Sad to hear that the Professor – Russell Johnson – finally made it off the island at age 89. But he did outlive Gilligan. The Skipper, too. The millionaire and his wife…. I only wish I knew how he was able to recharge batteries with coconuts. As if that wasn’t enough sad teevee news for one day, Dave Madden (who those of us of a certain age will remember as the beleaguered ‘Partridge Family’ agent Reuben Kincaid) also died yesterday at the age of 82.

All the famous (and semi-famous) people from my youth are croaking – it’s rather depressing. I watched my folks go through it, of course. They’d read the paper and say, so and so (who I’d never heard of) had died, and I wouldn’t think much about it. Then people like Jack Benny started passing away, and of course I knew who they were but they were what I considered “old” at the time so it did really phase me all that much. And some of these old timers – like Bob Hope – actually outlived my parents. But now it’s happening to me, and it kinda sucks.

I was listening to some podcast or other on the way home from work last night, and somebody mentioned an author who would go on “Johnny Carson” and I thought to myself, how many kids these days have no idea who Johnny Carson was? His last Tonight Show was in 1992. That means there are millions of people out there old enough to drink, drive (though hopefully not at the same time; I always say, “don’t drink and drive. Drink first, then drive”), and join the army who weren’t even born when Johnny was on the air (that’s assuming I did the math right – I’m sure my wife will be along to check it for me shortly).

The big excitement at work yesterday was that the “Picture Day” date is set. Every year they come around and take pictures for the “Hospital Week” newsletter to show how much they appreciate us (in lieu of, like pay raises or bonuses or anything meaningful), and then that week they get some upper mucky-muck to get out of bed early to hand out some lame trifle as you arrive for work that morning (not that they get up early enough to beat me into the office – buncha slackers). Last year it was a friggin’ ID card lanyard, and past “prizes” have included the world’s shittiest reusable grocery sack and a plastic coffee mug that said “go green” or something on it. Personally, I think they should save the money and give me a nickel bonus in my pay.

But picture day is set for February 20th, and we’re all agog. Well, except for me. I rather a-agog (gogless?). I have never participated, and don’t really see the point. Nobody wants to look at a picture of me (even lost in a group) and I already know what I look like (hell, I spend a lot of time trying to forget what I look like – why would I want a permanent reminder?).

Well, it’s Friday. Always a good thing, of course, but it’s even better in that there’s a three-day weekend coming up (for me, anyway, and hopefully for you all, too), and with Fri/Tue being work at home days, I don’t have to leave the house (other than for a beer run. Or two) until Wednesday morning. Even better, it’s the return of Bill Maher tonight (though he’s got Mary Matalin and her kewpie doll husband on tonight. Carville can be kinda funny – though I find him hard to look at; he’s kinda creepy – but I could never stand her). But there’s Glenn Greenwald, too, so hopefully he’ll balance her out.

Well, it appears that I need to either get some coffee going or go back to bed. Let’s get this week over already.

We have two birthdays to celebrate today. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on this date in 1929. I look forward to having Monday off in his honor. More importantly, though, it’s my dad’s birthday. He’d have been 94 today, and it’s hard to believe that come September he’ll have been dead for 20 years. It’s also Charo’s birthday. She isn’t 94, but you couldn’t tell by looking at her (at least from the picture I just saw of her online). I think she was the original person famous for being famous (at least, I could never figure out why anybody paid attention to her – being married to Xavier Cugat doesn’t really seem to justify it to me). She always sounded like she had shit in her mouth, and that cuchi cuchi crap got old in a hurry.

While we’re doing birthdays, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that it’s also the b’day of Don Vilet (aka, Captain Beefheart), Ronnie Van Zant, and the great drummer Gene Krupa. I could go on, but I’ll spare you (I mean, it’s not like you all don’t know how to use the Internet for yourselves – which of course disqualifies you for being a Supreme Court justice). Except I’ll add that it’s also Lloyd Bridges’ birthday – can’t leave Lloyd out.

Did you miss NJ Governor Schultz Schultzie’s State of the State address yesterday? Me too. But, straight shooter that he is, he went right to Bridgegate, delivering a stirring thema culpa in the time-honored politician passive-tense style.

“…[M]istakes were clearly made.”

Reminds me of the years between about 1978 and 1986.

“Drugs were clearly ingested. Alcohol was most definitely consumed. Blackouts occurred, and, yes, there was puking involved. Lots of puking. I personally don’t know who did all that, but it happened under my watch, so I will accept all non-legally binding responsibility for those actions that, apparently, occurred without my knowledge.”

It also reminds me of Ronnie Reagan’s Iran-Contra “admission.”

