hill and upsettting the #6 North Carolina Tar Heels (after being down by 18), so good for them.

And there’s no break in the action as hated Notre Dame (whose racist, stereotype perpetuating “mascot” I shall not mention) comes to town on Monday (big weekend for the bars and pizza joints on the SU hill – one of them decided they had to close on Sunday, ‘cuz they didn’t have room to store enough food for the crowds they expect on Saturday and Monday if they were open for the Super Bowl).

So hopefully it’ll be a fun weekend. Warm, only a little snow (no more than it would take to shut down Atlanta – we don’t even roll the plows out for that), and hopefully win #21.

If you don’t hear from me for a while, you’ll know I’m either off sulking somewhere or defending my home from Johnny Reb.

Of this frigid friggin’ weather, that is. Or so they say. Tomorrow back up into double-digits and all the way to 24° they say. And then up into the 30s for Friday and the weekend (with the tradeoff of maybe some snow, which is a fair deal as far as I’m concerned – snow doesn’t bother me all that much, but I’m getting too damn old for it to be this cold). So far this winter has been a throwback to the days of my youth, when it was really damn cold all winter long (and I had to walk uphill both to and from school, of course), and I’m getting just a wee bit tired of riding the polar express.

I did not watch the SOTU last night, and I haven’t been able to get interested in reading the post game wrap-up (I tried to read Howard Fineman’s column on it, but only managed about three paragraphs). I did enjoy this photo, though:

The sense I got from those three paragraphs and from the headlines I scanned that it was your basic SOTU speech – lots of talkie-talkie, not much walkie-walkie.

The only other mildly interesting thing was that some redneck leatherneck NY Congresscritter (Michael Grimm, who I hasten to point out is from downstate around Sue’s neck of the woods – Staen Island and part of Brrokly, though luckily for her, not Red Hook – and not one of ours) got all pissed off and threatened bodily harm (“He threatened to throw him over the balcony and then said ‘I will break you in half…'”) when a reporter asked him about the criminal investigation into his campaign finance “irregularities.”

Touchy, touchy.

So, anyway, that’s about all I know of what the Prez had to say. Oh, except that “he had a spring in his step” seems to be the meme this morning. So maybe he got laid right before the speech. In which case, good for him.

If I missed anything important, let me know.

According to my outdoor thermometer, it’s -7.4 out there this morning. I gotta say, I’m getting tired of this winter already. Winter usually doesn’t start really pissing me off like this until mid-February, so I reckon I have a tough couple of months ahead. And the flu is running rampant, rampaging through society and killing people left and right (shame it doesn’t kill more on the right than the left). What, you didn’t know that?

Yes indeed it is. In fact, the flu is “widespread” in 35 states and according to the extraordinarily fuzzy and all but unreadable chart on this page, a whopping 4.5% of “visits” for “influenza-like illnesses”. Visits to where, it doesn’t actually say, though I assume it’s to the ER and not, like, Disney World. That’s about 2.5 marks higher than the unexplained dotted line on the chart, so I’m assuming it’s significant. Plus an otherwise healthy 29-yr old woman in Texas died of the flu after being sick for a mere 5 days.

Conclusion: if you didn’t get a flu shot, you’re gonna die. Especially if you live in Texas.

I blame Obamacare.

Speaking of which, tonight is the SOTU address, which I’m pretty sure nobody actually cares about. At least, I know I don’t. Unless he announces that he’s instructing the DOJ to stop raiding pot dispensaries and that he’s going to urge Congress to legalize pot (or at least reclassify it as a Schedule V drug or something). But if that happens, I reckon I’d read about it the next day. Otherwise, I’m not interested in the dog and pony show. Maybe he means what he says, but he’s got about zero chance of getting anything through Congress at this point (except maybe cuts to Social Security), so it doesn’t really matter.

The big question for this evening is will I bother to put the garbage out, or let it ride for a week?

So long, Pete. Too any oldtimers moving on these days, and not nearly enough young’uns capable of filling their shoes.

It is an astonishing 35 degrees (above) out there at the moment. That’s the first time it’s been above freezing in longer than I can remember (which isn’t saying much, ‘cuz I’m old and can’t remember shit these days). Unfortunately, in looking at the radar, there appears to be a wall-o-snow headed our way. The weather dude says this demarks an approaching “Arctic Cold Front” that will drop temps back down to single digits once again. Oh goodie.

