...It's 2008 in Katunayake.
Happy New Year!
Tonga is almost the west-most place on earth, at least by time zone, so they entered 2008 almost 4 hours ago. New Caledonia, New Zealand, Fiji, and most of Australia have also gotten to next year ahead of us. The Koreas, Japan and Singapore are up in 10 minutes.
Updates throughout the day, or until someone makes me stop...
A priest, a rabbi, and a giraffe walk into a bar.
Bartender says, "Is this some kind of joke?"
One week at overnight camp (Parker's day care provider also boards dogs, so he got to hang with his friends every day) has exhausted my dog. This is a common behavior in dogs, apparently. He was overjoyed to see me again in a way I've never seen in a human older than four, but as soon as we got home he climbed into his crate and passed out. (Actually he ate two entire bowls of kibble first.)
Action shot:
Returning from the West Coast after staying up late (in a different time zone) every night got me off to a slow start this morning. I'm glad to report that Half Moon Bay still exists, San Francisco is still the second-coolest city on the continent (after Chicago, and only just the barest fraction of a point above New York), and it's still winter.
The good news is that 48 hours of above-freezing temperatures—with almost 18 hours at or above 8°C—melted just about all the snow and ice in Chicago.
The bad news? A cold front moved in overnight and it's now -9°C with 57 km/h winds giving us a wind chill of -19°C.
Chicago weather builds character.
We atheists need holidays, too; why not an astronomical event? Eight minutes past midnight in Chicago tonight, light a candle to mark the bottom of the analemma.
I don't usually comment on stupid celebrity tricks—that's my friend Katie's job—but this made me laugh out loud. Despite her obvious successes as a mother, apparently Lynne Spears (Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears's mom) will not publish her upcoming Christian parenting book after all:
Lynne Spears' book about parenting has been delayed indefinitely, her publisher said Wednesday. Lindsey Nobles, a spokeswoman for Christian book publisher Thomas Nelson Inc., said Wednesday that the memoir by the mother of Britney Spears was put on hold last week.
She declined to comment on whether the delay was connected to the revelation that Spears' 16-year-old daughter, Jamie Lynn, is pregnant.
Update, via Cele|bitchy: Bonnie Fuller has a good take on this at Huffington Post.
The city of Half Moon Bay, Calif., is in danger of dissolving after losing a major lawsuit:
Half Moon Bay is wrestling with unpleasant options for responding to a court ruling that officials say threatens the "very existence of our city government"—a $36.8 million judgment against the city for turning a proposed housing development site into wetlands.
Under the worst-case scenario, officials say, Half Moon Bay would become the first Bay Area city forced to dissolve, and the coastal town's land would become an unincorporated part of San Mateo County.