How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Global Warming

Its January 4, and its a sunny 60 degrees outside. This Saturday - supposed to be 70, and I'm starting to think, hey it's not all so bad, i could live with this. I mean, pitchers and catchers report to spring training in about 40 days, and I'm ready to play some 'ball right now. I'm ready to rock my Robbie Cano tshirt and hit the batting cages, its springtime in January! I'm supposed to be going through some post-holiday-low-sunlight seasonal-affective-disorder-thing but no - I'm thinkin about lazy meandering hikes, picnics, girls in short skirts and casual rounds of long toss, whiffle ball and frisbee.

Sometimes, usually in late March, i like to drive around with the windows down and the sunroof open, but with the heat all the way up, and it sorta feels like May or June. I did that today. In January. Can we just maybe skip this whole winter thing altogether? Lets bring daylight savings time in a few months early, get the days longer and just deal with a freakishly long springtime, who's with me?

Then again, I'm not a polar bear. or a penguin. or a million year old sheet of glacial ice. Things might seem a bit weirder to me if i was, you know, an Inuit living way up in Yellowknife and noticed that the caribou didn't bother migrating south this year or whatever. That the permafrost beneath me just didn't seem so 'perma' anymore.

I was having a hazy weird conversation last week about whether or not Polar Bears feel cold or not. We watched this sumbitch on Discovery roll around in the snow and then dive into the arctic waters without hesitation, and i thought - no f'n way is that dude cold. But i don't think that's the question anymore really, the more relevant/important question to ask Mr.polar bear is:

Can you feel heat?

Champagne Champ

1.5 bottles of Freixenet champagne straight to my head isn't my record, which was almost 3 bottles for New Years Eve 2004. Needless to say, 3 bottles was a threshold i never wanted to cross again. But 1.5 - totally reasonable, recommended even - if you can handle champagne that is. Now I'm hardly a heavyweight, i cant do alot of liquor at all and I'm mostly a beer guy, but Ive seen some hardcore drinkers shy away from champagne for one reason or another. The last night of the year, I'm a fuckin champagne champ. Bring it.

The worlds a mess, civilization faces opposition at every turn, our society is trying its hardest to make a mockery of being human, and i can't seem to meet anyone, let alone get a date, but hey, its a new year now. No matter how many times you spend Dec 31 looking back with regret and pessimism, you have no choice but to spend Jan 1 looking ahead at the next 364 with hope and optimism. New opportunities and unexpected surprises, heres hoping these will find me sooner than later. I've been hearing 'This too shall pass' for months. Well, here's your chance, friggen pass already!

Here's hopin that 007 turns out to be a year with more reasons to celebrate, open up more bottles of champagne, and stumble around all crooked-like. cheers y'all.