It's a relentless deluge!

It has been raining since yesterday afternoon. The weather is downright depressing, and I would so rather be lying in bed with a good book. Speaking of which - hooray for Neil Gaiman winning the Newbury award for The Graveyard Book! I plan on going out and buying the book to share with my son, since he recently picked out a couple of titles in R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series, and swears that spooky stuff doesn't phase him. I think I'll remember that for the first time he watches Poltergeist, and hides all of his stuffed animals in his closet like I did when I was little. A five foot tall polar bear is no different than a demon-posessed clown doll when you're seven.

I'm having some serious issues with the local news station coverage of the Superbowl. I'm very underwhelmed by football, as a general rule, but I can understand people getting excited for the "big game" - I often get this way during the Stanley Cup championship. (And don't get me wrong - I'm obviously rooting for the Steelers, cause yinz know that's how I roll.) But the amount of pandering and the levels of tabloid "journalism" that the news stations here are achieving is almost mind boggling. I lost track of how much time one of the news channels spent on both of their evening broadcasts last night highlighting the "celebrities" sighted around town in advance of this weekend. One female features reporter spent several minutes gushing over and attached to the arm of the lead singer of Lifehouse. She looked positively star struck and it was the most awkward and unprofessional piece of television news I had witnessed in a while (outside of everything and anything aired on the Today show in recent memory - that program is the proverbial televised trainwreck). Not to mention the poor singer looked mortified. He ket pulling away as if to flee in terror as she stared at him in rapt (and disturbingly transparent and creepy) infatuation and kept talking about how amazing their performance was. Lady, c'mon, I mean...it's Lifehouse. If that's one of the best shows you've ever been to you really need to get out more.

My project list keeps expanding. Every time I get a little bit ahead, someone comes by and dumps something else in my lap. I got called into a meeting with the head of my new (but not quite official) department, only to be sent on my merry way with a mousepad and apron emblazoned with the company logo when he realized that I had already seen the presentation he was about to give to the new team member (she gave me chocolates this morning...already attempting to buy my complicity). What am I going to do with a company apron? Use it as a hankie to wipe away the tears when the next budget cut comes, as I'm watching my chances for any salary increase fade into oblivion while my workload increases to inhumane levels that could prompt protests by human rights organizations?

What can solve this funk? Perhapse kittens scooting around on a Roomba?