Snow Take Aways and New Years Policy

Look it’s been a while since I’ve posted so you’re going to get four posts this week to catch up after a week plus of being snowed in and traveling. The topics (if you’re at the least remotely interested) are:

Today (Tuesday): Snow Recap/New Year’s Wishes
Wednesday: Inappropriate Valentine’s Day Dinner Locations
Thursday: Austin Marathon Recap
Friday: How Not to Use Your Out of Office Email/Thoughts on Lost’s Final Season

With that said...here we go...

We got snow? Really? Hopefully the 36-48” that well on the greater DC area during Snomageddon (parts II-IV) will accomplish the following items:

1) Teach this area’s residents how not to panic/grow a pair when it only snows a few inches. May school systems actually only delayed opening by an hour or so today. What an accomplishment.

2) People who previously slowed down to 7 MPH when they saw a snowflake may now just slow down to the speed limit to be safe and not gridlock traffic for the rest of us.

3) Remind people that there is a difference between “parking rules for the snow” (the ones that normal people abide by) and “Guatemalan parking rules for the snow” which involves sticking 3 cars in the spaces intended for one. I will remind our friends practicing the latter that when you park all those vehicles in an area where the country plows should dump the snow, they have to dump it in my parking space instead (which is now under 4 ft of snow!)

Also I want to address people who complain that the municipal plows were late in getting to your streets. Do you have a shovel? Do you neighbors have shovels? Put those together and start clearing some of your street your damn selves. The municipality to which you pay taxes to is trying to benefit the greatest number of residents with limited capabilities. If they haven’t’ gotten to your street, how about lending a hand and not asking what your country can do for you. Get digging.

A few years ago I mused about when you can actually stop saying “Happy New Year” to people. The result of a very unscientific poll was on the date of Chinese New Year (actually it’s called Lunar New Year). This year I’ve come back to revisit those results. The answer is still the same. Therefore there will be no change to the official Nobody Likes a Jerk New Year Greeting policy. Thank you for your time

A New Year, A New Coach, and A New Trophy

Welcome 2010. Hell it can’t be any worse then 2009. Actually for me it started out on a pretty high note. About 10 hours into the new year one finely dressed young man (see picture) stepped up and started the year the way he started last year, by setting a PR in the Montgomery County Road Runners New Years Day 5k. 21:56 was the chip time which was about 30 seconds faster then last year. Word.

The New Year also brings changes. Many of those take place in the National Football League as the regular season wraps up (way to go JETS for crushing the cats from Cincy last night to grab the last playoff spot!) and owners figure that now would be a good time to cut the coaches who aren’t getting the job done. If you had the misfortune to follow the Redskins for the past few years you knew that Jim Zorn was going to suffer one of those cuts at the end of this season. The team’s owner, Dan Snyder, brought in a new management team and their desire to change directions combined with the teams poor performance over the last few...err...dozen years sealed Zorn’s fate. The thing is that Snyder decided to drop the preverbal axe as soon as the team arrived back from their final game in San Diego yesterday. I have two issues to take up here. The first is that the team’s announcement didn’t come out until 4am this morning. This assured the team wouldn’t be ripped on any of the NFL wrap up shows or in the morning papers. Classy job there Dan...I guess old habits die hard. The second item is actually a little more theoretical but still is sticking in my craw. The weather here in DC has been cold to a fault. The wind chill has dipped into the negative degree side of the thermometer and I can think of several places in the Arctic Circle that might be warmer right now. The Skins finished the season in sunny, warm San Diego. Why couldn’t the team notify the coach that he was fired right then and there? Give him a voucher for a first class ticket and just box his office up for him and ship it to any address he asks? This way he can either ride back with the team and clean out his office the next day if he wants or he can stay for a few days in the warmth of the California sunshine (and see if the Chargers might need some help in the coaching ranks for next season!). The way I see it is if he’s going to be axed he might as well get a vacation out of it

Speaking of football....this time on the Fantasy side of things. I am here to proclaim that “Third Floor 3xDope” has just been declared the Best League In Town (BLIT) Champions with a dramatic 2 week win over the Alexandria Parcells. The difference in the end was figuring how to balance the star players that got you to the finals with the real world performances in the last weeks of the season. If they’re playing for a playoff-bound team it is very possible they might sit a large portion of the last few games (ie: Payton Manning, my starting QB!) which means that you have to rely on second string talent like Alex Smith (San Fran) and Vince Young (Tenn). But it worked and I will gladly hold the fictional championship trophy (no Shiva to keep me warm at night!)

