It snowed, it rained, it rained some more. It rained until the gutters were running with water as if it was late April, and the clouds were pounding the earth to life again. I walked the dog after the rain relented to a drizzle, and of course everything is also ice, so one tug on the leash when he detects something that needs chasing, and I’m out for months with a pulverized tailbone. Of course when we got home he demanded food; he has gotten into a bad routine where he demands food every time something happens, which is annoying. I am breaking him of the habit by not giving in, and saying NO with the Big Voice.

So that was my exciting day? No; much more, and right now I’m about to load this and watch TV. I would like to watch DirecTV Now, but the password doesn’t work. It’s the AT&T password. The DirecTV password doesn’t work, either. The Giant Swede went through a great day of misery on the phone with AT&T about their passwords; they want everything unified, and that’s great! I get it! Except for that to work they have to ACCEPT THE ONE PASSWORD EVERYWHERE. There’s MyAT&T, which I hate because it’s not my AT&T until they start sending dividend checks, and I dislike all that cutesy Me-My stuff. Is there an AT&TUniverse back there somewhere? I seem to recall.

At the end of the year I usually reset the passwords anyway, and this meant that Daughter sent me a text at 5 AM my time that started out DAD, and then break, and then WHY DID YOU RESET THE NETFLIX, and I couldn’t really say I was bored the other night and you hadn’t called on Christmas Eve (for reasons) and this was passive-aggressive revenge of the finest sort.

Let’s just contemplate the wonders of the world that involve a text on your little pocket global communications device, sending up distress from Brazil because you changed a password for the streaming service.

As I said yesterday, interregnum week, nothing much going on. In my hours alone I have done many tedious things for the sites that need to be done, like transferring the 2018 Motel updates to the States pages, overhauling a few sections that hadn’t been touched for a long time, reevaluating my life choices, regretting nothing, lamenting a few things, and - I think you’ll understand the importance of this - cleaning out all my fonts and adding them back one at a time to see if I really need them. There are 1,045 fonts. I do not think I need 900 of them. But one has to be sure.

I know I can face the new year with confidence, because I have completed the archiving of everything important from 2018. All the photos have been edited, named, assigned to the relevant folders; all the video has been edited as well; all the columns - 130 pieces total - have been arraigned in order, and all the Bleats have been converted to pdfs. All the podcasts are nestled in the AUDIO folder. All the text conversations with Daughter have been archived.

So what?

Well, nothing else quite ties a bow on the year, and totes up the accomplishments. These are the things that I made.

So what?

Well. It’s what I do. Everyone has to do something.

Have you enjoyed your year at the Bleat? I certainly hope so. I do this for myself, to make myself create a record, but also because I have the old longstanding late 90s-obligation to fill the web. There are many models I see for providing new content, and some of them are quite impressive. Stylish. But they don’t accumulate. It’s one entry after the other - oh but hey keywords! No, I’m the sort of old-style guy who adds a few pages weekly to a long-standing site. No keywords necessary. Just a standing link that abides from year to year.

That doesn’t mean I don’t want to shake things up now and then; next year has some fun innovations and additions, because the general idea here is this:

I have to earn your visit every week.

Not every day. But every week. I say "Not every day" because this is obviously a light one, being a Holiday weekend and all, and we're gone until next Wednesday, on account of all the festivities.

There are two blocks in this project. The core of the southern block is coming along nicely, but this is alwys the butt-ugliest period of a building's life.

What's all this talk about bigamy

You wonder about the sequence of events that led up to Lance standing in this woman's living room . . . no, office? Where are they?

Oh God Lance why is everything suspicious to you why

Solution here.

Finally, the great reveal! All these mystery cues from a 1950s radio show have been . . . this guy!

But of course you knew that. There's no way to mask this style. Here are four clips from this vast uncollected suite. The first sounds like something he'd do for Hitchcock. The second makes you think of "The Day the Earth Stood Still." The third, for an episode about Lizzie Borden, prefigures the post-slaughter overhead pan from "Taxi Driver."

The last one is just a good place to end.

The year ends with another never-hit. Next year we're back to thrift-store finds.

People are always doing things and not knowing why in 60s songs, because of the ESTABLISHMENT, MAN

Sorry, this is too late for Christmas gift ideas. Good Lord, two minutes of tag-team cigarette hawking? I think something happened to this recording. Well, I know something happened.

That'll do! See you on Monday, for the last iteration of this this volume of the Bleat. Design tweaks and a really cool new feature to come next year. Have a fine weekend.