Hey, did you catch that Pro Bowl last night? Me neither. But this morning I remembered they played last night, so I went looking for the score. “Team Rice” vs. “Team Sanders”? WTF is that? Isn’t Col. Sanders dead? Is this no longer the NFC vs. AFC? Well, it appears to have been a close game so maybe it’s for the best.

While I missed the Pro Bowl, I did catch a significant portion of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” biopic yesterday morning (why, exactly, I don’t know – like not being able to turn away from a car wreck, I guess), and while there presumably may have been a few historical inaccuracies here and there, I found it to be quite an illuminating and even enlightening motion picture.

Not to toot my own horn, but I should point out that when I was a kid, I was somewhat of a Civil War buff. I mean, I didn’t (and don’t) dress up in a Union blue uniform and march around reenacting the Battle of Bull Run (first or second) or anything. I can’t name all the battles or describe in detail Pickett’s Charge against General Meade’s forces on Cemetery Ridge – though I could once recite the Gettysburg Address from memory. About all I can manage these days is the first line.

But, anyway, suffice it to say that while I’m not exactly Doris Kearns Goodwin, I know a thing or two about Abe Lincoln. At least, I thought I did. Turns out there are a lot of things about Lincoln and the Civil War that the lamestream media don’t want you to know about.

For instance, did you know that Abe had a black BFF that he’d known since childhood and hung out with all through his time as President? Me neither. But I guess that explains why he did all that emancipatin’.
Then there’s Mary Todd Lincoln, who wasn’t the porky sourpuss history (and every actual photo I’ve ever seen) makes her out to be. She was actually pretty darn cute (and young-looking – by the Battle of Gettysburg when she’d have been about 45 years old, she looked like a 27-yr old movie actress). That Abe was one lucky dude (well, except for the whole getting shot in the head thing).

Mary was also pretty gutsy and resourceful. History would have you believe she spent her time as first lady fighting with Congress trying to get money to buy new rugs for the White House and get the furniture reupholstered, but it turns out, she was right there on the battlefield at Gettysburg (I think it was Gettysburg – I wasn’t actually paying real close attention) and loaded a Springfield with a silver something or other chain and shot a raging vampire (a pretty hot undead babe in her own right) smack dab in the middle of the forehead.

This was the same vampire who pretended to be a White House maid (didn’t realize they had any white maids back then, but there ya go) and did some kind of vampirey thing to Willie, causing him to wither and die. So she had it coming.

Vampires of the time, by the way, were apparently OK with being out in the daylight. But they really didn’t like silver, so Abe had the Union Army collect silver from the citizenry so it could be melted down into bullets and cannon balls and axeheads (Abe was pretty handy with an axe, by the way) and whatnot.

Oh, that’s another thing – the Vamps. They were apparently in cahoots with Jefferson Davis and the confederacy. I never knew this, but it does explain Strom Thurmond, who lived to be about 187 years old until somebody finally had the good sense to stake the fucker.

Well, crap. Look like the wall-o-snow is just about here. This could be a pain in the ass commute.

Apparently, Syracuse is one of the least bible-minded cities in the US. The American Bible Society (which I really, really hope isn’t tax-exempt) did some kind of idiot survey on “Bible-mindedness”, which they quantified by how often respondents said they read the Bible and how accurate they think it is. I’m proud to say we came in near the bottom – 86 out of 100. We’re a mere 3 spots less bible-minded than that den of iniquity New York City, which itself is only one spot ahead of Las Vegas (I’ve only been to Vegas that one time, and I didn’t see a lot of bible studying going on though I reckon there was probably some praying in the casinos).

Shit, we’re even 13 spots lower than Los Angeles (not San Fran, though, y’all came in at 97 and with a little fornication I think you can leapfrog number 98 Boston next year).

I’d also like to congratulate our sister cities in NY – Rochester(83), Buffalo(95 – congrats Sean, wherever you are) and our State Capital, Albany, which finished damn near last at number 99 (funny, you’d think all our State legislators would bring that number up – I’m sure they spend their free time reading the bible when they aren’t busy doing the people’s work).

Can we get rid of that tax-exempt status for churches in NY now?

My advice to all you bible-thumpin’ holy rollers out there? Stay off I-90 in New York State – the Thruway corridor is not interested in your bullshit.

I’d like to commission a better study that I think would give us a more accurate peek into the brains of all those “bible-minded” folks out there. First, ask them if the bible is accurate. Then quiz them about some of the shit that’s actually in it and see if they knew it was there.

