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?

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!

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

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.

Today may mark this collection of states' first step toward FED-GOV control of health care, which, if I may fashion my tin-foil hat into something less alarming -- perhaps a Lincoln style stovepipe, once considered the height (extra high) of fashion for not just the statesman but also the banker, the barrister, and the butcher) -- and assume the mode of Worried Crank with a wildly inappropriate hat on his head, will eventually end your basic notions of liberty. Health care, my fellow citizens, is the grand matrix of control, the golden goose of the despot. It offers FED-GOV, that sparkling collection of the wise and noble, plausible rationale to assume the authority for control over every aspect of your petty little lives in the sugar-coated name of the Public Interest. Nothing less!

Already governments pass laws -- like snakes they are, elected vipers! -- intended to lower the risks of injury (helmet laws, seatbelt laws) or to reduce the cost of health care (smoking laws, trans-fats laws). These are mere spots of rain before the deluge, good people, meager appetizers before the main course of foulness. For soon there will be the Welfare Police, who will make the IRS look like flower-sniffing little girls wearing sun dresses on sunny Springtime afternoons, to start monitoring your behavior, issuing you fines, and collecting frequent offenders for mandatory re-education in the Ministry of Health, the Welfare Police!

Imagine this future, fellow American, you poor doomed flea in a giant burning pool of ointment. Imagine your rambunctious son Little Jimmy climbs a tree; and you are issued a ticket for a health code violation. Little Jimmy might have fallen from that tree and broken some part of himself, costing the public for his health care. That money needs to be recouped somehow, right, citizen? Little Jimmy must be prevented from harming himself, nicht wahr? By the way, has Little Jimmy been evaluated for attention deficit disorder yet? Let me just check here on my Welfare Police Database....

Imagine my neighbor Beefy Lou smuggles some of his beloved cheese-whiz from Mexico, and is arrested at the border for possession of a controlled substance. "Did you intend to distribute that cheese-whiz, Beefy Lou? You look as if you've been using it. Just what *is* your BMI these days, Beefy Lou? Report to a Health Inspection Clinic prior to your arraignment."

Fantasy? Paranoia? Sad-cat disease? Do not similar things for relatively similar offenses happen today? Are not people issued tickets for exceeding the speed limit? Why is this? Do not harmless little pot-smokers find themselves arrested at border crossings for possession of illegal plants? Why is that?

And what then, dear dreary fellow sad-faced American citizen with little frown lines showing up on faces once beautiful and filled with life, joy, and a sort of sparkling effervescence, what then? Will the Every-Day-Helmet industry take off due to regulations regarding riding bicycles and crossing the street? Will professional sports be banned due to unnecessary risk of injury? Will it remain legal to complain about these things? If they can break one Constitutional Amendment, they can break others. All in time, my flayed and fractured, falling into tiny smelly pieces that collect on everything in the room like dust, except it's not dust, it's the very essence of your love for life, fellow citizen. All in time.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The new Doctor is a dork. Sigh.