Happy 2008

[ed note: Hello, I'm ed. Since I'm not sending out emails announcing this drivel anymore, you can 'subscribe' over on the right hand side there. I don't think you can unsubscribe, however. Ever. Enjoy!]

My resolutions for 2008 fall into 3 categories:

Fake:
To become a master cornholer. I just heard in an NPR story about bleeping out bad words on TV, that my beloved Arrested Development show got in trouble, not for too many bleeps, but for using the word "Cornhole". It was used in reference to the "Cornballer" a failed single-purpose home cooking device, which makes... Cornballs.

I recommend the npr story. I recommend Arrested Development even more. I further recommend eating cornballs while playing cornhole. Both go great with beer.

When NPR does a story about my beloved cornhole, that'll be a real driveway moment.

Real:
1) To see my abdominal muscles by the end of the year. (10% chance of success). Haven't seen them since high school. I heard they took up with a folk music trio... performing as the washboard of course. They were replaced with a saggy, hairy washboard.

2) To be 'value added' as much as possible (100% success guaranteed, in that "as much as possible" is not measurable). When I'm at home, rather than doing important things like researching imdb for the film career of Ronald Coleman or Farley Granger, or creating the perfect playlist which will never be listened to... I will do something useful. I will get up and unpack our boxes (Yes, we moved in on June 2 2007), walk the dog, take pictures of the kids, bake bread, create lasting peace in the Middle East... something! Or if I just sit there, I'll at least scribble out a blog entry.

3) To not fall asleep on the couch anymore. (0% chance for success.) I was in the horrible habit of watching a little TV after everyone went to sleep. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are largely to blame. I would make it about 5 minutes into The Daily Show and fall into an uncomfortable, fitful sleep. (Our couch can handle about 5'11" of my 6'5" length.) What little sleep I would get would be restless.

4) I had a fourth, but have forgotten it already. 100% success guaranteed! Awesome! Maybe I'll replace this forgotten resolution with a resolution to never own a single-purpose kitchen appliance. What started with the toaster has gotten out of control!

Real and already failed:
See #3) above. The night of the Iowa caucuses, I had to watch the coverage. For 5 minutes. Then sleep through it in my clothes. That's pure democracy baby! Freedom, the way the founding fathers imagined it.

Our Christmas Photos Slideshow.