Q: Do you believe the bible is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

A: Dang right I do – ever’ dad gum word, praise the baby Jesus!

Q: You do know that the bible teaches us that Jesus despised the idea of “profit?”

A: Whut, you get that from some fake commie, liberal bible?

Q: Did you know the bible says after your wife gives birth to a boy, she isn’t allowed to go to church for 33 days? And for a girl, it’s 66 days?

A: Whut?

Q: Yep.

A: Well that don’t seem right.

Q: Bible says you’re not supposed to eat shellfish, too.

A: Even crawdads?

Q: Especially crawdads.

A: I’ma hafta look that up.

Q: And no tattoos, or you’re going to hell.

A: But my daddy wuz in the Navy. He had uh anchor on his right arm and “Mom” on his left where she’d be closer to his heart. :love:

Q: Well, he’s going to hell, then.

A: But he passed from the cancer back in ’93.

Q: Oh, sorry. He’s already in hell, then.

A: Well that’s just plain dumb.

Q: So, do you still believe the bible is the truth?

A: Ever’ dad gum word!

You’d think that there wouldn’t be a whole lot of difference between -7° and +7°, but let me tell you, there is. Day before last, I couldn’t keep my windows defrosted on my way home from work when it was about ten below out. Last night felt downright warm when it was about five degrees. And this morning it’s a mere -1 at the moment, which feels way better than -20 did the other day.

And it’s supposed to get all the way up to 15 today and damn near 30 tomorrow (of course, it’s also supposed to get really windy and snowy, too, and still colder than hell at night and get really cold again starting Sunday). I do believe those goddamn woolly bears were lying to me back in the fall.

So, it’s finally Friday, ya bastids. That means Bill Maher tonight, and it looks like a decent show with Erin Brockovitch (I hear she’s going to play the lead in the new Julia Roberts biopic) on to (I assume) maybe talk about poisoning the water in West Virginia (which is totally safe now, move along nothing to see). Also Willie Nelson. Can’t imagine what Bill will want to talk to him about. :bong: Plus Howard Dean, who can talk about pretty much anything – but I reckon the “individual mandate” in Obamacare will come up.

Oh, and Carly Fiorina, who will hopefully just shut the fuck up.

OK, now let’s get out there and get this week over. Well, you get out there. I’m working from home today, so I’ll stay put.

Yesterday was my late day at work, which means I not only have to stay late, I go in later too (‘cuz, like, it’s a long enough day as it is). As an early riser (with little to no respect for those slackers who sleep late and don’t roll into the office until after nine o’clock – which pretty much sums up all the upper mucky-mucks out there), that means I dawdle and waste my hours of peak mental acuity (such as it is) sitting around waiting for it to get late enough to go to work only to hit a major wall at about three in the afternoon, when I stare blindly at me computer in what resembles a persistent vegetative state. All on the odd chance that some slacker mucky-muck will come looking for somebody late in the day. Because, like, I don’t have e-mail and an iPhone and a company-paid Internet connection, so how could they possible track me down? So, on these Wednesday mornings, to quote Satchel Paige, “sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.”

Yesterday morning, I was thinkin’. I glanced over at a pile of junk mail, and I had an epiphany for new legislation. My idea is to require that all junk mail be sent in reusable, resealable envelopes with erasable address/return address areas. If it’s stamped mail, the cancelled stamp must be easily removable, or, better yet, if it’s got a permit imprint, they have to pay for a second mailing. So if I get the 788th “offer” from AARP, I should be able to dump out and shred their unsolicited crap and insert my Town and County tax bill and use the envelope to mail it in.

Now I might give the junk mail senders a way to avoid this requirement – if they get people to explicitly opt-in to receiving junk mail from the sender, then they don’t need the reusable envelopes (they can get a special permit designation or special precanceled stamps or whatever). If they send you junk mail and don’t have a written opt-in form from you, then it’s a Federal offense with a huge fine.

Granted, there are some details that would need to be worked out (a strict definition of junk mail, for instance, plus the ability to opt-out at any time – kinda like the no-call list that Ann from card services seems to feel it’s OK to ignore). But I think it would not only save paper by increasing the cost of sending unsolicited crap mail that the consumer has to process (I mean, there’s the cost of a shredder, time spend shredding and recycling, paying somebody to pick up my recyclable or taking the time and expense of taking them to the dump myself, etc.), but it would foster innovation in the envelope and erasable ink industries (fields of endeavor far too long ignored in this country).

