Business Items

We’re now two weeks past the 2008 Presidential Election. The stock market continues to imitate Oprah’s weight, symptomatic of an economy unsure of how deep its rabbit hole goes. Under media cover of the rousing president-elect, a lame duck administration is quietly changing regulations in an effort to maximize its impact. Before long, the only remaining tasks will be packing up personal belongings and executing extensive pardons. In the absence of daily tracking polls and moderately relevant gaffes, one wonders why to wake up in the evening.

If the political hangover wasn’t enough, the NHL is largely ignored, the NBA is populated by teams fully aware that the first half of an 82-game season doesn’t matter all that much, and the NFL is stumbling toward the twilight that precedes each post-season. Clearly, the only comfort to be taken from the sports world comes in the form of an absence; with baseball out of season, that slothful sport cannot clog the communal bandwidth.

One might look to the entertainment industry - televsion, in particular - to offer some relief from the doldrums, but it’s not without frustration. First House and now Heroes have been guilty of the Cardinal Sin of misleading scheduling. A program should take no more or less time than that listed on the guide; any other outcome must be assumed to be a dastardly attempt by the network in question to monopolize the viewers’ DVR tuners and space. A plague on both their houses.

From whence, then, are we meant to derive the impetus to wake, an inspiration toward motive force? Although it does nothing for me, I’ve been led to believe that the puppy cam offers some relief from the immeasurable void. By contrast, I’ll take some comfort from this agreement that the incoming cabinet should be populated by people who might actually know what the hell they’re doing.