“Hey, I said I didn’t do any of this shit but turns out the evidence is conclusive that I did. So, hey, must be I did. My bad.”

You know what’s weird? That was in 1987. Doesn’t Reagan seem like he should have been a lot longer ago? I mean, I know 1987 was like 37 years ago (Holy Shit! 1987 was 37 years ago!), but Reagan seems like he should have been in the 50s or something. Eisenhower, Reagan, then Kennedy. Maybe because his crappy movies are from back then, I dunno. I just think his era should have died and been buried a long time ago, but the Republicans and the Teabaggers still worship him.

It’s too dark to see outside at the moment, but the weather widget on my desktop says the current conditions are “freezing fog.” That’s a rather interesting concept. So I guess I’ll be driving to work through a cloud of tiny ice pellets. That should be interesting. Unless it either warms up or gets colder by the time I leave. Today is my late day, so I try like hell to procrastinate to avoid getting to my desk too early.

I hate these late days. It’s not as if I’m sleeping in on Wednesdays and then rolling out of bed at eight o’clock. This morning I rolled out at 4:00, since Fritzi and the gang decided there was something outside that required investigation (not that I was actually asleep, but I was quite comfortable and my foot wasn’t hurting). It was basically pointless trying to go back to bed after that (though I tried). Just another in a long list of things I’ve failed at over the years.

If I bought into all that Catholic shit, I think I’d get me a St. Jude medal. He’s the Patron Saint of Lost Causes (though St. Monica would be a good fit for me, too). And, no, I didn’t actually know that – I had to look that up, but I figured there had to be one. There’s a friggin’ saint for everything – for all the good they do. In fact, there are so many causes out there, the saints pull multiple duty.

Take St. Drogo. Patron Saint of unattractive people, Baume-les-Messieurs, bodily ills, broken bones, cattle, coffee house keepers, coffee house owners, deaf people, deafness, dumbness, Fleury-sur-Loire, gall stones, hernias, illness, insanity, mental illness, mentally ill people, midwives, mute people, muteness, mutes, orphans, ruptures, sheep, shepherds, sick people, sickness.

Do they hand this shit out by lottery, or do they have a big meeting in Catholic heaven.

“OK, ruptures. Who wants ruptures? Drogo? OK, good. I’ll put you down for hernias, too – they kinda go together. Next up we got Mad Dogs – Hubert, can I put you down for that?”

Well, it’s still way too damn early to start getting ready for work. Guess I’ll have to find a way to kill some time.

Back on Friday, I ate something very, very hot. It was actually one of those little pizza roll things, so the inside was full of extremely hot tomato sauce and melted cheese. When I bit into it, this boiling mixture squirted out and instantly flash fried the inside of my mouth (at which point the cheese solidified and adhered to the burning flesh). Ouch. Then it turned into a big ass blister, which then popped (mostly because I squeezed it ’til it popped). It has hurt like a son-of-a-bitch since. On Sunday, as I prepared to go get my weekly groceries and gasoline at the shopping “club,” I went to their website to see if they sold OraJel (or something like it) there. No hits on “OraJel,” so then I searched for “benzocaine.” That returned one result – Vagisil. Apparently that’s go benzocaine in it. I don’t know what else is in it, so I wasn’t sure if it was something safe to use in your mouth, so I did a Google search for “Vagisil oral.”

In retrospect, I probably should have anticipated the results returned but, illuminating as they were, they weren’t really the kind of information I was looking for. After verifying that they indeed did not sell any OraJel-type products, my only real alternative for pharmaceutical-related stuff without driving all over hell was to go across the street to the Wal-Mart Supercenter. Not my favorite place to go, but this burn is right inside the corner of my mouth, and it hurts like hell to try and peel my lip back just to floss my teeth. Trying to drink coffee is a rather painful exercise as well. So, heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it was off to Wal-Mart I did go.

So I got myself some generic benzocaine-type crap and while I was there I got a really cheap (yet relatively expensive) “rustic” wall clock to put over the teevee in my office so I can more easily see how much time I’m wasting. And the benzocaine sorta works, but you can’t really deliver a precision application with it, so you wind up numbing your tongue and lip and the back of your throat, and it doesn’t really last all that long anyway. Beer works better, but I only had four beers in the fridge last night, so that didn’t last long and I had to go to bed early (which is actually probably a good thing, but then there’s the damn foot thing to keep me awake so that’s not so great either).

