The first full work week of the new year felt like everybody was getting repatrioted to their desks. I wasn't completely off for the holidays like some folks, but still it felt like the five days were 12 days long.

We have all the snow that everybody was pining for, enough so that I went to kick a little off the back of my car, a small continental shelf of ice and snow dropped out of my wheel well. The persistent cold does alter your reality. After a string of days in the teens, I saw a forecast for a day in the twenties and it seemed downright balmy. Skipped the hat, left the second scarf at home and turned the heat in the car down a notch. That brings me to one of Murphy's automotive laws, you never lose a headlight when the temp is over 40. It is always bitterly cold and you have to move some metal parts in that cold that cannot be manipulated with gloves on. Somewhere, the automotive gods chuckle.

I occasionally get Mitch Albom's column through a variety of sources and his recent "new rules" column cracked me up, sort of a practical nod to Bill Maher's feature, however indirectly. I didn't agree with every tenet, but he did give a lot of food for thought. Here's what I'd like to see:

Politicos have to know what the word "reform" actually means. Many use it like something is going to change, but most often for them it just means "we'll be the ones screwing you now." Reading about shenanigans in the Erie County Legislature from thursday, no fewer than four speakers used that word in dubious context. And so it goes.

I'd like the Buffalo Bills to quit playing with us. I know Bill Cowher is positioning himself for his optimal next job, and the Bills quest is still in its early stages. While Cowher to the Bills would be great, I don't think it's going to happen. But on the upside, the last winning Bills Coach, Wade Phillips, will probably be available the moment the Cowboys lose. So there are always options. I got a feeling, some coordinator somewhere will be the next guy.

Good thing the Sabres are doing well. They have been a lot more fun this year than in the past two seasons, but they make me nervous still when trying to sit on a lead. Our guys took the third period against the Leafs off and played defense, decent defense, but the Laffs nearly got back into it. The goalie situation is fine, defensively life is good, but Darcy should find the team another offensive threat and who knows where things can go.

Albom mentioned something in his column about Fox, MSNBC, and CNN going off the air at 6. I think they can stay on, but they need to just keep covering news. Rachel Maddow can keep her show since she's smarter than all of the others collectively, but I think the prison hologram in Superman II can accommodate Hannity, King, O'Reilly, Olbermann, Matthews, and even Wolf (as any professional broadcaster who uses "UM" as much as he does could use some downtime.

NBC screwed up with Jay Leno and Conan O'brien. And they continue to screw up, by not figuring this out. Who couldn't see that coming? Dragging out the "what's next?" only makes the Law and Order network (since they will be showing a lot of that soon) look even dumber. I'm thinking it's ultimately going to mean Conan going to Fox as Jay won't want just 30 minutes. Can't see that as an answer as that would mean the Jimmy Fallon show, which has become pretty good, would get blasted to 1:05 am, making it worth a little less.

The local company bought all the tickets to a meaningless football game last week, then announced it was raising rates. That's timing for you.

My inner crumudgeon is showing. We had a heavy snow fall, which is no big deal. We get them every year, and the snow is fine. Never had an issue with it as it is a fact of life living in this region. I do think the Weather Channel might be better served by going some place where this is news as opposed to the skulking around they've been doing in regions south of the city.

I still chuckle remembering my mom telling the 12 year old version of me that perhaps I should help my father with the driveway. In all seriousness, I was able to reply that I was and I went back to watching tv. I knew that my Dad liked fewer targets when running the snowblower.

Like I said, I have no snow issues. It's the effect it has on some folk that is troubling. I think it should be a ticketable offense if you can't be bothered to clean the snowdrift off your car without the aid of your gas pedal.

The false bravado that creeps up in here strikes me funny as well. When that huge storm blew through the East Coast, there were a number of Western New York based facebook posts that lamented "Where's Ours?" like we got gyped out of the power failures, traffic accidents and school closings. Personally, I was happy to sit that one out.

We got our cold and snow and I read about some moron who took three kids to the Bills game only to pass out in a snowbank because he's a "such a fan". Bet the kids had a great time standing next to the snowbank wondering what happened.

Trouble with this is that now that the holidays are behind us, it's not a White Christmas, just snow. It has some novelty at the moment, but right now it looks nice outside my office window. The Park is nice and unspoiled, but that is a transitory state. It's beautiful, but the beauty tends to make some folks a little myopic.

It was fun to watch the Bills play in it yesterday as the snow on tv made the pros look like a pickup game. It was not so fun to look at my windows facing Delaware and see them iced over.

Going to go tubing sometime because that is cool,and have some other outdoors exploration planned, but please unless you are Bing Crosby or Andy Williams, don't use phrases like "Winter Wonderland." You sound like an idiot.

So, that was Christmas (apologies to Mr. Lennon). I'm sort of with (e:Jenks), so much build up and two days later its just cold and winter. Not epically cold like today, but you get the idea. I guess it was a good holiday. Both daughter were pleased as new Ipod touch owners ought to be. Number one son was grinning like a chesire cat mastering Guitar Hero 5, so I guess I did my part well.

Christmas eve dinner was filled with laughs and general silliness. After some handwringing I went back to my folks Friday night. The ex, kids and I got together for presents and brunch which was probably my favorite part of the holiday. I, quite unexpectedly, received from a TomTom from the four of them. Because my inner child is never too far from the surface, I already have Homer Simpson programmed in as the navigating voice.

