Edit: But I didn't hit enter twice. I see the Internet hamsters are having a slow day, too.

Do people know 2008 will last an extra second?

2009 to Arrive Not a Second Too Soon

Wait a second. The start of next year will be delayed by circumstances beyond everyone's control. Time will stand still for one second on New Year's Eve, as we ring in the New Year on that Wednesday night. As a result, you'll have an extra second to celebrate because a "Leap Second" will be added to 2008 to let a lagging Earth catch up to super-accurate clocks.

By international agreement, the world's timekeepers, in order to keep their official atomic clocks in step with the world's irregular but gradually slowing rotation, have decreed that a Leap Second be inserted between 2008 and 2009.

So technically, the end of 2008 will end like this:

23:59:58
23:59:59
23:59:60
00:00:00
00:00:01

Fun, huh? BTW, Unix (and thus Linux and Mac OS X) has the ability to recognize 61 seconds in a minute for just such occasions.

Not working. I had hoped to get out early to see if I could get a tree at the sales, but I forgot to set the alarm. We did make it out and it turns out that neither Michaels nor Home Depot had any trees left anyway. We did get wrapping, ornament kits for the next few years, some thank you cards, gift tags, and next years cards - so that is good. Now I can put up all the Holiday stuff until next year, and I guess I'll start looking at ebay auctions for a tree.

Next up, post office and fast food for mac. He has been such a trooper this morning: the bank, 3 stores, nothing for him and he has just been wonderful about making it all a game with me and mostly patiently waiting as I look for what I want. Only once did the DS get pulled out and he practically camped out in an aisle (not that I mind that at all, it's part of why the handheld games are great).

Just found out I get to leave early. Happy, happy day.

New blog: Sorry I Missed Your Party - Pictures of Other People's Parties from Flickr.

Question - does a picture of someone doing lines of coke off an album cover make a blog NSFW?

eta: Other possible NSWF photos as well. And while the photos are amusing, it seems the more I look at, the more depressing all the photos of drunkenness seem to become.

I am thinking of buying this tree: [link]

thoughts?

thoughts?

It looks OK, as far as fake trees go. Of course, with an artificial tree you don't need to worry about tree octopuses.

Sometimes tree octopuses hitch a ride in Christmas trees harvested from farms on the Olympic Peninsula. When its tree is being jostled violently, a tree octopus will hunker down deep inside the branches near the trunk and camouflage itself to look like bark. This is a defensive mechanism to protect it from wind storms and sasquatch trying to shake octopuses to the ground. They may stay hidden like this for days after a particularly violent shaking, such as experienced by Christmas trees when they are chopped down and transported.

Many octopuses have a natural instinct to decorate their lairs with attractive baubles, and O. paxarbolis is no exception. When it finally comes out of hiding and explores its tree, finding it covered in shiny ornaments and sparkly lights, it will become so mesmerized by the baublely abundance that it'll hardly notice that its tree is sitting in some human's living room.

Scandinavian immigrants considered it good luck to find a tree octopus in their Christmas tree. Granted, that's because they like to eat them. But for us more enlightened cephalopodophiles, we can consider it a sign of good luck that the species hasn't yet gone extinct.

And to keep it that way, please remember to remove any octopuses you find before disposing of your Christmas tree. They can be put in a shoe box -- with a bit of moist branch to make them feel comfortable and some tinsel to keep them distracted -- and taken to your nearest chapter of the Friends of the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus for reintroduction into the wild.

... And An Octopus In A Christmas Tree

ION, I was bored, so I salted our sidewalk. It was fun, as the ice sounded like Rice Krispies after I put salt on it.

Hippo Birdies, Theo!

Happy Birthday, Jesse!

Happy Boxing Day, Buffistas!

My mom got me a hippopotamus for Chistmas!

Good boxing day, Buffistas!

Happy birthday, Jesse! I hope you wrangle up some fun.

Happy birthday, Theo! I celebrate your birthday by sending you a big whopping surge of Gratifying Job-ma.

Emmett woke up this morning, put on his tuxedo and went to his room to build Legos.

Matilda is gleefully discovering gelt in her stocking ("I found another one!") and watching Kiki's Delivery Service.

We're not working, nor dealing with ice.

Later this afternoon I'll take Emmett to his Mom's house. Then JZ, Matilda and I will go to megan walker's for boxing day. I know Perkins is coming and I'm hoping some other fun locals.

My mom got me a hippopotamus for Chistmas!

Aimee will be jealous.

Matilda got an elephant.