Truth be told, I'm not a big fan of summer either, at least, not hot ones, but I brought winter and am growing weary of it: The ground was bare when I arrived, but by the time I woke up from jetlag it was white, as it's been ever since. The natives keep saying this has been an unusually cold winter. I'm a native Texan at 63.5° N and it's COLD BY THEIR STANDARDS; all I know is that for most of December it was (significantly) warmer in the freezer than on the balcony: When it gets below 0° F it's TOO FREAKING COLD! I think I prefer the summer; I don't care for the 20 hours of daylight, but temperatures seldom rising above 80° Fahrenheit sound very good now (and, yes, temps below 65 are not uncommon, at least in the morning). In the mountains and/or farther from the coast it's colder, of course.

Glad to hear the Mike's are well (didn't know one of them had moved in, but it seemed kind of inevitable barring something extreme and undesirable. ) I wish I could order Talisman from them before they do inventory, but that seems very unlikely unless I find a job in the next few days. Sounds like they don't need the help though, which is good; Merry Retail Christmas, eh?

I'll give you a call this weekend if you'll be around (pretty much the only time I can do it when you won't be at work or Lene asleep: It's just before midnight here now, but you don't get off for a couple hours). Shoot me your Skype handle next chance you get though, please; no sense in paying for the call if I don't have to do so.

Yeah, the Pack was in with a win, and Cutler tried a little too hard and well to look like his hero Favre; choked like the Homecoming Queen on a REAL QB. I was pulling for the Giants if only to keep the Pack out, and NY did their part, but GB won by a TD and that was good enough for the last playoff spot. NY REALLY blew it with that fourth quarter collapse against Philly; I actually sent Lene to bed 'cos it was past 10PM and even the 1992 Houston Oilers couldn't blow a lead that large that late. NY doesn't belong in the playoffs playing like that (yet they would've won the NFC West by three games). In the official league rankings the Giants are higher than the Eagles, but Philly has a better Division record and the head to head sweep so it's hard to say they're not the better team.

The really crazy thing is that the Falcons win is the difference between the Saints being the #2 or #5 seed (and the only reason they weren't playing for homefield throughout the playoffs is that Chicago has the head to head). Makes the Rams/Seahawks game almost trivial; neither of them can beat the Saints, even at home. I guess the season's not a total loss; the Texans just announced they're keeping Kubiak, so at least ONE of my four teams didn't fire its coach this season. If I have to watch a Pats/Eagles SB though I may vomit, and Pats/Packers wouldn't be much better, even if I could at last respect a victorious Green Bay team. Given what happened the last time Pitt played a road Conference Championship it galls me to think I may have to root for them, but the Jets are about the only AFC playoff team I can both respect and like. Most of the NFC teams I'm OK with, except that the Rams are a mediocre default champ and the Packers would be 0-16 every year if I had my way.

So, of the choices available, I'll take the Bears or Jets, and the former looks a lot better than the latter. If Cutler doesn't figure out soon that he's no longer facing college DBs though it still doesn't look good.