Then again, I could just burn all that junk mail for heat.

If you’re a fan of the Simpsons, then you know that Homer has already flown on the space shuttle but it now appears he’s made it out of Earth orbit and to another planet. NASA’s Opportunity rover (which has been rolling around out there for an astonishing 10 or so years) has discovered a jelly doughnut on the surface of Mars. One day, it wasn’t there and then 12 Sols later, it was!

OK, so it wasn’t really a jelly doughnut (I mean, Homer wouldn’t just leave a perfectly good doughnut on the ground) – it’s a rock that looks like a jelly doughnut. Sorta. OK, not really. But it appeared out of nowhere, and it’s a very special rock, which is kinda cool.

Speaking of kinda cool…

I don’t know what the official temperature is, but my thermometer says -18° (okay, actually -17.9). Up in Saranac Lake, it’s -29. Even Northern Minnesota is balmy by comparison. If I could stay home today, I most certainly would. On the bright side, it doesn’t look like we’re gonna get all this snow they’re yammering about up and down the East Coast so at least I won’t have to get out there and plow. Remind me to build a cab for that damn tractor this summer, would ya?

I guess Governor Snotball made a statement the other day to the effect of “extreme conservatives have no place in NY.” This apparently got Sean Hannity’s panties all in a bunch, and now he says he’s done with NY and can’t wait to move (sheesh, relax Sean – don’t take it so personally. He said extreme conservatives, not extremely stupid people). On behalf of the State of NY, may I bid you a bon débarras! And if you’re driving, I suggest you avoid the George Washington Bridge – I hear they’ve had some slowdowns.

Sean isn’t sure where he’s going when he leaves – Texas or Florida, because they don’t have state taxes (and also ‘cuz white guys can pretty much shoot black guys with impunity). Sean, go to Florida (sorry Kevin, wherever you are) – you’ll fit right in with all the giant cockroaches palmetto bugs.

Giant bugs aside, I have to admit that someplace with temperatures above, say, 20° sounds pretty good right about now.

Hannity is a sad example of what happens when the Irish go wrong. The good Irish are charming and witty and self-deprecating and kind. The bad ones, though, are usually just loudmouth assholes (yes, I’m looking at you Bill O’Reilly). Now, I’m certainly not saying that Sean’s mother was an alcoholic who drank heavily all through her pregnancy, but he does exhibit many of the signs of fetal alcohol syndrome. Brain damage, smooth philtrum (that groove between your nose and mouth which, BTW, is the scar left over from when you were that ball of cells called a blastula and you folded into a gastrula – creating an inside and an outside. Don’t tell me my public school education was a waste!), thin upper lip, and small palpebral fissures (aka, beady eyes).

He doesn’t exactly look underweight or undersized, though, so maybe he was just dropped on his head a lot as a kid.

Whatever caused his condition, I guess we should feel sorry for him (which would be a lot easier if he wasn’t just another loudmouth prick who doesn’t think he should have to pay taxes).

Speaking of taxes, the end of the month is nigh, so I guess I’d better write out checks for the property taxes. Unlike Sean Hannity, I aint going anywhere.

The f*cking cold is back again, damnit. This bipolar weather shit is getting pretty annoying. Good thing I don’t have to go out today, but it’s not gonna get any better for the rest of the week, so I’ll have to leave the house tomorrow. It’s currently about four below and it’s supposed to get colder before it gets warmer today. If you can consider a high of seven “warmer,” that is. Oh well, at least I’m not in Big Form Minnesota, where according to The Weather Channel, it’s -29° at the moment. Now that’s cold.

So I need a little help from you Apple fanboys and fangirls out there. I don’t really get a whole lot of phone calls on my work iPhone, but I do get three kinds in general. First, in order to log into my work VPN, I have to go to a web page and authenticate. If I do that successfully, an automated system calls the phone I have on record and then tells me to push a certain key. The second kind of call I get is that when somebody calls my desk at work and leaves voicemail, the system calls my cell phone every 15 minutes and gives me the opportunity to push the pound sign and enter my password to pick up the message. The alternative to that is calling the office (not cell phone) voicemail system (the number for which I can never remember) and then jumping through a bunch of hoops to get to my mailbox and enter all my secret codes. The third (and least frequent) type of call I get (not calling Ann from Credit Card Services, of course) is somebody from work who wants to talk to me (frankly, I prefer Ann).

