28 Comments on “Welcome to 2006!”

1. So far I have announced a new weblog and started making some loaves of bread. I’d better slow down, or this year’s gonna be exhausting.

2. In a right and just world I should be watching the Rose Parade. However, some idiot put it on the 2nd this year.

3. I have been unreasonably productive so far this year. Yesterday afternoon I ripped all the carpeting out of the home office; I finished the last of the tack strips just before midnight, rang in the New Year, then brought the broom upstairs and started sweeping. Today I’ve cleaned the floor — sweeping the large debris, vacuuming the small debris, scrubbing stuck-to-the-floor carpet pad with a plastic scrubby, and attacking the streaks of splattered paint with the Sponge Of Doom (Mr. Clean Magic Eraser).

   My husband complained that my productivity was making him feel like he couldn’t go take a walk, so now I’m surfing the Internet.

4. I’m working on this (last) year’s holiday song. Since I’m late for both Christmas and New Year’s, I’ve decided to do something for the vernal equinox.

5. Ive finished most of my College Apps including one to the University of Chicago. Then Ive begun work on my two new blogs: the silver lining for my posts on politics, and diary of a senior teenager, for my stories. Hope everyone has a good year!!!

6. We’ve been watching some of Penn & Teller’s BS! on DVD, and I’ve been tinkering with my blog a bit.

7. Spent the day with my son while the wife was at work, got a bit of cleaning done, watched the Lions finally end this horrible, horrible football season in surprisingly competent fashion (though, of course, they still lost), and now am watching the Mythbusters marathon.

   Been a heckuva year already.

8. Talking to space aliens. Can’t wait till they leave. They like making fun of me. For example, they had me google “idzes spac” So I like to sleep.

9. I’ve killed over a thousand enemy soliders in DOD:S! and finshed 2 books.

10. I spent all day sick and brooding over with or not I should care that Carson Daly is the heir apparent to Dick Clark.

    Nope…I still have not decided if this is anything worth noticing or mentioning…mainly I feel nauseous. Maybe it was that questionable eggnog I was too drunk to taste last night. I’ll work it out.

11. I’m celebrating my vacation by watching an Iron Chef America marathon.

    Two words.

    Clam flan.

12. Feeding my heart-attack and cleaning up after the party.

    Luckily for me I don’t have to report “getting rug-burn on my face” as one of the first accomplishments of 2006 because I achieved that at least 10 minutes before the year began.

13. I needed new author photos, so I got dressed up in a pseudo 40s satin glam gown and hung around in a photographer’s studio, playing with his cats while he made me feel like a movie star.

    I get the pictures tomorrow night, but I’ve seen previews. About half of them are perfectly goofy because — as a matter of full disclosure — I’m perfectly goofy. But some of them are so fabulous I’m pretty sure they can’t possibly be of me.

14. I worked at the cafe till 3:30 pm….now I am home surfing the web. Peace & Happy New Year!!!

15. We went ice skating, and played with Ball Dropping.

    I’m going to do a single productive thing today–I’ve got a manuscript to submit. And then I’ll have had a lazy, relaxing day and gotten something done!

16. I left the homestead and bought boxes for Christmas ornaments, since ours are old and crumbling. Figuring that was plenty of activity, I then took a nap. The tree remains decorated!

17. I put together a prospectus for my thesis, which I know won’t be completed in time for me to graduate in spring. I also put together a menu for Chinese New Year.

18. I’ve left an entry in my blog with a photo of me when I was 6 years old, and a photo of me now (the slab of delicious man-meat that I’ve become).

    And I’m going off to do work in a bit.

19. I actually got a job today. No, really. And I start tomorrow. It’s for a very small company, doing office assistance, database mantenance and some amount of writing. It’s for a folk/world music management company, and it looks like it’ll be pretty interesting.

20. Does watching football count as “nothing” or “less than nothing”?

    Actually, I read the latest issue of F&SF and am partway through the latest issue of Analog.

21. I set up a smelter in my basement and spent most of the day trying to forge One Ring To Rule Them All.

    Unfortunately, I instead created One Ring To Mildly Inconvenience Very Few.

    So, in lieu of world conquest, I spent part of the day working on a short story I abandoned in 2003 (I know an editor who might buy it now), and visited both of my grandmothers.

22. I watched the Browns triumph over the Ravens at Cleveland Browns Stadium! Huzzah!

23. John, you’re being insufficiently self-referential. You blew the whole doing-nothing thing as soon as you started to post.

24. Blogging suddenly qualifies as doing something?

25. I did a proof-of-concept hack to zencart to make it handle quantity-on-hand stock management for products with attributes (i.e., shirts with sizes and colors) so that the number of shirts of any given size and color is managed, rather than the previous lame behavior where it managed only the total number of shirts, irrespective of size and color. Sorry you asked?

    I also got about halfway up to the next level on the Matrix Online. And I did two loads of dishes. And yoga. And meditated. OMG, I think I’m going to pass out.

    May your slacker-tude persist until you are well-rested. :’}

26. I managed to sleep in, two days in a row. Also took a nap Sunday, and hope to today.

    Seem to recall a friend told me I needed to spend a couple days doing nothing and I’m trying. Meals with friends and relatives, jigsaw puzzling, reading, editing, and changing the ConFusion registration cost on the website to At-the-door prices aside, I’ve been doing pretty well on the doing nothing goal.

    Bill’s asked why the house hasn’t been magically cleaned from the party the other night. Seems the house elves have taken a break, too. At least the internet fairies are still working. ;)

27. Much of my weekend has been spent with The Discovery Channel’s “Mythbusters” marathon. Also plowing through Quake 4.

28. Hi John I like your style,
    I haven’t read any of your books but I bet they could keep me interested. Don’t forget to do something truely exciting this year(not with your bread)because you want to be sure to live life every chance you get. !!!. If you want to you can bring the bread with you I guess.