Leap Years, Bliss or Curse

2008. Another leap year. Everybody who's born on February 29 will be happy about this, as they finally get to unwrap gifts on their actual birthday, but what about the rest of us? Isn't it bad enough we already have to deal with daylight savings time and other stupid 'inventions' to mess up our internal clock without adding a full day to the year?

4 days left, and I'm getting a bit nervous. After all, it is something special. Besides having that extra day, it also means that this year we'll have the Olympics (aren't you excited to see what the Chinese will come up with for the grand opening?) and Euro 2008 (the European Soccer Championship). But how does one spend that extra day? Isn't your budget calculated for 365 days? Will you have to work that extra day?

In order to make sure you won't waste this special treat, I've gathered a few tips. They're basically just things to do on any day off, but that would ruin the effect of the article completely.

Clean your hard-disk.

Everybody's got tons of long forgotten files, pictures (yes, including those) and songs that are just sitting somewhere on your hard-disk, taking up precious space and being absolutely useless. Get rid of them! Don't do the whole 'But I might need them later' routine, you know you're only fooling yourself. There's a delete button on your keyboard, so use it!

Listen to music and look at pictures.

If you've followed my last advice, you'll have found a lot of songs and pictures you forgot about but still care about. Listen to your songs and look at a slide show of your pictures while drinking some nice green tea with just a zest of lime and half a tea spoon of sugar in it. What? You didn't think I was the type?

Go to the movies.

You've probably been talking about it for a while, but always found an excuse to escape from it: the movies. Take your local newspaper, check out the local theaters, bitch for 10 minutes that there's nothing decent showing and rent the 'American Pie'-series. Again.

Go out with friends.

And I mean in real life. Not on FaceBook, not on Second Life, no, in the real world, where coffee does taste like sewage water and people do get robbed. It'll give you an excuse to stay in for the rest of your life and it might inspire you to write a few articles. Or leave a note on all your social networks that nobody will ever read.

Make it a special day for you and your significant other.

People like this kind of pseudo-romantic stuff. Buy a pick-nick basket and surprise them. Buy flowers. Write poems (not the ones that start with 'There once was a man from Nantucket'). Just make sure you get some afterward. Otherwise you might as well stay in and watch the game.

Call your grandparents.

You know you should. It's been a while, and it'll only take 2 minutes. Just disconnect the call whenever you're tired of talking and should they remember this the next time you talk to them, just say there was a problem with your provider. Be sure to mention the words 'will' and 'retirement home' every now and then.

Not all these tips might be suited for everybody, but hey, they're not the Bible. I'm not gonna check up on you and force you to follow them. As for me, I'll be on a crappy, overcrowded 13-hour flight home on the 29th. There'd better be some free champagne on board.