Those of you who follow the news may have noticed that it seems to be all the rage lately to report upon the rather bleak employment situation. I can tell you that where I work, we are certainly getting into the spirit of things, and we're doing our little bit to contribute to the unemployment rate. Rex got let go over a year ago of course, Sulser's been long gone as well, then they laid off Aaron, and then Matt got the old heave-ho. Last week, apparently having gotten bored with axing single employees one-by-one, they busted all remaining full time employees down to 32 hour work weeks. Myself, I'd be downright glad to get thirty-two hours- I don't work a set schedule, just long enough to get my work completed, and turns out lately there's been precious little work to complete. Since my job just isn't the gold mine it used to be in happier days, and before it gets to the point where I have to buy off-brand cat-food, I figured it was time to scout around for supplemental sources of income.

My first thought was to look for a second job, but of course looking for a second job presents its own set of problems. Foremost among these is the risk that I might actually find a second job, and then where would I be? I'd be stuck going to some sucky job, that's where.

So long story short, what I decided to do was sign up to be a contestant on the TV game show Jeopardy!, and short story shorter, what happens when you sign up to be a contestant is that you have to take this qualifying test online to weed out the morons. And today was the day for all us Jeopardy! hopefuls to take the test, today at 8pm EST.

The way the qualifying test works is that you get a series of questions, and have fifteen seconds per question to type in the answer, and the goal is to get at many correct answers as you can. As you would expect from Jeopardy!, they do a pretty classy job with the test, although I think it would have been even better had they played the Jeopardy! theme song while the test ran. But I can see how maybe they thought that might distract some people, and anyway you can just hum the theme song in your head if you're so inclined.

The questions generally are of the type where either you know the answer or you don't, and if you don't know it you're pretty much screwed because fifteen seconds isn't really long enough to cheat and google the answer. For example there was a question about what actress played Benjamin Button's love interest Daisy, and since I've never even heard about no "Benjamin Button" (which I gather is a movie or something) I was kind of lost... I knew they made a Dukes of Hazard movie, and I think there was a Daisy in the Dukes, but thing is I didn't see that movie either, however I'm pretty sure that it was that Simpson chick who played THAT Daisy, but for the life of me I couldn't recall whether Daisy Duke ever even had a love interest- I mean, sure she was always kind of sweet to Enos, but that don't mean she was sweet ON Enos, hell, she never was sweet on Nobody in Hazard County, far as MY eight-year-old-ass could tell, and given the sorry specimens of inbred rednecktivism on display in Hazard County I can't say I blame her. What I'm driving at is I'm pretty sure I got the question wrong.

I did keep track of those questions which I'm reasonably sure that I got correct, though, and face it when your first impulse is "great wall of china" or "sword of damocles", it's probably right, so I'm pretty sure I got 30 questions right. "Thirty Questions!" you say- "Fabulous!" Well, I wish I could share your enthusiasm, but sadly those 30 probably correct ones were out of a possible total of 50. And I'm pretty sure that those remaining 20, well, I got them wrong. As it's unlikely that my default answer ("Batman!") was correct in more than a small minority of those questions.

I DO hope they grade on a curve. But if not, hell, there's always Wheel of Fortune.

It's been startlingly cold around here lately, as you probably know if you've been outside. Going outside was unavoidable for me yesterday, as I had to go to work. So I know first-hand just how cold it was.

I was planning on taking the bus to work, but since as usual I was running late I was going to have to ride my bike to the bus-stop, but since it was so cold the bike-lock was all stiff, and when I tried to force the key anyway it up and busted on me (the key did) and so I had to go back inside and get some pliers to turn the busted key-end in the lock to get it (the lock) to open, and by then it was too late to catch the bus anyway, so hell with it, I decided just to bike to work. Turns out, when you got a wind chill of minus 20 or so, riding a bike to work is a singularly unpleasant experience. Even my eyebrows began to hurt. I had never even suspected before that eyebrows were equipped with nerves, seeing as how they are only made out of hair mostly, so I guess I can say I learned something new. Halfway I stopped at the Marathon station to defrost a little, and the Indian man behind the counter just sort of glowered at me contemptuously the whole time, not even trying to disguise his irritation. Apparently maybe in India it's some sort of faux-pas to be cold? This is another new thing I have learned.

Naturally, I was quite late to work- even more so than usual, I mean- and so Allison was like "S'matter? Your watch stop?" So I was "Well no, see it was so cold that I had to stop at the Marathon station to warm up but it turns out that it's really bad manners in India to do so I guess. Also I don't got a watch." Allison accepted this excuse at face value, because obviously anyone who doesn't have sense enough not to ride a bike to work on the coldest day of the year can't really be expected to know the finer points of Indian etiquette. Even after I got all my work done, I still hung out at the office for a while because hanging at the office was preferable to going back out into the cold again. That is just how cold it was outside.