I Have to Say That for How Long?

“Happy New Year”

How long do we really have to say that? It goes without much explanation that the first time we see certain people after January 1 this serves as an appropriate greeting (or salutation), but beyond a few weeks how much longer do we have to say it? Do we have to greet each person we meet in the new year with, “Yeah I know its April 23^rd but Happy New Year Bob”?

I’ve saved you some time and done some research into the matter. The best answers I can come up with are from a similar question asked in a forum on Linkedin.com. The answers range from “yesterday” to “December 31, [of the year we’ve just entered].” My favorite (and the one I think I’m going to adopt) is February 24^th (the 2008 date for the Chinese New Year.

So for those of you who I don’t see until February 25, 2008 or later, don’t expect a Happy New Year from me (except for the “chosen folks” who will get a La Shana Tova in September).

But I want to hear from YOU. See the poll on the right of the page and let me know what you think. I will post the results on January 8th.

New Year, New Me?

Well not really (again, Hertz should be paying me for these constant plugs!) but I am excited for the year upcoming and all the posts to this blog that will accompany it. To start things off I want to thank our hosts for New Years (you know who you are) as both Mr. Blogger and his wife (Mrs. Blogger) had a great time with friends and hope to do it again soon.

Now speaking of New Year’s I want to take a moment to take issue with the so-called “New Year’s Eve” programming that the networks (both broadcast and cable) trotted out this year to entertain those of us sitting at home. Every year, it seems, these bastions of mindless entertainment out do each other in the vapid, idiotic, and down right OUCH they manage to program into a few hours every December 31.

Here is just a sampling of what I saw: (in alphabetical order)

ABC

Dick Clark is alive, we get it. He looks pretty good for a man his age especially considering his recent health scare. However, to hear him talk for even a few moments is intensely painful and reminds us that even before the stroke people accused him of being a robot with human skin. Well to their credit he looks even more so now, only this time around his speech matches his amour plating.

I realize that taking Mr. Clark off the air entirely would leave the job up to Ryan Seacrest (Out) but it might be worth the sacrifice. At least this way I could skip the American Broadcasting Company’s programming all together. Seacrest had some in depth observations when talking to New York mayor Mike Bloomberg. When the mayor said he wouldn’t run for President (I still don’t believe him), Seacrest stood there with the “err…what do I say to this guy now?” look on his face. He did however seem more at ease with Carrie Underwood and the Jonas brothers (who?????)

CNN

Pretty-boy Anderson Cooper hosted from New York and other then the timeouts for national news (the same national news that had been airing since 12pm in the afternoon) was just as painful. Perhaps its my high aspirations for national news networks that they might find better stories in the “crowds” of Times Square then the broadcast networks do but alas, even the mighty CNN went with the “we’ve found a lady and her kids here who are immigrants and she just became a US citizen….” Boy am I excited! WAAA-WOOOO and junk. STOP NOW….

ESPN

To it’s credit at least the “4-letter” didn’t have a correspondent in New York broadcasting live from the ball drop telling us about all the sports celbs in attendance. They also didn’t go live to Alex Rodriguez as A-Rod conveniently dropped by the NBC Carson Daily show (read the whole story here ) to let everybody in America know how much he “loves” New York (and managed to really make me ill with his “makeout session” with his wife at the stroke of Midnight). No instead ESPN took us live to the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. You know the one, behind “The Strip” on the other side of the expressway, that bastion of Cool and Hip (and cheap….this is one of the places that you get those $30 room specials on-line). There at a specially designed site, we could watch a world record attempt at motorcycle distance jumping. All of that might have been well and good if the show when started at 1130pm EST got right down to the jump and then we could have tuned into another station to see the ball drop in NY. No. That was not the plan. Instead we had to be introduced to 4 “co hosts, “ all of whom were washed up former athletes who nobody in the audience (including their own families) cared anything about. Then we were treated to an hour, that’s right the damn jump didn’t even occur at midnight (in any time zone!), of packages on the preparations for the jump, how the physics of the jump would work, and oh yes, how the “jump measured up to other events in the world of sport that featured supreme acts of athleticism!”

I beg public television to get it’s HD hat in the ring. Please get a camera on the clock and the ball, leave it there and then just after all the confetti is done falling, go to the celebration in the next time zone (Chicago or something). It’s either that or next year I’m going to stick my head in the sand and wait for the tap on the shoulder that it’s now 2009.

Blogger man… OUT!