January really is the worst month of the year. Whoever decided to place January and its 31 days of influenza, frigid weather and doldrums on the heels of December's all out bliss assault of holidays and social gatherings really didn't think things through. It would make more sense to cut straight from December to, say, April. Frankly, if we did away with January - March we'd be all the better for it.

While we would lose Valentines Day, MLK Day, President's Day, the Super Bowl and Spring Break, it would be worth the trade. MLK Day could be moved to April when the weather's better, the Super Bowl is always boring, Spring Break is completely irrelevant for anyone over the age of 22 and/or annoying because all the kids are out of school, no one cares about President's day and everyone hates Valentines Day. Instead of squabbling over the federal budget, Congress should be working on deleting these three months from the calendar altogether. Other nations will presumably fall into line because they too must realize these 90 days are the pits. If they don't get with the program, well, we'll just ignore them and do our own thing.

Now that's it the first week of January, it's officially time to take down the Christmas decor from Welcome to Blog. So out goes Tim's award-winning "Santa Net," only to be replaced with the bland gorilla balloon pic you see above. My desktop folder of local photos is running a little thin so it's the best photo of the month I could come up with.

Does January deserve better? No, because January sucks.