30 December 2007

New Year's Resolutions (or, How to Make 2008 Memorable)

Here is the short list of New Year's Resolutions I'm contemplating for 2008.

Staging a coup in a small island nation, becoming a benevolent but curious dictator, free to conduct a wide variety of social and economic experiments.

Taking a year off to spend 10 hours a day sitting in a small office focused on one task and one task only: crafting the world’s best ever philosophical joke. (The one about Descartes that seems to me the best is wonderful, but perhaps could be improved on. The joke? The waitress asked Descartes if he’d like more coffee. “I think not,” Rene replied and poof, he disappeared.)

Performing an autopsy on George Bush in an attempt to figure out how his brain works (just think about living in a world where we had a cure for thinking like his).

Starting my own variety show on YouTube, to include monologues, music, and interviews with intellectual celebrities – all done with finger puppets.

Design a project to move earth's orbit away from the sun about 3 million miles. This will have two benefits: one, it'll will make a year longer by about 3 days and two, it'll reduce global temperatures by about 3 degrees.

Investing my portfolio in politicians who will, in turn, make grants to me for all of the above.

Playing advocate and pioneer (read, getting product endorsements and coverage on ESPN) for the new sport of power snorkeling, finally proving to my high school crush Shawn Gibbs beyond a shadow of doubt that I really had never intended to “get up” on water skis, thereby making my incompetence look intentional.

Getting fake ID so that I can sneak into AARP and begin collecting social security payments 20 years early.

Go back to grad school on the pretence of getting my PhD but actually to become the oldest ever walk on player to try out for the baseball team.

Sponsoring the first virtual primary to finally begin the election process of determining who, really, is the king or queen of CyberLand. (Of course, if hits are votes, we all know who is queen: it’s Britney. Sigh.)

Given that this particular set of goals is probably more than I could hope to accomplish, feel free to borrow from the list (but do have the decency to let me know which you choose so as to avoid duplication.)

For those of you seriously looking into New Year's Resolutions, this Guardian article about Quirkology author's Richard Wiseman's recent study on New Year's Resolutions can be found here.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you're going to perform an autopsy on George Bush, then there's something you need to add to your "to-do" list!

Anonymous said...

Go back to grad school on the pretence of getting my PhD but actually to become the oldest ever walk on player to try out for the baseball team.

This got the loudest laugh out of me, perhaps because I was expecting you to say "basketball" team.

Very sticky, indeed.

exskindiver said...

happy new resolutes RD.

cce said...

Oh, I want to do the finger puppet show...I'll take that one off your hands. Now let me just think about who will be my first interview...Kurt Cobain, Anna Nicole, does it matter if they are dead or alive? I think not, if granted appropriate finger puppet representation.
Good luck with the power snorkeling. Sounds like a noble pursuit and one easily accomplished right before becoming the short stop for the Padres.

Ron Davison said...

Thomas,
There you go, trying to get me in trouble with the special blogging division of homeland security.

Anon,
height and basketball ability are only marginally correlated, as my high school basketball coach learned.


Xsd,
the happy new resolutes sounds like a band name but, because its from you, I'll try to do just this in spite of being uncertain about what resolutes are.

cce,
how perfect - the ouija interviews with finger puppets. I hadn't even thought of how much finger puppets would free you up to do the things that Letterman and Leno could never do. This is definitely yours to take then (although I'd love to see my name down as executive producer when the credits scroll by).

David said...

I think about dying in a world where there was no thinking like Bush's. So, given your favorite joke, wouldn't the entire democratic congress disappear too? (And many republicans as well).
In fact, using the one policy statement that Obama has made he'd only be president long enough to change that.