I don’t know how this past year was for you, but I hope it was a good one. For me, eh, about average I guess. At this stage of my life, it’s important to adjust expectations, of course. Any year when you don’t lose a friend, a family member, a critter, or have a stroke or a heart attack yourself is a pretty good year.

As is the case with every year, we lost a lot of good people. Robin Williams, Tom Magliozzi, Jan Hooks, Jack Bruce, Paul Revere (the other one), Don Pardo, Lauren Bacall, James Garner, Johnny Winter, Eli Wallach, Bob Hoskins…. The list goes on. But, as of this writing, I’m happy to say that Abe Vigoda is still alive.

And of course 2014 was, hopefully, the year when white people started to notice that cops are killing black kids for no reason and with no consequences. Well, except for the two NYC cops that were executed for no reason.

I don’t know why everybody can’t understand that it’s a bad thing to kill both police officers and unarmed black guys. One does not make the other OK – neither should be tolerated. And protesting the killing of civilians doesn’t make you anti-cop. It just makes you anti-killing of civilians.

So I don’t know what’s gonna happen in 2015. Either things will get better, or things will explode. If I was forced to bet, I’d put my money on the latter – August will, after all, be the 50th anniversary of the Watts riots.

I’m not sure if I’ll make it to midnight, tonight – or even if I’ll bother trying. I think I did last year, but I had to go take a nap and get back up. Either way, I’m glad I don’t have to go to work tomorrow (or Friday)

Whatever you do, have a safe and happy New Year’s Eve, and I’ll see ya next year.

Whatever it is that today means to you, I hope it’s a good one for you and everybody you care about (and your pesky puppies). Here, it’s warm and wet and green, which reminds me of our refrigerator after the power was off for two weeks back in September of ’98. Except that was really stinky, too. I didn’t hear Santa on the roof last night, and it occurs to me that I forgot to pull the pellet stoves out of the fireplace, so I reckon we were passed by once again. Good thing – the only cookies we had to leave out for him were dog cookies. Have a good day, and may you have many happy returns tomorrow.

Well, it was certainly an exciting week last week, wasn’t it? The poor teabaggers and wingnuts – they still hadn’t gotten over Benghazi (let alone Obama opening the borders to terrorists), were falling all over themselves to blame black folks for stepping in front of cops’ bullets (or getting their necks all tangled up in police officer’s arms) and then Obama decides to kowtow to Castro. On top of that, beloved American corporation Sony caves to North Korean terrorists (way to go, Obama) and liberal scourge Andy Cuomo is reluctantly forced to ban fracking (supposedly). And yesterday two NYC police officers were executed for basically being in the wrong place at the wrong time (ironic, perhaps, but horrifying and tragic nonetheless). Welcome to the holiday season.

Speaking of which, there’s much time left to get all your holiday shit together. I imagine lots of people are off this week. Or at least off for a long weekend next weekend. Not me, I’m afraid. I’m off on Thursday, but will be going to work on Friday (though, just between you and me, I’m not expecting a whole lot going on Friday, so I may just duck out a little early and if somebody tells me to leave early on Christmas Eve, I’ll be happy to do that, too).

In terms of snow, things are pretty white around here at the moment, but since the forecast is calling for warm weather and rain (it’s supposed to be in the 50s here on Xmas Eve, so I guess Santa can fly with the top down), it looks like a white Christmas will be something we can only dream about (though there may be some snow to deal with on the morning commute next Friday – not enough to worry about, especially since there’ll be light traffic and no school buses to deal with).

There was some talk of a nasty storm for Xmas Eve, though. Lots of wind and rain here in the East and snow for the Midwest. That could make travelling a royal pain in the ass for a lot of people. Thank goodness I’m not obligated to go anywhere – I can spend my time looking for ways to squander my steadily diminishing supply of money.

For instance, I have for some reason been coveting a rice cooker. Why? No idea. I mean, I can’t think of anything easier to cook than rice (maybe instant coffee or something). Throw the shit in water, boil it, and let it simmer until it’s done. Throw in whatever’s kicking around (garlic, onions, beans, maybe a fresh mouse or two).

I guess there are people who are very particular about their rice consistency and all that, but I sure aint. Fortunately, I think this obsession has passed, since we don’t really have enough counter space around here anyway (especially for the things I use). I’m now pricing out the parts to put together a media center computer to record live tv and serve video from “other” sources. But there’s no urgency there, and it may not even been something I need as I review the available options. Though a dedicated Plex server would be good.