The foot thing is a real pain in the ass (counter-intuitive as that may be), and when you add a sore mouth and no beer, well, life just seems to be pointless. Especially with having to go to work again today (for a full week for the first time in a while – this is gonna suck). Of course, there seems to be a lot of jab hatred going on around here lately. At least, I think that’s what it’s about. There are times when I just have to wonder what the point is – but I’m too damn stubborn to just cash in my chips (not until I max out my credit cards and use up all my sick and vacation time, anyway).

And of course I have to see how the rest of hoops season goes. So I guess I better get ready work work. Bleh.

I’m not terrible astute, but it seems we have to pick from three different scenarios re: the whole Governor Schultz Shultzie bridgegate thing. Either a) – Schultzie is so clueless and out of touch that he has no idea what his inner circle of advisers is doing in his name, or 2) – he was at least aware of was going on if not directly involved in it and at least tacitly approved of this vendetta or iii) – he ordered it and/or directly approved it being carried out. If it’s a above, then he’s a moron who isn’t qualified to be NJ Governor let alone President (though he’s got more than enough brains to be Governor of Texas). If it’s 2 or iii, then he’s just a big (excuse the expression) fat mean-spirited not too smart lying liar. In which case he should probably move across the river and run for the NYS Senate where you’re hard to get rid of even if you beat up your girlfriend and slash her face with a broken glass.

Speaking of NY State politics, I was overjoyed to read this morning that Donald Trump is meeting with 40 NY State Republican leaders in Manhattan today so they can convince him to run for Governor. No word on whether or not he’ll stop at the Central PArk Zoo to visit his relatives at the orangutan enclosure (just kidding; they don’t have orangutans at the Central Park Zoo).

I didn’t think the Republicans could top the ignorance, mental instability, and narcissism of Carl Palladino but by golly, if they can pull this off I think they’ll have done it. This should pretty much assure us of another term of Governor Snotball, assuming he doesn’t become Hillary’s VP. I can’t see him taking on Hillary in the primary if she winds up running (I mean, he’s one of Bill’s boys, so he should know better than to cross the Clinton Cabal – just ask Vince Foster, am I right – wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

It’s already a stifling 25%deg; here – on our way to a high of 37. And tomorrow they say our high temp will be in the mid-fifties. Just when the sump pond was starting to drain, too. Guess I ought to get some work done.

I actually got a good night’s sleep last night, as opposed to the night before when my foot hurt so bad all night long, all I could do was lay there with my earbuds in listening to old time radio and trying not squirm around too much and keep my wife awake. I attribute last night to the fact that I spent most of the day (and the evening) soaking my foot in ice water. In fact, I have it in ice water right now. If it doesn’t actually help, it at least numbs the shit out of it – and that’s good enough at this point.

So, as you may have seen on the news (or experienced for yourself) the cold weather finally arrived on the East Coast. I think the high yesterday was 8° here. It wasn’t so much the cold, though, as it was the wind. It was a constant 40 mph or something. Fortunately for us, is was blowing directly from west to east, which means we got almost no snow. For the folks to the east of Lake Ontario, though, they got like three feet of snow in addition to the cold and wind. Sucks to be them.

It’s still in the single digits here this morning, but it’s supposed to get all the way up to 18, so that will feel nice and warm. Not that I’ll see any of it, since today is my late day and by the time I get home it’ll be darker than a, well, something dark (I’d say a well-digger’s ass, but that would be crude plus I think the expression is actually “colder than a well-digger’s ass,” which it will also be by the time I get home).

Today is Governor Snotball’s State of the State address (or whatever he calls it). My wife is actually attending (there’s some bus going or something), and she’s going to attend next week’s lobbying day in Albany, where our State representatives (or, more likely, their bored staff members) pretend to listen to and give a shit about what We the People have to say (unless accompanied by a wheelbarrow full of cash, I somehow doubt they’ll be doing a lot of listening, let alone caring). But I’m just a cynical old bastid, so good for her and everybody else that’s going.

I guess I’d better pull my foot out of this ice water and get ready for work. Stay warm out there.

They said it would be cold by the time we got up this morning. They lied. It’s actually damn near fifty degrees out there now. I went and turned the pellet stove on before I went to bed so the house would be relatively warm this morning. Things look to be getting a little wild and woolly out there, though. The wind is kicking up (supposed to be sustained 40 mph wind today) and it was snowing some nice big fluffies for a while, though that seems to have stopped at the moment.

Now they say it will only drop into the twenties this afternoon, and below zero overnight tonight. So that’s good. Speaking of cold, you really have to hand it to the San Francisco 49ers. Those latte-drinking warm-weather sissies (and, no, I most certainly will not say that to their faces) went up to a very cold Green Bay Wisconsin and won. By the end of the game, it was like two degrees out there. :cold: The thought of getting hit by one of those giant humans and slammed into the frozen tundra when it’s that cold…. Let’s just say, “ouch.” So, anyhow, good for them. And good for NO for beating the Eagles. I’d have liked to see KC beat the Colts, but what a game that one was. All in all, a pretty entertaining sports weekend, considering I don’t have any real interest in the NFL playoffs this year.

