Everything changes tomorrow at 10am EST. Check it out.

Washington Post: 'It's Good to Be Back': Senators Return to Hart. Finally.

Hey, it's my birthday! "I'm the birthday boy, I can do whatever I want." In a perfect world, perhaps that would be true. But it's 1:50am, and so for I've spent these first 110 minutes working on a redesign for one website, categorizing content for another site, and listening to a little PM Dawn. With the exception of the last item, not how I would plan my birthday morn if my time were my own.

Thanks, Julie, for the e-card! As always, first with the greeting. This is not to slight my sister Sarah and nephew Jack for a great morning birthday song. Nor Krissy's email or Tiff's voice mail or my dad's two phone calls. Thanks for remembering from a distance.

And so my day ends as it began, categorizing content for a website I'm working on. Metadata is cool and all, but it can be a real pain in the ass, that's for sure.

Logging into one of my servers today, I saw a great quote: "Keep cool, but do not freeze" — Hellmann's Mayonaise. I can't verify this quote, but it is good advice nonetheless.

Bruce Schneier goes on a rant in this month's Crypto-Gram: "Honestly, security experts don't pick on Microsoft because we have some fundamental dislike for the company. Indeed, Microsoft's poor products are one of the reasons we're in business. We pick on them because they've done more to harm Internet security than anyone else, because they repeatedly lie to the public about their products' security, and because they do everything they can to convince people that the problems lie anywhere but inside Microsoft." Amen, brother.

ZDNet: Win XP updates stopped by glitch. "Engineers are working to fix a glitch in a Microsoft Web server that has prevented Windows XP users from downloading software updates, including a patch for a security hole, a company spokeswoman said Monday." After reading this, my friend Eric said: "There's a hole in bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza…"

"He's a genetically engineered Amish vagrant haunted by memories of 'Nam. She's a transdimensional impetuous magician's assistant in the wrong place at the wrong time. They fight crime!"

My birthday's coming up, and what I want more than anything else is for people at work start emailing me if they have "a quick question" rather than calling me. I have caller ID, and starting now, I'm not picking up the phone unless you're my boss.

I got my new irons today, except they weren't the ones I ordered. Well, they were the ones the pro shop ordered, but not the ones I asked them to order. Confused? So am I…

Is life cruel, or is it funny? It seems to me that the way you answer this questions says a lot about how you approach the world. Doing a little self-reflection, I find I tend to believe in the "cruel" thesis. If something unexpected happens to me, I'm inclined to think that someone or something did this on purpose to hurt me. I think I'm missing out on a bit of joy by seeing life in these terms. When you take the point of view that life is fundamentally funny, then more of what happens is seen as a source of pleasure, inspiration, and marvel. That's a much better way to go.

I just found out what my blogger code is: B9 d+ t+ k s u+ f i+ o x e l+ c— Yeah, not very exciting if you ask me.

The State: Governor claims GOP legislator used racial slur. Not just "claims", but swears to in a court of law. Wow.

Is it only Thursday? Seems like the week should be over already.

Lawrence Lessig: Who's Holding Back Broadband? "Copyright laws should of course give artists and creators an adequate return for their creativity; but they should not become a tool for dinosaurs to protect themselves against evolution."

Thanks to Zeldman, this is the coolest blog design I've seen in a long while. I almost said "postmodern", but I held off, kinda.

CNN: White House reveals Enron contacts. Wow, only took them a month since the bankruptcy declaration to reveal what should have been revealed 8 months ago as a matter of course. Got to love that rapid response! (Most interesting fact: the last meeting was Oct. 10.)

Christopher Hitchens: Johnnie Walker Blackened. Normally, I think Hitchens is an ass, but I can't argue with this: "Given a choice between protecting American civilians and protecting the client regimes that sponsor and coddle those who murder them, the Bush Administration has taken the second option every time. This seems to me impeachable in the profoundest sense of the term."

Paul Krugman: The Quiet Man. "The Bush administration…operates on the principle that Mr. Bush is infallible. Whatever policies he may have proposed in the past, his aides always insist that they are perfectly suited to the present — indeed, were devised with the present situation in mind. It's actually quite funny, though nobody dares say so." A corollary of the thesis that Bush's answer to everything is the same: a tax cut solves.

The Wisdom of Supermodels. Oh, this is just priceless.

New York Times: Afghan City, Free of Taliban, Returns to Rule of the Thieves. And: Gul Agha Gets His Province Back. Karzai might be the recognized head of the government in Kabul, but the situation on the ground is a different matter. All around Afghanistan, local warlords are seizing power, and engaging in the same practices of corruption and abuse of power that made Afghanistan such a fertile ground for the Taliban 5 years ago. Some might decry nation-building missions as doomed to failure. Perhaps. But if something isn't done to change the current situation, it is Afghanistan that will be doomed (again).

Washington Post: MicroStrategy's CEO Sped to the Brink. The first of a four-part series chronicling the rise and fall of Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy. At his peak, Saylor was worth about $13 billion, and was the richest man in the DC area.

Washington Post: CBO Report Rates Bush Economic Proposals Poorly. Yeah, big surprise. Bush's stimulus plan is nothing but a give-away to the rich — it has everything to do with paying back his base and supporters, and little to nothing to do with stimulus.

Bill Keller: Missile Defense: The Untold Story. He makes a great point — in the minds of supporters, missile defense isn't about defense as much as it's about offense, our ability to use conventional weapons without fear of nuclear escalation. And if this is the argument that's driving the debate, we should have the debate out in the open instead of focusing exclusively on the issue of its defensive worth.

William Safire: Executive Privilege Again. Now priviledge is being extended to documents that chronicle the three-decade-long abuse of power by the FBI in its war on organized crime. "Call me Cassandra, but history will not look kindly on those who let ends justify means — and let helpful hoodlums get away with murder."

Today is my first day back at work in almost two weeks. I loved the break and hated hearing the sound of my alarm again this morning. But now that I'm back, I realize it's not a negative. Getting stuff done is good.

Nancy Kuhn: Media distorted Florida court ruling to invent Bush victory. "The truth is, there are no scenarios that George W. Bush would have won under had the U.S. Supreme Court not stopped the counting of legal votes in Florida." Amen.

Paul Krugman: Crying With Argentina. Krugman has been writing a lot about Argentina recently, one of the few pundits who seems to notice and understand that Argentina's story is a cautionary tale for the US as well. My favorite bit, today, though, is this: "…we are notoriously bad at seeing ourselves as others see us. A recent Pew survey of 'opinion leaders' found that 52 percent of the Americans think that our country is liked because it 'does a lot of good'; only 21 percent of foreigners, and 12 percent of Latin Americans, agreed."

Happy New Year!

Rough night last night, and a rough day today, too. Hope this isn't indicative of how the new year will go.

For Christmas, my dad took me out to his country club and got me fitted for a new set of irons. I went with the new Titleist DCI 762 irons — love the look, they feel solid, and the sound they make when you really clock one is music to my ears. One of my resolutions: break 85 this year. These will help. Thanks, dad!