Google has apparently figured out that my schedule now includes going to Costco on Saturday mornings, because yesterday it sent me an alert about the route and amount of time it would take me to get there. Mon thru Fri, Google lets me know how the traffic is for my ride to work in the morning, and sends me another alert before I leave for the day to let me know how long it’ll take me to get home. Sometimes I’ll search for an address on Google and get a notification later on about how long it’ll take me to get there (with the option to tell it I don’t really care so you can quite telling me that).

Some people might find that kind of creepy, and I suppose I did too, at first, until I realized I don’t actually care. Yeah, Google knows where I am (as does my wife, since we share our location information with each other – might come in handy if I drive into a ditch or something), so I guess if Google turns evil and decides to come and get me, it’ll be easy for them. And the NSA, I suppose, but if they wanted me, I’m pretty sure they’d know how to find me.

Good thing I’m pretty much the opposite of the most interesting man in the world (I mean, Dos Equis? No thanks).

I’m mostly waiting for the day when I can do a Google search for pizza and wings, and Google offer to let me pick where I wanna get it from, apply my gCoupon, charge my Google Wallet and dispatch the Google drone (or the Google self-driving car and delivery bot) to drop it at my current location.

I’d be happy to have my groceries delivered that way (those that aren’t already delivered by Amazon, anyway) and let the GCar drive me to work, too.

I only hope Google doesn’t get into the string cheese business, because gString Cheese sounds kinda gross (though if they want to sponsor a music act, gString Cheese Incident would be a good name).

Well, I guess I better get going because there’s a doggy here who insists that I keep petting her, and it’s very hard to type with one hand. Enjoy what’s left of your weekend.

Well, this is a pleasant surprise.

Albany, N.Y. — New York state’s environmental commissioner said today he will ban fracking in New York.

DEC Commissioner Joseph Martens said a five-year study by DEC on fracking will be released next year.

“I will then issue a legally binding findings statement prohibiting (fracking) in New York state at this time,” Martens said at Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s year-end cabinet meeting.

Martens made his announcement after a detailed presentation by state health commissioner Howard Zucker, who concluded that he would not allow his family to drink tap water in an area where fracking occurred.

“I cannot support (fracking) in the great state of New York,” Zucker said.

Zucker said studies showed harmful health effects from fracking, and there were not enough long-term studies to show the effects over time.

Fracking banned in NY and the beginning of normalization of relations with Cuba? Merry Christmas, Wingnuts!

I got home Monday night, and the damned Internet wasn’t working. Or, more accurately, my connection to the Internet wasn’t working. So that sucked. I had to schedule a tech visit for the next day “between 8 and 12” and my satellite receiver keep freezing up when I played a recorded show for more than half an hour or so. So, no Internet, no NetFlix, and no teevee makes for a very dull evening. The tech guy didn’t get out here until 11:00 (not that I’m complaining – I’m usually just happy when they find the house), and it turned out to be a bad trap out at the road. So all was well again by 12:30 or so – obviously too late to drive 35-40 minutes to work.

Otherwise, it was a wet rainy day. Until last night, when it started to snow. There isn’t all that much where I live – a couple of inches, so I won’t bother plowing – but my drive in to work looks pretty shitty, and they’re saying we’re gonna wind up with about a foot of snow by the time the ends on Thursday. I’d prefer no snow at all, or so much snow that I can’t even think about driving to work. This in-between shit is just an annoyance.

So we officially found out that the CIA tortures people on our behalf for no apparent reason – or at least not for any useful information. So, do they do this because they get off on it? Were they initially “well-intentioned” and then just couldn’t help themselves? Or were there just not enough people that hated the United States of Hypocrisy already, and they wanted to make sure we’d have a never-ending supply?

I dunno. The only real news here is that the Senate Intelligence Committee actually had the guts to admit that this torture resulted in no useful information. I expect to see a flurry of indictments in the next few days.

Ha! Just kidding. You can’t get an indictment when you have clear video of a cop strangling a guy to death – you sure as hell aren’t gonna even begin to prosecute anybody over torturing a bunch of those terrorist sand you-know-whatters.

Cue up the Lee Greenwood.

