Stop lying about your New Year's Resolutions

It’s the time of year when people begin their ritual lying to the world about how they’re getting ready to magically transform themselves into better people. That’s right: I’m talking about New Year’s Resolutions.

It’s just something I never really got into because I’m not big on lying to myself. I know I’m not about to just radically change into someone else. I’m pretty sure that in March, I’m still gonna look exactly the same as I do right now. I don’t even do things that all grown men should do, like shave and iron clothes, so you can forget a gym routine.

For the most part, everyone that starts a New Year’s Resolution doesn’t last anymore than a month or two before they get back into gambling grandma’s medicine money or cheating on their boyfriend or whatever they told the judge they weren’t gonna do anymore.

We’re just not strong enough to make sudden changes that we know are right. I know that I probably shouldn’t eat my nightly steak right before bed. I know I shouldn’t type on my laptop while driving. I know I shouldn’t use my grill in the living room. I can tell you that I’m going to stop, but I don’t want to because I don’t think I should have to suffer the cold just to enjoy a flame-broiled hot dog.

The problem is there’s no one holding me accountable for the things I say I’ll change. And that’s why New Year’s Resolutions ultimately fail. I’ll tell you that I’ll learn Swahili in 2009, but not only is no one going to follow up on it, even if someone did, I don’t know anyone who knows enough Swahili to make sure that I’m really speaking it or just speaking gibberish.

If we really wanted to change, we wouldn’t wait until January 1 of the following year to actually do it. If it’s May and you decide that it’s probably best that you start being nicer to waiters and waitresses because you’re tired of them leaving condoms in your food, you should probably start doing that in May. If you make it a New Year’s Resolution, that’s seven more months before you get a meal without used latex in it.

Consequently, if it’s November and you decide that you’re going to stop drinking in the New Year, that doesn’t mean you should spent the next two months making sure your liver doesn’t live to see what alcohol-free living is like. That’s a sure-fire sign that your resolution is doomed from the start: Gorging yourself on whatever you’re about to give up. You’re also sure to find out what alcohol poisoning is like.

People who claim that they’re going to start diets (because everyone says they’re going to lose weight) decide to do it right before Thanksgiving and Christmas, which means they’re about to put on 15 extra pounds and create more work for themselves. Logic would dictate that you’d want to diet during the time that you’re expected to gain the most weight, because if you can make it through the fattest 30 days of the year, the next 11 months will be a breeze. Your main obstacle is making it through the holidays without getting your stomach pumped.

But let’s say you actually do start your diet on January 1^st. Like I said before, no one’s holding you to it, because they’re too busy trying to stay focused on their own lies. Your co-worker’s trying to quit smoking and your husband swears he’s gonna jog every morning. They don’t want to point out that you just stuffed that box of chocolate in your mouth because they don’t want you to remember that you just caught them chain-smoking in the bathroom.

I know it’s fashionable to wait until January 1^st to start your resolutions, but just stop it. Snow boots in places where it doesn’t snow are also fashionable, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t stupid. You’re not going to actually follow through with your resolutions, because you don’t really want to do it. You’re just doing it because you think you should.

But you’re not really ready to commit to mountain climbing every day, so don’t do it. It won’t last and you’ll only get someone hurt. Go sit on the couch, put your feet up, and drown yourself in pork rinds. What you need is that “moment of clarity,” like alcoholics talk about, because the truth of the matter is we don’t really want to change.

It shouldn’t take a beating from the cops or waking up to another man’s ass to make you stop drinking, but that’s what it takes for some people. Some need to pass out while walking up the stairs to realize they need more exercise and vegetables. We just don’t realize how hot the stove is until that pot leaves us with third degree burns. People are just hardheaded and we like our lives the way they are. We have to be made to change, which is why our Armed Forces use the tactic of a loud person screaming at you.

So until that drill sergeant of life is actually here, spitting on me while he asks if “I think that’s funny,” I’m going to keep on being the exact same underachiever I always was.

Of course it was T.O.'s fault

Watching the sad performance being put out by the Dallas Cowboys against their hated rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles, there's only one thing that needs to be said: This is all Terrell Owens' fault.

It really isn't, but I just wanted to be the first one to say it, because I just know it's coming. Haven't you heard? T.O. is the what caused the financial crisis.

This game is still in the third quarter as I write this, with a score of 44-3. It's a division game between two teams that have so much history, with the flashpoint always being Eagles (and 49ers) castaway Terrell Owens, who joined the Cowboys in 2005. It's the last game of the season and, in case this game wasn't big enough, whoever wins goes to the playoffs. You'd think that both teams would be ready to run through walls and catch bullets with their bare hands.

Buuuuut…since the score is 44-3 (so far), you should be able to guess that it's not turning out that way.

Assuming that the Cowboys aren't going to go on a 42-0 run in the fourth quarter, I'm just waiting to see how this is going to be put in T.O.'s lap Monday morning. It's invariably going to be his fault. It's always his fault, because if he wasn't out there trying to make everyone look at him, the Cowboys would have scored 7,000 points and made the NFL cancel the Super Bowl, because the other teams would have been too afraid to play.

Terrell Owens is the most selfish teammate since Lucifer decided that he wasn't getting enough attention. Or at least, that's how everyone likes to spin it. The truth is, that's just not reality.

The Cowboys team I saw today was a team that just didn't come to play football. Maybe they came for a baseball game or a spirited contest of lawn bowling, but it certainly wasn't to play this Eagles team. Since when was T.O. a member of the coaching staff? Because last time I looked, preparing this team to play was their job.

I'm watching a Cowboys offense that can't hold onto the football. They're fumbling the ball left and right, practically handing the thing to the Eagles. "Pardon me, old boy. I do believe this ball belongs to you. Toodle-pip, what?" Why, T.O. wasn't on his job, because everyone knows that it was his responsibility to make sure that the ball stays in his teammates hands. He should have been right there with the stick-em. These grown men can't do everything on their own.

The offensive line did about as good a job as the Secret Service did as keeping Bush safe from shoe throwers. At least their excuse can be, "We just didn't see that one coming. Who throws a shoe? Honestly." The offensive line's only job is to protect the quarterback. There are no curveballs coming at them. There aren't going to be sudden surprises, like sneak attacks from behind or secret mole men burrowing out of the ground.

There's nothing to say about the Cowboys' defense that the Eagles' 44 points didn't already say. I know, I know, all of those points weren't scored on the defense, but that part's not going on the scoreboard, plus they still give up 27 points on their own. In fairness, the defense has kept Philadelphia from getting to 50. Thank goodness for moral victories, I guess.

This is a team that has underachieved all season long, when they were picked by many (myself included) to go to the Super Bowl. They were beaten by teams that they should have beaten and they have underperformed in big game situations (like this one). And that's not T.O.'s fault. He played a part, I'm sure, because he's a part of the team, but so is Tony Romo. So is Jason Witten. So are DeMarcus Ware or Bradie James and on up the ladder to offensive coordinator Jason Garrett, head coach Wade Phillips and owner Jerry Jones.

They all could have done more than what they did, but to try to place blame on T.O. for what's been a mess whether he was around or not is really just grasping at straws. He's not throwing the ball to himself out there. He's not on the defense or special teams. He didn't even drop a mess of passes like he's prone to do. Everyone needs to be held accountable for what happened out there today, because I know that had to be embarrassing. I just hope that the sportswriters get a new refrain this time, because blaming T.O. for everything since the Holocaust just isn't working.

And no, I don't mean blame Pacman Jones, either.

Final note: The Cowboys went on that scoring run and closed the deficit to 38 points. Final score: Philadelphia 44, Dallas 6.

Was I wrong about global warming?

Contrary to popular belief, I am not a scientist. I'm really not even that smart. So when it comes to the debate on man-made global warming, I'm not exactly an expert. I'm not even the janitor cleaning up for the expert's trophy wife. I'm not about to attempt to argue the ins and outs of CO2 levels and I'm not going anywhere near the effect of sunspot levels. According to some, CO2 levels are making the temperature go up and according to others, it was caused by the increasing number of sunspots, which has gone down recently. Apparently, the scientists who said that rising temperatures were caused by excessively flatulent cows have been completely discredited. Whatever.

I'll admit that I believed that the recent onset of this phenomenon was caused by us. Now, I've already established that I'm not very bright, so accusing me of being an idiot for believing it doesn't make you a better person. I mean, it's not exactly a secret on this side. Apparently, the sunspot theory has proved to be the correct one.

Almost no one knew about the sunspot theory, however, so just because some didn't believe that global warming was man-made doesn't make those people right when they hear about sunspots. These people didn't have any proof backing up their non-belief in man-made global warming. They just didn't understand anything about CO2 levels, so they fought against it. They're like those people who claimed that the Earth was flat. They had no hard evidence to back that up. They didn't know that Amelia Earheart was going to fly off the side of the world like that; they were just sticking with the establishment and caught a lucky break.

But saying that two years of lower temperatures completely disproves man-made global warming comes from the same school of thought that says that staying off the ground for longer than two seconds means you can fly. I don't know what school that is, but I'm betting all the students have to use safety scissors.

However, the global warming debate isn't my fight. I don't have any degrees and according to those IQ test ads, I'm really not any smarter than Pacman Jones. All I really want to say is that smog is not a natural occurrence. Smog is not good for you. You're not really supposed to inhale that stuff. Or bus fumes. Or whatever that is that comes out of textile plants. All I'm saying is it can't hurt to stop letting our factories crap all in the river.

If you go out to the Wesley Chapel bridge across I-20 at anytime during a warm summer day and look towards Atlanta, you will see a yellowish-brown haze all of the place. I'm pretty sure that's not the high pollen count, either. Last time I was in New Orleans (well before Katrina), I was on I-10, going past the Superdome when I looked out across the city and noticed a brown haze. I can say with some confidence that the city wasn't trying to match the Saints' colors. When describing a city, the words "dirty" or "frighteningly unhealthy" shouldn't come to mind.

