It's just a number on a calendar

Cannot for the life of me understand what the big deal is about New Year's Day.
It's just a tick on the clock and a turn of the calendar. Some numbers change.
People attribute all sorts of new beginnings to Jan. 1. How does anybody really expect anything to change because a number on the calendar changes?
It's great for calendar makers, but not for many other people.
The world can't even agree when the year changes, or even what year it is.
We have a main calendar, but the Chinese, the Vietnamese and the Jews, just to name three nations, have different calendars and different numbers of years. And they tend to go back more than 2011 years.

New Year's Day is an event that is over as soon as it begins. The clock ticks.  Some big glittering ball slides down a pole.
WHOO-HOOOO! It's another year.
Then what?
Well, a lot of people get really drunk, some people get killed and then a really boring day ensues.
College football used to make Jan. 1 worthwhile, but the plethora of   bowl games and holding the championship game 10 days later combine to make New Year's Day bowls all but irrelevant.
The TicketCity Bowl? The Outback Bowl? Seriously?
Where's the Sugar Bowl? The Orange Bowl? And why is the Rose Bowl reduced to a minor event?
Face it. New Year's Day isn't worth getting excited about.

Take a number

"I don't want to become a statistic."
Ever used that line? Used to be a little more common than it is now.
In today's digital society just about everybody is a statistic. Not necessarily the way that phrase used to be intended -- a death, an injury, something bad. But statistics are kept on each and every one of us.
Your choice of car or truck. Your faith. Your political views. What you eat or drink. What you watch on the TV and what web sites you visit. Whether or not you read a newspaper.
Now, I'm becoming a statistic-- in that old meaning.
The odds are overwhelming that I'll join the ranks of the unemployed some time next summer.
Won't exactly be an exclusive group I'm joining. One in 10 Americans who want a job can't get one. In some areas, it's a lot worse.
But it's not exactly a case of misery loves company either.
We all make choices in life.
Way back in my teens I chose newspapers as a way to make a living. Loved sports, but stank at playing them. So I wrote about them. And I could turn the occasional phrase.
While it's never paid all that well, it's been a good life. The only one I ever really wanted. All I know.
But newspapers are dying.
There are many more ways -- faster ways -- to get information. Television and radio put a dent into newspapers, but it's the Internet and smartphones that are driving papers into the ground.
Why wait for the morning paper to get the scores when you can crank up the laptop and get them right now?
The corporations that own most newspapers in the United States are trying to stay above water by cutting as many corners as they can. And that usually means cutting payroll.
The company that owns the paper where I work has laid off thousands over the past few years. Having survived those layoffs -- which tend to come around the holidays, thanks very little -- it's unlikely I'll survive the streamlining project that will eliminate my job the middle of next year.
Don't know yet what I'll do. Having played with ball games as a job my entire adult life, odds are I'm not qualified for much.
Maybe more schooling in my mid-50s.
Maybe whatever work I can find. There's a wife, children and mortgage to look after.
Being a part of this business has been a gamble for a while. Guess I was betting I could hang on another 15 years and make it to retirement before the newspaper business fell apart.
Looks like it was a bad bet.
But, hey, thanks for playing.

Short attention span blogging

Turns out the Tea Party Caucus, supposedly anti-earmarks, has put in for a billion dollars worth of earmarks. You know, what we used to call pork barrel legislation -- federal bucks to somebody's home district or political ally. The "bridge to nowhere" stuff that wastes so much of our tax money.
How's that for talking the talk (one way), walking the walk (the opposite direction).
To be fair, these were "tainted" Tea Partiers, already in Congress. We'll have to wait and see how the newly elected ones act when they get in power next month.

Can't ever remember having a harder time getting the Christmas spirit.

Ron Santo died. Great Cubs third baseman, longtime radio broadcaster with the team.
Watch the old-timers finally put him in the Hall of Fame. Couldn't you guys have done it while he was still breathing? Kind of hard to enjoy something when you're dead.

Question to throw out -- and maybe find out if anybody's actually reading.
Does anybody who buys a "Choose Life" car tag actually believe in the "choose" part?

World Cup in Qatar? Have a suspicion that the winning side in 2022 will be Al-Qaeda.