Yesterday afternoon I found myself home alone, which is a good opportunity for me to crank tunes (and cook a week’s worth of food). So on comes “The Circle Game” which I’ve of course heard a million times before but when I listened to

We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look behind
From where we came
[…]
… they tell him,
Take your time, it won’t be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down

I thought to myself, “goddamn, that’s depressing.” I mean, seriously, I felt like crying. ‘Cuz, like, the song stops when the kid’s 20, but I, sadly, didn’t stop when I was 20 and I know how this song really ends, and dragging your feet doesn’t slow those goddamn circles down one bit. Plus I can’t figure out how come while I know I’m not getting any taller, the floor keeps getting farther away.

Oh well, whattya gonna do?

After becoming thoroughly disgusted with the Working Families Party over their sellout to Governor Snotball back in October, I decided to change my party registration. So I printed out the form, addressed it to my local BOE, and promptly set it down on my desk and forgot about it. No idea where it went – the cat probably chewed it up, because when she’s not busy puking or knocking everything off my desk onto the floor, she likes to chew up any paper that looks important.

Then I went to the NY State DMV website to see if I could find out if there was a way to see what the progress was in sending me my permanent car registration and title (apparently there is not), and damned if I wasn’t able to change my party affiliation right there.

The quandary, of course, is to figure out what party to register for. I was going to go back to the Democrats so I could vote in the primary, but then I remembered that the Democrats are the party of Andy Cuomo and I just couldn’t do it. If Howard Dean was still DNC chair, I’d go for it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I dislike the Democrats almost as much as I do the Republicans (but nowhere near as much as the teabaggers), and while I would be proud to vote for Bernie Sanders, let’s face it. By the time the NY Primary rolls around, it’s gonna all be over already, and whoever wins the most delegates between hog callin’ contest in Iowa and whatever it is they do in New Hampshire while supporting whatever Israel does down in Florida will have the whole thing sown up.

We don’t really have local primaries where I live (shit, we’re lucky if we actually get more than one person to vote for in the General), so I took the lazy way out and registered with the Green Party (which is about as useful as registering “no preference”). So maybe Ralph Nader will run again or something.

Either way, we either wind up with a horrible Republican or a slightly less horrible “Democrat.” And we go round and round and round.

You know how when you buy a car and all of a sudden you see millions of those cars everywhere? That’s not happening to me, I guess ‘cuz I don’t really know what my car looks like anymore. I have to park it in the same place everyday so I’ll recognize it (and that’s really only because I have the same license plate). I parked someplace different yesterday at work, and it took me forever to figure out which one it was. For one thing, it’s silver, but in the dark, it looks kinda white. Oh well, after a few years I’ll probably figure it out.

Speaking of being white, I sure am glad that’s what I am. I may be short and unathletic, but at least it’s not legal for the police to shoot or choke me to death. Well, I guess technically it’s legal, but killing old white guys is generally frowned upon. And it made for a nice experience at airport security in Minneapolis on the way back home on Sunday, as they marked my boarding pass and allowed me to keep my shoes on and only go through the metal detector instead of the full-body scanner thing. Or maybe they just didn’t want to subject the screeners to the ghostly recreation of my nude body. Can’t blame ’em for that.

I never caught much of a break back when my hair was still mostly dark and I had a ponytail down to my ass, that’s for sure. I guess there are advantages to looking old and non-threatening. The only downside was I got through security so fast that I had a long time to kill at the gate. But since everybody’s got free WiFi these days, I was able to watch NetFlix, which is probably what I’d have been doing at home anyway (though in a more comfortable chair).

Speaking of NetFlix, I started watching a BBC show (I think it’s BBC, though it’s listed as a “NetFlix Original”) called Happy Valley (don’t worry it’s got nothing to do with Penn State) that’s pretty good. And I’m about five episodes into season 3 of Lilyhammer, which I think has been the best season yet. So far, anyway.

I’ve got about 12 more months of my commitment to DirecTV, and then I’m gonna pull the plug on it. It’s just too damn expensive, and in a few months I can save enough to put together a pretty darn good media server. About the only thing I’ll miss is live sports channels like ESPN, but that’s mostly for SU sports – and they’re too hard to watch these days anyway.

Well, I suppose I’d better get the process of going to work rolling. Once again, a four-day week is proving to seem twice as long as a five-day week (especially following a six-day weekend – even if a lot of that was spent sitting at the airport or stuffed into an economy class airplane seat. My knees don’t like being bent in one position for that many hours).