That all seems simple enough, and with a “regular” phone, it would be. But with the freakin’ iPhone, I have to swipe to answer (so far so good, though it’s a tad on the slow side) and then it goes to a screen where I have to touch the “keypad” icon, and then the keypad screen comes up after a bit of a hesitation. And all the while I can hear the automated voice droning on about what key to touch or whatever. In the case of the VPN authentication, I know what’s coming and I know what key it is and it gives me a few seconds to hit it before it hangs up on me.

In the case of the voicemail system, the generic main number for where I work displays, so I don’t actually know if it’s the voicemail system or somebody from work is actually calling me. So I have to answer and then I either have to hit the speaker phone icon or put the phone up to my ear to say hello (unless I happen to have my ear thingie in, which I usually don’t ‘cuz I have enough problems w/o getting brain cancer), only to find out that it’s the voicemail system. And it is then really friggin’ hard to hit the buttons fast enough to get to the voicemail before the damn thing hangs up on me.

So what I’d really like is to set the default on-answer phone screen to the keypad. I would think that would be simple – especially since Apple is so well known for being so user-friendly and all that (assuming you do things the way they want you to). And maybe it is simple, and I’m just too dumb to figure it out. I’ve looked at all the settings (I think), I’ve Googled, and I even tried asking Siri (who is either a friggin’ moron or just deliberately obstinate and obtuse. She gets kinda touch when you compare her to Scarlett Johansson, too).

So, if y’all know how to set the default phone screen on one of these infernal contraptions, I would most certainly be obliged.

Thanks, and stay warm out there.

I did my usual Sunday shopping yesterday, heading out to the shopping “club” to get vittles for the week and fill up my gas tank. I’d finished my shopping and was pushing my cart out of the store when I passed a fat old tired-looking guy who, to be charitable, I would describe as “simple” looking (to be honest, my initial thought was that looked rather feeble-minded), but he seemed to have a fairly pleasant demeanor about him. As he happened to be looking in my direction, I gave him a smile and a nod, and he smiled a dopey little smile back at me that only reaffirmed my opinion that this guy was most definitely not the sharpest tool in the shed. Just your basic dumb schlub out on a Sunday morning.

It was right about then it dawned on me that I was looking at a mirror.

I literally exclaimed something or other out loud at this realization. “Oh my God” or “Holy shit” or “Jesus Christ” or just plain “Fuck” – something like that – I don’t remember the exact words. All I know is that genuine surprise quickly changed to anger which then changed to sadness. In fact, I filled with an intense feeling of sorrow for most of the day yesterday. Sadness at what I’ve become. Sadness at what I haven’t become. Sadness at what I will never become because, well, time’s pretty much up – at least for this go-around. Better luck next time, if there is one.

Hey, at least I don’t have to go to work today. I thought the wife was off, too, but she apparently forgot to put in to be off, and so she’s stuck working. I’m on-call this week, though. Well, not technically “on-call” because that would mean that I’d get paid something like $4.35 an hour for 16 “off” hours a day plus the 48 hours of the weekend (which would be a nice little bonus), plus get recall pay should I actually get called in. So instead I am “on support” which means, basically, nothing. Except in the case of a holiday, when I need to keep the phone handy, answer e-mails, and keep an eye on the server to make sure it’s running. For this, I earn the gratitude of all NY State residents. And a comp day to use later. With the vast tundra of non-holiday months ahead (no “red” holidays until the end of May, fer chrissakes). I earn another day for Preznit’s Day, but it’s not one we typically take off and no offices are closed.

For this reason, I think it’s time we added some official federal holidays to the calendar. First off, the day after the Super Bowl clearly needs to be a holiday. Those who care about the game (or the commercials) are hungover and unproductive talking constantly all day long about the game (or the commercials – or both), and those who don’t care about the game (or the commercials) really don’t wanna have to hear about the game (and the commercials) all day long. So, perfect excuse for a Monday holiday. Now, we know that Republicans despise the idea of working people getting a day off with pay (hell, they aren’t to crazy about having to pay people even if they are working. So, here’s how we sell it.

Ronald Reagan was born on February 6th, so I say we designate the Monday after Super Sunday as “Reagan Day.” That’s right – a holiday for the Gipper. :pup: I mean if the greatest American of all time doesn’t deserve a national holiday, I don’t know who does.

