One of those days.

For those keeping score, I'm having a good college bowl season, with my major plays (Boise, Alabama, Miss St., Notre Dame, and Wisconsin (+3)) coming through. I am +20 units so far. Tonight, I have Stanford (-3.5) over Va. Tech (4 units).

Open Thread.

What's on your mind? Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Happy New Year! New Years Day means college football. Here are my picks:

It's absolutely frigid in Denver but more than 100,000 are expected on the mall downtown to watch the fireworks at 9 and midnight. Things look warmer in Times Square.

We wish everyone a happy, healthy, safe and personally rewarding New Year.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

What are your plans for the evening? What are you most excited to say goodbye to?

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

As 2010 draws to a close, for my final long post of the year, I want to talk about how 2010 was the most boring, ho-hum year of the decade.

In 2008, politics was exciting. In 2009, we were excited as we waited for the hope and change. In 2010, we realized it wasn't coming. The reality is President Obama is not that exciting a personality. He's far too normal. He doesn't fall down and make us laugh like Gerald Ford. He doesn't reek Hollywood like Ronald Reagan, and Mrs. Obama doesn't rely on astrologers and silly slogans like "Just Say No" as did Nancy Reagan to keep us snickering in amusement.

Bush I was boring too. It was like having a caricature of the white Protestant Male from the yacht club for President. But, it was still the 80's, so he doesn't count in this competition. [More...]

Denver is finally about to get snow and a blast of arctic weather:

Snow is expected to fall in Denver by mid-morning Thursday, and temperatures will plunge to levels not seen so far this winter.

Temperatures will drop from the 50's to zero. Which means I have to get to a lot of places today. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

The college football bowl season heats up starting today (I had picks last week, including my 5 star bowl lock - Boise (-17) over Utah, Boise won 26-3 and it was not that close.) Here are my picks excluding the New Years Day bowls (which come on New Years Day):

West Virginia (-3) (3 units) over NC States, East Carolina (+8) over Maryland, Baylor (Pick) over Illinois, Oklahoma St. (-4) (2 units) over Arizona, Army (+10) over SMU, Syracuse (PICK) over Kansas St., North Carolina (-2) over Tennessee, Washington (+14) over Nebraska, Clemson (-6)(2 units) over South Florida, Notre Dame (+3) (4 units) over Miami, Georgia (-7) over Central Florida, and South Carolina (-2) (3 units).

Open Thread.

How are those of you on the East Coast holding up with the weather? Is it as bad as they say?

It's a balmy, 51 degrees here in Denver but the mountains have plenty of snow.

I'm boxing closed files and trying to make space for new 2011 files. Discovery in wiretap cases has gotten so massive we now get it on external 500 GB hard drives instead of dvd's. Each drive seems to be made by a different manufacuturer or is a different model with its own cords, so they can't all be stored in one box. And while the drives with 3.0 USB are supposed to be backwards compatible with USB 2.0, my XP desktop doesn't recognize them (the Vista laptop does.) Little problems in the grand scheme of things, I know, but still very time-consuming to deal with.

What's on your agenda or mind today? Did you get anything fun for Christmas? This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Time for a little irreverance: A funny SNL claymation with Darlene Love (hat tip Mediaite)reminding that not everyone celebrates Christmas.

Over at Mother Jones (and Solitary Watch): Santa was in prison and Jesus Gets the Death Penalty.

We send good thoughts and wishes to the 2,284,900 people in our jails and prisons, the children of the incarcerated, and everyone in nursing homes and hospitals.

On a more traditional note, check out CBS and the top world news of 2010 in pictures.

This is another open thread, all topics welcome.

A great song to get you in a happy mood on Christmas morning. [Later taken down by You Tube]

If you're in a reading rather than watching mode, here's an old favorite, from The Onion, How the Weed Delivery Guy Saved Christmas.

If it's just listening you want to do, I always recommend Boulder's 93.7, KBCO, which will be commercial free all day. You can listen live here.

And if you're cooking, while I'm still partial to the lasagna I made last year, tell us what you're making and looking forward to eating.

But, whatever you're doing, we wish you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Anyone have a good story to tell? My day ended with an electrical snafu at 5:30 p.m. I thought finding an electrician to make a house call on Christmas Eve would be impossible. I was wrong. Four responded to a request I made through a company called Service Magic I found on the internet, and all were willing to come. I went with the first one, he was here within an hour. He fixed the snafu and also replaced a bunch of high ceiling bulbs.

If you're waiting for Santa, you can track him here, via NORAD.

Merry Christmas everyone, this is an open thread, all topics welcome.