So that's why I'm sitting here writing this today, as it's far too cold to leave the house and find something more entertaining to do. Not that it isn't freezing in here, for that matter. I'm reluctant to turn up the heat though, because in what turned out to be a remarkable instance of poor planning, when I moved in I set up the kitty-litter box next to the intake vent for the furnace. In retrospect, that was a pretty poor decision. Because when the heat comes on the air comes out faintly tinged with the aroma of cat-turd, especially at those times when the cat's just gone and done her thing. When it's all said and done sometimes you're better off just staying cold. I'd move the box, but now the cat has gotten used to it being there, and you know how cats are, and it'd be a shame to move the box only to have the cat continue to poop in the same place anyway. For one thing, it'd probably ruin the floor there, and then I'd never get my deposit back

For another, I'd have cat poop on my floor.

Last weekend, I zipped off to the store to get some things. Unbeknownst to me, the store was hosting some sort of Post Holiday New Year's Blowout Extravaganza Sale-o-Bration at the time, and as a result the checkout area was completely jam packed with glazed-eyed shoppers. Shopping carts mounded over with discount markdown holiday crap. Naturally, I sidled over to the display of fake poinsettias on clearance and discreetly ditched the queen-size sheet I'd been planning on buying (ain't nothing like new bed-linens, I always say), and hot-footed it to the door. On the way home, I got my first flat tire of the year. Then it started to rain.

My New Year wasn't starting out optimally, is what I'm trying to say.

Checking my credit card receipts, I see that I've incurred expenses involving flat tires on 11/29/2008, 12/02, 12/16 and 12/22. I also got a flat over Christmas, because Jesus hates me. Apparently. This is getting to be a weekly phenomenon, this flat-tire business, and I for one am getting heartily sick of it. I've gone through an entire pack of patches in only one month... What I ought to do is invoice the city for my removing all the bits of broken glass and nails from the pavement with my tires... it's really quite a public service I'm performing after all... Hell, it's not like I even need to run over anything anymore, these lousy tires. Just look at them the wrong way and they go flat.

This morning, riding to work, I got yet another flat.

So, after work (by this time, the other tire had managed to go flat too, for good measure, despite the bike being parked all day) I moseyed on over to the bike shop and bought two new tubes and two brand new tires. Screw it ! I'm just going to replace every damn thing in sight!* No more flats for me! This is my New Year's Resolution!

Now, you might be thinking "Preposterous! You can't make a New Year's Resolution to get no flat tires! It's the ninth already! You'll just have to wait till next New Year's." But the fact of the matter is that my New Year's Resolution from last year- to not be such a terrible procrastinator- well, let's just say that resolution didn't pan out too well.

*When I left the bike shop, I told Bike Shop Dude "See ya later" and Bike Shop Dude said "Yeah, see ya... tomorrow!"

Like most Americans, I was enthralled with the recent Wall Street bailout, which was all over the news, like, a while back. I'm sure you heard about it, it was the one where Congress decided to pony up wheelbarrows of cash to flush up a bunch of Wall Street fatcats who, together, have managed to singlehandedly steer the US economy straight into the ditch.

Frankly, I was outraged. Like all of you were, I am sure.

And like all of you, I was thinking "Sure, its all well and good to shovel out the dough to incompetent ninny CEO's as though free money was going out of style, that's great, but if we're going to bankrupt this country just for the hell of it, where THE FREAKIN HECK IS MY CUT. "

So I was tickled to learn today that the good people in Washington hadn't forgotten about me after all! I take back every mean thing I've ever said about our wise and distinguished lawmakers! Turns out, buried deep in the bailout bill is a provision that sends a little do-re-mi my way, to the tune of twenty dollars a month! I saw this on the TV news, and confirmed it on the Internet*. If it says so on the Internet, you know that it's true.

The provision is worded as though it was some sort of tax credit for those who use bicycles to commute to work, but obviously that's just some fancy rigamarole to disguise the fact that Congress wants to send a little green my way but without everybody else getting jealous. It's not like they could have just written:

BE IT RESOLVED: henceforth Huw shall receive, as an expression of the thanks of a grateful nation, twenty rutabagas on the public dime- on account of him being a pretty ok dude.

without all those other clowns who entertain out-sized opinions of their own awesomeness- Judge Judy, for example- lining up and saying "Hey! Where's my twenty clams?!" But clearly, this little windfall is aimed just at me, I mean, who the hell else in this country rides their bike to work everyday, other than me? Nobody, that's who.

Well now, so with this little unexpected largesse- courtesy of those fine folks in DC- I can afford to stretch out a little now! I think I'll just take those twenty smackers and buy me some gas, and drive to work like a normal person from now on.

*Those of you who are unfamiliar with this "Internet" thing I keep talking about may find it helpful to keep in mind the words of longtime senator from Alaska Ted Stevens: "And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes."