You're playing with your toys and nursing hangovers. Asia is spending the day after Christmas in a tizzy after Japan's prime minister hung out at a shrine seen as a testament to the days when the island nation planted its flag across half the Pacific Rim. Tensions with China have already been high. They have now gotten a bit higher.

Al-Qaida-allied rebels have slowly but surely been filling the vacuum opened by American troops' withdrawal from Iraq. The Pentagon has been furtively shipping missiles and drones to Baghdad in a desperate bid to help beat those rising insurgents back.

Calling the Muslim Brotherhood a "terrorist" organization may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy for Egypt. A bus bomb one day, and a suicide bomb the day before, have accompanied a decision to round up several known members of the political organization.

Recalcitrant conservatives, vexing a moderate, olive-branch-extending president with hard-line demands, remain the biggest threat to a nuclear accord and overall rapprochement with Iran.

An American "contractor" kidnapped in Pakistan two years ago put out a video trying to personally guilt trip Barack Obama into taking some kind of action to bring him home.

Los Angeles cops love cars so much and hate pedestrians so bad it's not even funny.

The US Congress loves austerity so much and hates NASA and its budget so bad it's not even funny.

Lazy, disgruntled Americans love surveys so much and hate Congress so bad it's not even funny.

The biggest day yet for HealthCare.gov is coming this Tuesday. It's going to be so so so so so annoying if that goddamned website fails again and we have to keep hearing about it.

Detroit, especially since its bankruptcy filing this year, has taken on its final form as America's living Pompeii.

IF YOUR PANTS WON'T FIT [BECAUSE (A) YOU'RE SO BLOATED; (B) YOU'RE HOLDING WATER; (C) YOU'RE JUST A LITTLE FATTER NOW], THEN PUT ON SOMETHING ELASTIC AND WATCH THIS.