Happy 2008 to both of my readers.

There may be more of you, but I would content myself with two. We rang in the new year in a much quieter, simpler way than we had in the last couple of years -- it's hardly rational to try to top Ensenada, Mexico in 2006, and then Cusco, Peru in 2007. We would have had to go to either Tibet or the moon, and we really don't have that kind of capital right now.

Instead, we enjoyed a dinner with friends and sat in front of the fireplace, waiting breathlessly for the shiny plastic corporate-sponsored presentation of the ball drop in Times Square, which had actually happened two hours previously. It was nice to see Dick Clark out there one last time before he hangs it up. He may be getting a little old and have suffered a stroke, but that guy is always sincerely grateful and overjoyed to be hosting what he calls the greatest New Year's Eve party in the world. And he just may be right. Well done, sir. Next year, you get to enjoy the holiday with friends and family, and more importantly, without having to feign excitement for whatever new pop act Disney's dragging out for a midnight performance.

I've got pictures, which I'll post whenever Chris gets out of bed and plugs in the camera for me. If that sounds a little retarded on my part, you're right, but only because we're trying to run a 2008 PC setup (external hard drives, mice, printers, etc.) off of a 2001 Dell laptop. There aren't enough USB ports to go around, and Chris got a splitter dongle, but it's not plugged in. So he's got to do it for me because the last time I tried something like that, I unplugged the internet.

I'm off to watch my beloved Rose Parade, which I set to record on the DVR last night. The parade coverage it picked up is that of ESPN. Damn. You think Stephanie Edwards has uninspired patter? At least she has been covering the parade for so long that she doesn't spend the first 10 minutes being "amazed" at how everything is covered in mums and pampas grass. Yeah, that's the point. It's like these ESPN people have never before watched this particular parade, and are assuming that their audience hasn't either. They may be right. I won't be surprised if the station starts a crawl at the bottom of the screen that says, "DON'T WORRY, Y'ALL. NASCAR RACING IS STILL HAPPENING. TURN TO CHANNEL 45."