David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published Dec. 27, 2005

Time to squeeze off some ideas before the new fiscal year

While Santa hits the treadmill to work off a few billion cookies, I thought I'd take this opportunity to do a little end-of-the-year housecleaning.

I keep a list of column ideas so that when an idea hits, I can simply add it to the list. That way, when it's time for me to write, I go to my list without having to dig into the dusty recesses of my brain searching for that wonderful idea I had three weeks ago.

I've noticed that as I get older, my memory's not what it used to be. I don't know if my memory lapses are a function of age or simply an issue of storage. The older I get, the more memories I compile. My wee brain is only so large, so it should be no surprise that I forget things more often than I used to.

I had better stop right there. Writing a column about memory is on my list, and I'm fairly certain I could get a full-length column out of it. Or at least I think I remember thinking that. I could be wrong.

Today's column isn't a full-blown column. Oh sure, the word count is roughly the same, but instead of focusing on one subject, I'm going to briefly touch on a variety of ideas on my list but that I now realize aren't worthy of a full column. Like I said, it's housekeeping.

Also, I need to use these ideas before the end of the year so I can write them off on my 2005 taxes. On the 1040 form where it says, "Miscellaneous deductions," I'll jot down, "$34 for exerted cranial energy correlating to freelance correspondence." The Internal Revenue Service likes it when you use unnecessarily flowery language. I think 34 bucks is about right. Over the course of a year, that's less than a dollar per column idea. Quite a bargain, if you ask me. I bet George Will deducts double that.

Today, I'll be separating ideas with asterisks. Use of nonstandard punctuation -- that's another deduction.

* * *
Why doesn't anyone talk much about our soldiers in Afghanistan? I know the U.S. presence there isn't nearly as large as in Iraq, but the women and men there are doing critical work. Some of them are dying, too, just like in Iraq.

According to President Bush, the objectives of Operation Enduring Freedom (did you even know that's what it's called?) include the destruction of terrorist training camps and infrastructure within Afghanistan, the capture of al Qaeda leaders, and the cessation of terrorist activities.

The soldiers in Iraq get the bulk of media attention, but maybe we could think of our soldiers in Afghanistan from time to time.

Wait until our forces emerge from the Afghanistan mountains with Osama in handcuffs -- they'll get their headlines in a big, big way.

* * *
If your priorities are so out of whack that you paid $900 or more for an Xbox 360 under the tree, I hope you're at least getting every penny of enjoyment out of it. That's what the $300 video game system was going for on eBay before Christmas.

According to a recent story in USA Today, when word got out that Best Buy stores were to have a few systems, people began camping out Friday night. Who am I to say anyone's values are wrong? Well, I'm a newspaper columnist. I get paid for my opinion. If you're camping out three days or shelling out triple the market price just so you're little angel can have an XBox 360 on Christmas morning, that is insane. I'll just go ahead and say it: You're priorities are wrong.

* * *
The other day I saw something pretty funny. It was a two-car fender-bender in which, thankfully, no one was hurt. What made it funny was that one car had a University of Michigan decorative license plate on the front, and the other car had an Ohio State plate. I don't know if there were any intercollegiate rivalry hijinks that led to the crash, but with those schools you never know. Maybe next week I'll see a crash involving a car with a Christian fish emblem and a car with the Darwinian walking fish emblem. Talk about road rage.

* * *
I just wanted to claim three more asterisks on my 1040.

* * *
You know how you're always complaining that there's never enough time? Well, you can stop your bellyaching because time is on your side. Yes it is.

We'll get an extra second on Saturday, New Year's Eve, which means 2006 will start a second later than normal. It's called a leap second, a correction the world's official timekeepers use to synch clocks with the Earth's rotation. According to the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, leap seconds are needed to keep time scales in agreement since the Earth's rotational rate is slowly decreasing by approximately 1.4 milliseconds per century due to effects such as tidal braking.

I'm not exactly sure what tidal braking is, but I'm sure someone somewhere claims that it's George W. Bush's fault.

· · ·
David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@tds.net