And Duke lost, which is good, but only because ND won, which is bad – so I’m torn over that one. Still, the “new kids” in the ACC went 3-0 in their first games, so that’s good. I guess.

According to the Marijuana News Network (yeah, there is such a thing) New York State is “likely” to legalize pot “soon”. What are these people smoking? Governor Snotball has come up with a plan to allow medical marijuana in a very (very) restricted fashion (which I’m sure has nothing to do with polls showing that 82% of NYers support it), but I don’t see any signs that full-out legalization is imminent (though I can hope).

I’m not exactly holding my breath (except for maybe for short periods of time :bong: ), but it sure would be nice to ditch the purine-infested bottle that’s killing my feet in favor of some all-natural Simple Green.

We’ve gotten a brief reprieve from the super cold weather, and it’s been kind of nice. Yesterday it actually got up to 31°, which was a 35 degree rise from where we started the day (it was actually colder than that out here in the boonies where I live). Plus the sun was out for most of the day, so we took advantage of that extra 10 minutes of daylight we’ve picked up since winter officially began. And today it’s actually supposed to get above freezing – all the way to 36! It’s even supposed to get up into the 40s at some point after midnight, before the Arctic Express or Polar Plunge or whatever it is makes its way east and plunges the temps into single digits by morning. It’s not supposed to get as cold as it was a couple of days ago (or as cold as it is in the Midwest), but still pretty cold. If things get all melty out there, I should probably go out and scrape the driveway down so it doesn’t turn into one big skating rink. I’m really glad I’m off again tomorrow.

You know those “state” quarters? The US Mint began distributing them on this date back in 1999. I don’t know what astounds me more – that these things have been around for 15 years, or that 1999 was 15 years ago already. Seems like just yesterday everybody was terrified that airplanes would start dropping out of the sky, the power grid would collapse, and that anything with a computer chip in it would stop working (I mean, apart from the power grid collapsing). Ah, those were great times to be an old retired Cobol programmer. Sadly, I only took about three classes worth of Cobol and decided it sucked, so I quit. Another in a long line of poor choices on my part (I went from a computer programming major in community college – having already dropped out of two four-year schools back in 1983 or so – the exciting world of showbiz. Movie theatre usher to assistant manager to projectionist). At least I managed to earn a few credit to eventually apply to my eventual IMT degree, even if it took 27 years or so.

As you may have heard, it’s been a kinda cold and snowy in certain parts of the country (mainly the Midwest – I feel bad for you people), and a “Polar Vortex” is supposed to make things even worse. We didn’t get much snow here (something like 10 inches I guess), but the past couple of days have been pretty chilly. I think we made it up to about three degrees yesterday. The snow we got was very fine stuff, and while it wasn’t heavy, it was constant. Salt doesn’t work when it’s that cold out, so it was like driving on very tiny glass beads. In other words, quite slippery. Things are supposed to warm up a bit today and even more tomorrow before getting cold again next week.

Next week, bleh. Not looking forward to returning to the office next Wednesday. Not only is it a late day for me, but I have to go to the return of our stupid meetings. The überboss (though not the überest boss) has been a real prick lately (largely because I don’t think he actually does anything, and occasionally feels the need to assert the authority of his position. Or something), so this should be a very uncomfortable meeting. There are only 5 people in my group, so it’s pretty hard to hide. I just hope I can manage to maintain my outward veil of apathetic disdain, because I’ve not been particularly pleased with my situation lately, and I’m getting old enough where it’s hard to put up with bullshit. But I need a job and two more years before I get tenure, so I really need to keep my mouth shut.

You might have heard that Bill Nye is going down to the Creationist Museum in Kentucky to debate its founder (some guy named “Ham”) about Creation “Theory” vs. Evolution. I’m not really sure what that’s going to accomplish. Bill can bring out as many scientific facts as he wants, and all the Ham needs to say is “‘cuz God says so.” You’re never gonna win a debate with a true believer. And I don’t think this “debate” is gonna change any minds on either side of this “controversy”. The jeezus people aren’t gonna be swayed, and rational-thinking people will probably have something better to do (like, maybe, read a book that isn’t the bible). But they’re charging $25 a head for this show, so I guess that’ll pay for the new Jesus riding a Carnotaurus exhibit.