Some multigenerational moviegoing capped things off on Saturday as I took in Avatar with the company of my son and dad. By all means, see the film. Any weaknesses in the story or dialogue are covered up in the visuals. Plunked down for the 3-d, even though the 3d was always trying very hard.

When that snow storm hit the east coast last week, I couldn't believe the amount of people who were acting like this area got gypped. Power outtages, blowing drifting snow, did you really want a piece of that? Oh yeah, we got it yesterday. Settle down, it's Buffalo, we'll have days like Monday without concern.



Although I'm glad to see the Pittsburgh Penguins do what they needed to do to get into town, I was content to not resume work until today. A nice 2 2/3's work day to ease back in after 6 days off.

Glad to see the NYE hootenany is set for the 24. Hope to see you there.

was kind of disappointing. I thought we were going to see it on TV first, but the producers decided to go for the money and like a moron, I ponied up. It had its moments, but sometimes felt like the writers just learned to curse for the first time, exchanging a joke opportunity for an expletive.

Ready for the holidaze. Got a satisfactory pile of stuff for the kids and most of it wrapped today. Just one morning errand tomorrow and I'm good. I even created a pie today and met with some success there too.

Multi-generational Avatar expedition is set for the weekend. I'm taking number one son and my dad said he wanted to have a look. So, we're taking in a Boxing Day showing.

It's the second christmas since my Dad-in-law passes and my mom-in-law asked if I would do the carving honors on Friday -- that was his big thing. Felt myself gulp a little while she was asking. It reminded me a bit of the scene from the West Wing when the President was explaining why he was sending his assistant to carving knife stores.

Fearless employer gave out grocery store gift cards this week and I had a grand time cruising the isles getting name brand stuff.

Caught Elvis Costello's talk show Spectacle on the CTV last week. He and the Imposters had Bono and the Edge on, the performances were a lot of fun.

Finally have something resembling my own speaking voice back after dealing with a really bad cold that as it morphed gave me a pretty good jazz dj voice.

Today was day one of a six day weekend. Best part about going back on Tuesday is that it will be good and quiet for the remainder of the week. Although, I managed to get a Polar Bites sponsor yesterday. That's a good party in February, a month full of high occasions.

Candlelight service tomorrow night, think my soul could use that.

Have a good holiday, peeps.

It's probably photoshopped, but still pretty funny

Read nothing but bitching in one form or another yesterday. "We had tougher storms and still went to work/school/whatever." Yes, we have and I think my point was be glad you didn't have to be out yesterday. As I write this now, it is 16 degrees outside and not much warmer in my office, but watching the wind & snow have at it yesterday, I was glad the kids got the day off and didn't have be chasing buses and their mom got the day too. The topper for me was getting the phone call a little before 7:00 a.m. that I got a day too. Somehow I stopped caring that I couldn't see across Delaware Ave.

Yeah, sure we've battled bigger storms, but I'm glad we didn't have to, by last night it was just cold. I had to pick up a daughter from a friends house, disturbing my car from the nice warm garage. Got a slight thrill driving my unspoiled car past snow mounds that had cars at their bottoms. It was real easy to find mine in the Wegmans parking lot when I made a quick stop on the way home.

I'll leave you with this one thought: the person who invented the "necksock" for Columbia outerwear is a frickin genius and deserves a better cut of whatever royalties they are currently receiving.

Stay warm, peeps

well, not really, but a Facebook note that I wrote about Memorial Auditorium's deconstruction which lead to a rambling blog was chopped up and incorporated into Aud-ieu:Buffalo Says Goodbye to the Aud. Through historical photos and current ones of the tear-down, my piece is culled from in four different sections. The book comes out next week, but you can see it online at:



It's the book in digital, page turning form.

Nice ego boost headed into the weekend.

Wonder if the marriages of Volker, Masierz and Stachowsk can be invalidated.

I didn't see the entirety of the President's address last night. You knew something had to be coming along the lines of what was announced.

I read the text of it this morning to avoid the contaminants of both Fox and MSNBC and if President Bush had been that declarative in 2003, I don't think we would have had the polarization that we have seen in the intervening years. I'm not sure how I feel about it entirely. I think had it predated the Iraq enterprise, the climate might be a lot different now. Coming out of 9/11, the protests for coming into Afghanistan and taking care of what was thought to be needed probably would have had minimal dissent.

It's interesting because some extremists on both sides are grumbling about costs. Now, we worry about the finances? Some people will do anything for a soundbite. As nothing appeared to be changing with the status quo, it seemed like the President had two choices, pull out completely or wrachet things up to get this done. To pull out would not be easy and would mean we were just pissing away resources. I'm not in love with the alternative, but he inherited two fights that weren't staged very well to start with, and at least there is a goal, a plan that doesn't involve banner hangings and photo ops, but a definitive goal. There is no good in any of this, but that seems as pragmatic an outline as you are likely to see.

Being a pacifist/coward, I'm not the possessor of the most grand of military minds, but after watching Desert Storm nightly on television, I've often wondered if we are using all we have in such items. It used to be derigeur to show footage of a bomber pinpoint targeting the desired target. I don't know if the guys on the ground are getting that same sort of support, something that occured to me for reasons passing understanding. Neither Iraq, part ll or Afghanistan has seen that.

The things we choose to care about....