Back in my car, listening once again to my beloved jazz station with hourly NPR news interruptions, I hear this bit.


I don't want to get all Bill Walsh here, but it cranks my shaft when reporters (and worse, editors) get simple math wrong. If I had to be there in the math class in fourth grade when we talked about decimal places, so did they. Let's use it, shall we?

One-tenth of a percent is not the smallest increase possible. The smallest possible positive number is one over infinity. Since we're talking about sales, though, let's just go ahead and allow that the smallest possible measurable increase is one cent. Being as the piece was about business expenses nationwide (or worldwide, or it could have just been corporate spending, I wasn't paying that much attention), I rather doubt those numbers are the same.

If you're going to talk about numbers, do it in a way that doesn't make you sound like a lazy third-grader slapping a report together during recess right before it's due. And if you say "that's what copy editors are for," well, you're half right -- the editor is supposed to be trained to catch nonsense like this, but if you didn't write it in the first place we'd like you better.

This is why I give the smallest credence possible to broadcast news. NPR, though -- I thought you were different.

• The hospital you're visiting has not one but two name-brand coffee shops in the lobby.
  
  
• When your cousin talks about starting to try for a child, he says that he and his wife are going to "pull the goalie."
  
  
• Despite the relative strength of the Canadian dollar, a six-pack still costs $10.
  
  
• The cashier at Starbucks recommends that next time you go to "Timmy Ho's."
  
  
• You turn on the TV to see Don Cherry wearing a double-breasted red velvet suit with a Santa Claus tie.
  
  
• Everybody working in the hospital is Asian.
  
  
• Forget Black Friday -- your mother-in-law is psyched for the Boxing Day sales.
  
  
• Your in-laws mourn the fact that NHL players get Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, and count down the hours until the junior hockey world tournament on the 26th.
  
  
• It snows.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

Maybe I've been off the Internet for longer than I thought, but I have no idea what the hell VH1 is talking about with its Best Year Ever selections for Web stars. OK, of course I've heard about the crazy-eyelinered "Leave Britney alone" guy, but who the crap is Tay Zonday?

The show presenters were going on and on about how his song "Chocolate Rain" was all over the Internet. The dude even got face time in a bit about how to make a viral video. And apparently I'm sheltered, because he has a Wikipedia page and everything, but I've never seen or even heard of it.

So how do you feature someone so (at least to my complete uncognizance) random? In my head, this was the IM conversation between the VH1 writers.

We opened our Christmas presents this weekend rather than lugging them 4000 miles to unwrap and then haul back. Because I don't know about your firstborn, but ours got a lot of crap. There were six gifts total under the tree for anyone who was not Avery, and two of them were for our dogs.¹

This being her first experience opening gifts, she wasn't quite sure what we were getting at. "Wait a minute," she seemed to be saying. "You're giving me a package wrapped in paper ... and you want me to tear it? Don't you remember what happened last time?"

Eventually we got everything unwrapped, removed from overzealous consumer packaging, and prepared for play. But, just as we were warned, the toys she recieved weren't the items Avery was most excited for.



Truly, it's the little things.

---

1. Sed and I eschewed gifts for each other this year, deciding to just fill our stockings instead.

Days I committed to post in November

Days I actually posted

Days of the month I was not in Florida

Approximate time, in days, it takes my stepfather's computer to log into my user name

Days and pages it took me to complete Catch-22, Defective Yeti's NaNoReMo pick

Other books I was reading that I did not finish during November (Red Smith on Baseball, Perelandra by C.S. Lewis, Dave Barry Turns 40, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett)

Children under the age of 10 that I played with who were not my own

Approximate reduction, in percentage, of my feelings of inadequacy and inability to play with young children thanks to practicing with Avery

Turkey dinners I ate

Generations present at the Moya family dinner

Basketball games I attended

Average margin of the game scores, in relation to the teams I supported

Friends who recognized my signature shout after an opposing free throw ("You got lucky!") and tracked me down

Section, row, and seat number of my ticket at the UNM women's game, and number of years I sat in that seat as a member of the pep band

Temperature, in degrees Fahrenheit, in Albuquerque when we caught our return flight

Temperature when we got off the plane in Orlando

Pitiful quantifications made as a pathetic apology for totally bombing NaBloPoMo this year

Readers who actually care

Today while Avery and I were at the store, I saw a girl wearing a pink camouflage miniskirt.

Seriously? Camouflage miniskirt? This doesn't seem like approved combat attire. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this girl wasn't on furlough from Iraq and wandering the aisles at Target during the wild and crazy free time that is her shore leave. And pink camouflage only works if you're hiding in a tree in Ueno Park during hanami in April. (Dennis Miller I am not, but roll with it.)

Let's face it -- if you're wearing a pink camouflage miniskirt, there ain't nothin' under there that you're really trying to hide from anybody.

Then again, I didn't actually see her until I'd accidentally body-checked her into the greeting cards. My bad.