2013 - Good Riddance

On a personal level, 2013 had some really sucko aspects for me, and I'm happy to see it leaving.  Much of the year was spent with concern for my mom in a downhill slide that ended a few weeks ago.  I spent a lot of hours driving and almost doubled the miles I put on my car this year in trips to visit her.  I had a bizarre accident at work - found out a few weeks later that they had soaped the stairwell, not just wet mopped - and I still have a 3" or so diameter lump on my butt that won't go away.  Work has had some more downs than I'm used to, including weekend "get your *** to the airport Monday morning" calls.  On the other hand, my second patent disclosure is in process, so there were some positive things, too.  I've never paid much mind to the "whole new year, whole new future" line of thought, because a year is just a convenient way to mark time.  We could use Julian Days, but month/day/year is shorter.  I'm going to deliberately delude myself a little and allow myself to think I'll get a new start when the calendar turns in a few hours. 

For the country and the world, though, 2013 sure had some weird moments.  How about New York electing a full-bore communist as mayor?  Expect Comrade DeBlasio to follow France's lead and invoke a massive wealth-punishing tax which will affect the city badly.  I can't say I care, except for you know they're going to get in trouble and come to the rest of the country for bailouts. 

Speaking of weird New York stuff, who can forget the "Carlos Danger" adventures of Anthony Weiner, in which Weiner sent photos of his, um, happiness to someone named Sidney Leathers and various underage girls. This, of course, was a comeback... wait, a re-entry... no.. this was a return to politics for the Weiner, who left office in disgrace after a similar sexting scandal seemingly just the other day.  But since Weiner-Danger ran against DeBlasio in the NYC primaries, all you New Yawkers realistically can say you have a communist because of the Weiner.  He really did slip it to everyone!

And speaking of annoying little pricks, Mayor Bloomberg spent millions of his own dollars out of pocket on the campaigns of anti-gun MAIG members across the country, and 23 of them went down to defeat.  Bloomberg outspent the pro-gun forces in Colorado by 7:1 and still lost.  Now we have Colorado Democrats telling Bloomberg to stuff it and get out of their state.

But wait!  We're not done.  New York still has epic weirdness to go.  Elliott ("Client 9") Spitzer, the former governor who left office in disgrace after a prostitution scandal, thought he should run for office in New York City, too!  If that isn't weird enough for you, try this:  Spitzer is dating a former campaign aide to Comrade DeBlasio and is divorcing his long-suffering wife.  The only thing missing from the New York City Parade of Perverts was Bob Filner, and he was busy in Sandy Eggo, being criminally charged with groping pretty much every living person in the county with two X chromosomes. 

While I'm on the subject of annoying little weirdos, I can't forget Miley Cyrus.  Personally, I barely was aware of the little twit.  She's a former Disney kid, "child star", and you know how weird they can get.  Apparently weirder than I ever thought.  One minute she's out of sight, out of mind, the next minute she's this horrifying, vaguely reptilian creature in Slut Barbie underwear twerking all over the stage while committing unhygienic acts with both Robin Thicke and a foam finger.  If I were Robin Thicke (at his age, not mine!) I think I'd still be rocking back and forth in the shower muttering, "can't... get... clean...".

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/12/27/3830019/dave-barrys-year-in-review-2013.html#storylink=cpy

The mind-numbing incompetence of the Federal Government was a huge story this year.  How about the financial crises that come back every few weeks?  We've been in a crisis every few weeks for years, yet they're always unexpected.  Unexpected to anyone with the financial acumen of some species of moss.  Which is still smarter than most congress critters.

In the Obama Amateur Hour, foreign policy division, Vladimir Putin punked the president when Secretary of State John Kerry stupidly blurted out something that seemed entirely made up on the spot, that the only way Syria could avoid being bombed would be to hand all their chemical weapons over to someone else.  Putin, of course, saw the opportunity and stepped up to embarrass Obama (wouldn't you?), allowing Syrian strongman Assad to return to killing his people with guns and barrel bombs instead of chemicals that don't explode.  The wonderful Arab Spring they supported so vocally has collapsed in both Egypt and Libya as well as Syria.  All of those countries are in the crapper, Mooslims are burning Christian churches to the ground, and worse.  But our leaders are Harvard grads.  They're smarter than us. 

And don't forget the Website From Hell, Satan's Own Healthcare.gov.  They had three years to develop a web site for eCommerce; a web site to sell insurance plans to people legally required to buy them.  After all, how many times have you been cornered at a party by a life insurance agent; no fun, right?  This should be easier than selling hot tea to Eskimos.  There's only about two billion websites online RFN that do it better than this, and yet it launched with "a few glitches".  Roughly the same number of glitches as the number of grains of salt in a pound.  Eventually signing up as many as six people, the millions of people trying to enroll kept noticing their confidential personal information showing up on TV during random episodes of "Keeping Up With The Kardashians". 

But I can't end the year in Weirdness without mentioning Pajama Boy, the androgynous White House mascot who launched a thousand memes by encouraging everyone to sit around in a onesie, drink hot chocolate and convince those neanderthal relatives that you, as a 20-something with a degree in Hungarian Gay Poetry, 1900 to 1935, know more about their insurance needs than they do.  The thing to remember here is this was reviewed to the highest levels in the administration (possibly as high as Valarie Jarret herself!) and they thought this is the right image!  This is way we want to depict ourselves!  They're surprised and offended that anyone thinks this image is funny. 

So as we stumble toward 2014, a year with so much weirdness to overcome, remember to drink responsibly and I wish you all a happy, prosperous, safe and free New Year.