Well it’s only about three degrees out there now (proving both evolution and global climate change are myths), but it’s supposed to get all the way up to 27 this afternoon. I’m not sure if that means I’ll venture out of the house or not. After all, the ACC era for SU Basketball begins at 2:00, so I pretty much have to watch it.

I don’t know about you, but for me yesterday was pretty much a wasted day of vegging out to crappy cable movies and Bioshock 2. I was just too beat to do much of anything else, and I went to be early after drinking a paltry three beers. I didn’t even watch any college football bowl games – looks like I missed a good one in the Rose Bowl. But what do I care about Michigan St or Stanford? My greatest feat last night was taking the garbage out.

Speaking feet, putting on socks and shoes to make that 750 foot round trip trek between my garage and the curb (not that there’s actually a curb) to take out the garbage got my feet all kinds of fired up, and they’re pretty sore this morning – especially the left one, which has developed a bit of a little side car on the outside. So I guess the verdict on the apple cider vinegar treatment is still up in the air (though things are better than they were).

If I could just run around barefoot for a few months, I think things would be much better. Sadly, that’s gonna be tough to do. It appears we’re getting some weather here. In addition to the cold (it’s 10° right now, which is about as warm as it appears it’s gonna get today – looks like we’ll be luck to get above zero tomorrow), we’ve got some snow coming down. They say we’re gonna get about a foot between now and tomorrow morning. Add to that below zero temps and high winds (wind chill in the -30 area), and it makes it difficult to plow the driveway barefoot.

Of course, this kind of stuff is to be expected in January (though I may need to have a word or two with the woolly bear caterpillars, as this is not what they promised), but let’s just say I’m not really in the mood for it.

I hope everyone made it through last night’s festivities unscathed. Much to my surprise, I not only stayed awake but caught a second wind at midnight and stayed up until about 1:30 or so. Rather uncharacteristically, I paced myself quite well and didn’t even feel all kinds of hung over this morning. Just tired. I thought I might stay in bed (if not actually sleep) as late as possible, but Fritzi decided that 7:00 was late enough (this despite the fact that my wife was already up and had let all the kids out already), so up I got.

Speaking of my wife, she’s on-call today, so naturally she got called and is now at work trying to solve some crisis or other (basically somebody – a schmuck doctor, no doubt – decided that a patient needed to go back from whence they came, requiring that transport and who knows what else be arranged and paid for. Not exactly a simple proposition on a holiday when everything is closed). So hopefully she’ll be back before 2015 rolls around.

Meanwhile, Fritzi snores away in his bed, content in the knowledge that I am no longer in mine. We’re sequestered away in my office, because that’s the best place to stay warm during the day after the heat gets set back down to 55°. Actually, I don’t think he really cares how cold it gets, but I do. And where I go, he goes (unless there’s a chance of food being available elsewhere, of course).

Speaking of the cold weather conditions (it’s a balmy 19° right now, but we have some very cold air moving in over the next few days – from you bastids over in Minnesota, which I see is pretty much all below zero at the moment. No offense, but can’t you keep that shit to yourselves?), I decided to try the “tea light” heating system with the clay pots yesterday (it was either that, or get some work done).

I have a little electric resistance heater in my office that I turn on from time to time when it gets really cold. The low setting is 1300 Watts, and I usually only need it on for a few minutes – after that, the computers keep thing warm (well, warm enough for me). But I figured, what the hell.

I found a small clay pot and a bigger one to put over it. The small one had enough room to cover 3 candles, so that seemed like a good start before I invest in bigger pots (if only I was in Colorado this morning, and could invest in more pot out there). Sadly, within about a minute (or less) of covering the candles with the little pot (which did, indeed, have a hole in it), the candles went out. I really didn’t have the right configuration so, so much for that idea until I get a better setup. But, before I spent any money on it, I figured I’d do the math and see if this was actually as cost-effective a heating solution as that limey in the video said it would be.

I won’t bore you with the details (I was going to, but then I read what I’d written and realized nobody wants to read that), but for the cheapest paraffin tea light candles I could find at Amazon ($8.40 for 100 weighing 1.6 pounds and using a value of 20,000 BTU/pound of paraffin), it would cost the equivalent of 89¢ per kWh to heat with tea light candles, as opposed to about 13¢ per kWh that I pay for electricity. Not to mention that paraffin is a petroleum product and all that – though I supposed you could get beeswax or soy candles, but now you’re getting even more expensive. Even with British Guy’s way cheaper candles, it would still work out to be about 28¢ per kWh.

So I guess I’ll have to pass on the candle heater idea.

Have a good start to the New Year, and stay warm.