I know I’m not the only one who’ll be glad to see 2008 shuffle off into the realm of memory. But now I see that we have to wait a little longer for 2009:

2009年将“迟到”一秒

2009 will be one second “late”

WHAT?! Can’t even trust the year to show up on time anymore?

２００９年将“迟到”一秒。昨天，记者从中国科学院国家授时中心获悉，在世界时（即格林尼治时间）２００８年底最后一秒全球将同步实施闰秒，届时，全世界所有时钟都将统一拨慢一秒。这意味着２００９年将“迟到”一秒。

2009 will be one second “late”. Yesterday, your correspondant learned from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ National Time Service Centre that in universal time (aka Greenwich Mean Time), the whole world will together add a leap second after the last second of 2008, and at the appointed time all the world’s clocks will be put back one second. This means 2009 will be one second “late”.

Now, I personally don’t feel a need to go into all the technical details. But I do note this sentence appearing in the article:

２００８年为１６年来最长的一年

2008 is the longest year in 16 years.

Ya don’t say. I hadn’t noticed.