Then we’re on to March. This one’s easy: St. Patrick’s Day. Yep, a good way to stick it to all those secular atheists out there by adding a religious holiday for a change (you know, unlike Christmas). The only question here is whether the holiday should be on the 17th or the 18th. On the one hand, it was always really the day after SPD when I most needed a day off. But on the other, it sucks to have to miss out on those early morning drink specials (there was a bar in Oswego that used to have penny beers from 7-8 AM, nickel beers from 8-9, dime beers from 9-10, and then, well, I’m actually a little fuzzy on what came next).

Now what? April. Earth Day is in April, but you might have a hard time slipping that one past the Climate Change deniers and Glenn Beck devotees (side note – I caught “A Face in the Crowd” for the first time in a while this weekend, and if Glenn Beck aint the reincarnation of Lonesome Rhodes, I don’t know who is).

Easter would seem like a no-brainer here, if you could just count on the damn thing being in April. But the Catholics (or whoever came up with this crazy scheduling scheme) have it in March some years for some stupid reason that nobody understands (I read they supposed explanation once, and all it did was give me a headache; personally I think it’s all bullshit. Oh, yeah, and “40 days after Lent” is not and acceptable answer). So either we tell the Catholics (or whoever’s in charge of this) to either pick a fucking Sunday in April and stick with it, or we have to pick another date (which would be a shame, ‘cuz with Easter you get a perfect excuse for at least a 4-day weekend: Good Friday, and then the day after Easter – Marvelous Monday or whatever you want to call it. Throw in Maundy Thursday, Holy Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday and you’ve got a built-in vacation week).

Hey, you know what? If every asshole employer out there can claim to have had a religious revelation and deny their employees birth control, then the least we should get out of it is a week off of work.

So let’s leave Easter on the table (and I’m all for adding in all those Jewish Holidays that I know nothing about; I can drink wine, eat matza and then recline in celebration of freedom – as long as I don’t have to go to work), but we’ll need to choose another day that’s always in April.

Did you know that the first Friday of April is National Walk to Work Day? How ironic (and uniquely American) would it be to celebrate walking to work day by staying home (or better yet, driving someplace for the weekend)? I think we have a winner there, folks. We can get it sponsored by AAA or Exxon/Mobil or something. Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13th, so that’s a possibility, too.

May. May has Memorial Day of course, but that’s not until the end so we need something earlier. May Day seems obvious – sales pitch: let’s take that day back from the commies! And what with the changing demographics in this country, I think any politician who proposes a national holiday for Cinco de Mayo is gonna get a boost in the polls.

I know that vacation season starts to kick in after Memorial Day, but there’s a real dearth of holidays in June (D-Day comes to mind) and August (hey, if Americans can’t celebrate the use of atomic weapons to fry a couple hundred thousand mostly civilian people, what can we celebrate? And imagine the sales you’d have at your local Nissan and Honda dealers).

Oh, and if we can’t get at least one day of for Oktoberfest, then, damnit, America is just not the great melting pot she claims to be.

Today may be MLK day, but right now it looks more like “snow day” ( very under-appreciated movie, by the way). It’s warmish right now, but that’s not supposed to last for long and there’s a real cold stretch of weather ahead this week.

Glad I’m off.

Exciting news this morning out of London, as researchers at the University of Winchester claim to have discovered King Alfred’s pelvis in a box of bones. This will no doubt spawn a rash of prank phone calls to the U of M’s archaeology department.

Caller: “Do you have King Albert’s pelvis in a box?”
Archaeologist: “Yes.”
Caller: “Well give it back!”

King Alfred, for the overwhelming majority of us here in America who have no clue, was a 9th Century king who kept the Vikings out of England and who was apparently big on education, among other things.

Alfred, a Saxon king who ruled from 871 to 899, is known for blocking repeated Viking incursions, reordering his nation’s finances and reforming its legal code. He’s also remembered as an educator, inviting scholars from across the continent to his court, directing young English freemen to learn to read and even translating several works on his own.

“He’s one of England’s most famous kings,” said Simon Keynes, a University of Cambridge historian who is an authority on the monarch. “He’s the only one that’s called ‘Great.'”

At a press conference at the University of Winchester, researcher in human osteology Dr Katie Tucker provides some sort of estimate to reporters based on the pelvis (which appeared to intimidate if not downright terrify her).

Tucker went on to say that “this may explain why Alfred was referred to as ‘the Great’.”

Well, snow has returned to my area this morning. Looks like we’ve gotten a couple of inches so far, on our way to six, they say. It will then stop snowing and the temperature will drop to about zero. A little something to look forward to.

Thank goodness Monday is a holiday.