For the past eight months I've been working a "9/80" work schedule -- nine hour days, every other Friday off. Sometimes I work ten hour days and take both Fridays off. It's not creative time accounting; the company has a policy allowing this. I like the off days but I'm not convinced this is a good policy for the company. Some thumping brains somewhere have produced studies showing that most people only have about six hours of productivity in them on any given day, so a 9/80 work schedule may be like giving a day of work away every week. And to be honest, three days off is almost too much. I'm sitting here this morning thinking about work, tempted to actually do some work on a Sunday morning, like a freak. It is the four day work week that I like, which I've found to be perfect for keeping me from methodically knocking people's hats off. What I propose, therefore, a perfect solution I expect some unelected body of UN aristocrats to vote on immediately, is shortening the week to six days. Drop Monday so we start the week two days into it. Four days working, two days off. I believe this will make nine hour days more productive, and reduce the number of postal employee corpses resultant from overwork and stress. I will expect the change within the month.

Just... forget what I said about pregnant women. They are *not* unpleasant to look upon. Really they're not. I swear it.

It seemed like every time I tuned into the Olympics this year I saw ski jumping or cross-country -- the two most boring sports ever invented. And if not one of those two then that hideous combination of them -- cross-country jumping or whatever. Or that one where they shoot their little pop-guns every few hundred meters. Exciting! Lots of cross-country exhaustion that Norwegians seem to excel at.

US Bobsled Team: Rock on fat bald man! I'm always rooting for the fat bald guy in *any* sporting event, but seeing one win in the Olympics was worth about a 20 second Snoopy Dance.

Curling: Last Winter Olympics I couldn't get enough of it, but this year I think I overdosed. Either that or the piss-poor quality of the US teams put me down on curling this year.

Hockey: I'm almost glad the Canadian team won (although I could have done without Sidney Crosby scoring the winning goal). That whole country would have been suicidal if they lost. It would have been like the US Basketball team losing in the Summer Olympics. If the US really cared about the basketball team, I mean. The hockey was the best part of the Olympics though -- very entertaining.

Closing ceremonies: Why no Rush? Celie Cesteline and Finkie Flateroni but no Rush? Neil Young looking tired and bored. Lots of giant inflatable shit twirling around, lumber jacks, mounties, Native Canadians, William Shatner. But wouldn't Mystic Rhythms have been perfect for that corn-fest? Bah!

When a dude asks for a light beer, whatever is on tap, he doesn't care to choose between Bud Light and Miller Light. Unlike people on TV most people in bars don't have much preference between the various kinds of rancid midwestern swill you have in your kegs. Furthermore, when a dude orders a whiskey neat, don't ask him if he wants it in a shotglass. Any 21st century dude knows to ask for a "shot" if he wants his drink in that dopey little glass. A-and don't mock the dude for saying "neat", he knows it's pretentious, he's a pretentious sort of dude. It's not the bartender's job to mock the dude. Ok?

YAWP!

This is quite cool. I may dedicate a workspace to this and maybe run it up in Mozilla Prism. It's sort of the anti- tiny little weather applet nearly everybody has living on their desktop somewhere. And since I hate the weather so very much I want to keep a close eye on it. Lousy weather. Thinks it's so big.

And lo we did behold the high priest upon his altar, flanked by his trained beasts: the gargoyle to his left, and the troll to his right. And we did consume of fermented spirits upon signals from the beasts: as the gargoyle nodded his head to words issued by the high priest, we did consume; and as the troll exuded smirks is a self-satisfied manner, we too did consume. And as the gathered crowds of demons, the blue demons of the sky, and the red demons of the earth, did clamor in approval, and did grumble in censure at the words of the high priest, we did consume. And there was great consuming, and the state of our drunkenness was strong. But lo we did not rest easy that night.

It seems this French dude, some French dude named Pierre Morel has been enlisted to direct the next Dune remake, another Dune remake on the strength of his film Taken. Which seems weird to me as Taken is a very different kind of movie from Dune. This is like asking David Lynch to make Dune on the strength of Blue Velvet. What a strange notion! And I'm not sure we need another Dune; I'm actually a fan of the Sci-Fi Channel's miniseries version, which gave the story enough time to develop properly (not to mention a great soundtrack). Another theatrical version will have to be condensed, squashed, flattened, and made squishy. That's just an injustice to the source material. How about just making an advertisement with some person, some Frenchman maybe, going, "You know what's a really good book that you should read? Dune."

Farouk!
Farouk!
Farouk is on fire!

Hehe... underpants.

This WSJ article is the best concise explanation of the causes of Great Depression II that I've seen. Why, oh glorious exalted masters, must we continue to endure F-you and F-me?

Me and my baby are like gin and tonic,
gin and tonic,
gin and tonic,
See we kind of suck on our own,
suck on our own,
suck on our own,
But we're so damn good together!

Best Discovery of 2009: lots of water on the moon. I can't wait to go there and stay. Screw you guys.

People of 2009:
The most annoying person is Shia LaBeef. What psychopath decided this creature was a movie star and sent him out to inflict himself upon us all? Please make him stop. I'm begging!

The most annoying runner-up: Sarah Palin

The most surprising person is Tiger Woods.

The worst person is a tie between Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. How about a deathmatch between the two of them? Stripped to loin-cloths. With Vulcan dueling weapons.

News
Oracle Buys Sun!

Most Ambitious Engineering Project
The effort to tow Titan from Saturn to solar orbit between Earth and Mars in order to use it as a fuel depot for spacecraft traveling to and from the Martian colonies. Now *that's* progress!

The best politics: World Leaders converge in Copenhagen for historic summit on climate change, and accomplish absolutely nothing. Hurrah!

The worst politics: Senate and House Democrats vote to force all Americans to buy health insurance or suffer prison.

The worst politics: The EPA decides carbon dioxide is poisonous, decides to regulate my every exhalation, congress stands by slack-jawed.

The worst politics: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ($787 Billion stimulus package)

The best music of 2009 is Pink Floyd, Us and Them. Wait, that wasn't this year? Well I really like that song. The best thing in music this year is Lala.com. Search for a song on Google and then listen to the whole thing streamed from lala.com. Buy the DRM-free MP3 for around a buck. (They need to improve their classical catalog though.)

The most disappointing music was The Decemberists, Hazards Of Love. After their twin masterpieces -- Picaresque and The Crane Wife -- this one was a disappointment. Maybe it was too ambitious. Maybe they let the woman sing too much. I don't know, but it made the left side of my face frown (which in me indicates displeasure mixed with perplexity).

The most surprising thing about music in 2009 was what I didn't hate. I listened to Black Eyed Peas and I listened to Poker Face (is it humanly possible not to like that song?). I also really enjoyed the new Insane Clown Posse.

Mostly I read from my Kindle this year, which I still love. If the dreaded Kindle assassin destroyed mine I would buy another one. I read a great many old SF novels and stories: a lot of Jack Vance, who is my favorite writer for two years running now; Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series in honor of his passing; and I still endeavor to catch up on the nebula and hugo nominees from the last fifty years. The only books I read that were published this year were Stephen King's Under the Dome (long and unrewarding with ridiculous characters), and Songs of the Dying Earth, a collection of stories by well-known SF writers that all take place in Jack Vance's Dying Earth setting. I've been reading the latter for the last few months, one story each weekend, and loving every one of them. Surprisingly I put off the new Thomas Pynchon, but I'll probably get to it soon. And I haven't yet gotten to the new Robert Jordan, who is as prolific post-mortem as Tupac, with yet another trilogy of Time Wheelers rolling out.