Maybe I'm just being a little skittish, but I'm not of the mindset that says that we should test the upper limits of the amount of abuse that the Earth can take from us. In a rare and unexpected split from the church, I'm going to declare right now that the Earth has been here for billions of years. It's been through meteors and asteroids, fires, earthquakes, pole reversals, you name it, the Earth has been through it. Man (in it's present form) has been here for about 100,000 years and believe it or not, we're pretty fragile. We can't survive getting hit by a well-thrown baseball, let alone giant chunks of rock. Also, we burn up right nice when we get close to fire.

So the Earth might be okay with whatever we're doing to it, but that doesn't mean my lungs or skin are going to be. Sure, the river's going to keep flowing despite the raw sewage, but all the fish in it are going to die or mutate into horribly disfigured killing machines. And dust storms don't hurt the Earth, but the lack of trees hurt us in more ways than hurting the economy. What I'm saying is, whether or not man-made global warming is real isn't even the point. Just as a rule of thumb, it's probably a good idea to stop dumping sludge into our very finite drinking water supply.

Just be glad it was only his shoes...

Did you see the video of the Iraqi reporter throwing his shoes at President Bush? Let me help you out with that.



Funny shit, if you ask me. I'm wondering how he got both shoes off that fast. Reminds me of the way Eddie Murphy described his mom's shoe throwing technique, but Bush has a lot of practice at pissing people off, so he knows to always be on guard when someone flips out around him. Bush just brings it out of people. Just look at him. Hell, that squinty smirk of his makes me want to throw my shoes at him right now, but being Black puts me at high risk for getting shot by the Secret Service.

You know, this sort of thing never happened on "The West Wing, " but it's merely a sign how much this guy has embarrassed us. I guess we should be glad that size 10 Thom McAnn's are the only thing that this guy was throwing, becuase if he had thrown the Shoe Bomber's shoes, that would pretty much guarantee that we were never leaving Iraq. Something else to be glad about: At least the guy didn't throw his draws at Bush. Throwing shoes may be the bigger Muslim insult, but that guy throwing his draws would have been...no, wait...you know, there wouldn't have been a downside to that guy throwing his draws at Bush. That would have meant that either the guy really hated Bush or wanted to sleep with him, which opens the door for a whole line of questions about what Bush was really doing over there that I don't think he'd be prepared to answer.

Seriously...someone needs to do this to Dick Cheney.

Trying to solve the "gay marriage" dilemma

Chuck Norris says that Prop 8 wasn't intended to deprive anyone of their rights, but reinforce the belief that marriage should be between and man and a woman. It just so happens to deprive a group of their rights in the process. "Whoops. Our bad." There are other methods that we could have chosen, but we wanted to go with the one that creates more second class citizens. It's kind of like claiming that slavery was merely a way to save the Africans' savage souls: We could have just used missionaries or rational debate, but we chose the method that destroyed the pride and mindset of an entire race of people. And of course...free labor!

Anyway, I'm all about just getting past this whole fucking issue, because gay people marrying each other doesn't threaten anything I do or imagine doing. No one should be throwing up these tremendous roadblocks to stop happiness, because that's what's being done. You're assaulting happiness, which is something I joke about people doing, but I never thought I see actually happen. You're trying to prevent someone from being happy or willingly shackle on the ball-and-chain, depending on how you view marriage. That's what it all boils down to.

But like i said, I'm all about moving past this, so I'd like to just ask two questions; one to people who are against gay marriage and one to gay people, because the second it stops being a semantics argument, the easier it is to fix and get everyone to shut the fuck up about it. I'm tired of talking about gay marriage. I want to talk about shit that matters, not wondering what my two male neighbors are doing in the bedrooms. And in truth, if you're that worried about what two men are doing in their own bedroom, it says more about you than it does about them. They could just be playing XBox, but your deep interest might just mean that you're gay. But I digress.

The first question is to all the gay people in America. If you know any, ask them this question and get back to me. I'm so serious about this.

"Does it have to be called 'marriage?' As long as you get all the rights of marriage, can it just be called something else?"

The second question is to all people against gay marriage:

"If it wasn't called 'marriage,' but it provided all of the rights of marriage, would you shut the fuck up?"

Because to me, that seems to be the entire argument right there, and what a stupid argument it is. People for claim to want to get married and not completely destroy the underpinnings of society. People against claim to want to simply define what marriage is. If gay people are willing to go along with the first question, then logically speaking, everything should be cool, right? Idiots get to keep their definition of marriage and gay people get to experience the soul-crushing death march to the grave known as (word that we will formally replace "marriage" with in the future).

Embracing the term "civil union" should take care of all of this mess. I mean, religion has claimed marriage as God's creation even though marriage predates all of the modern religions. So let them have it, gay people. Let them have marriage. Run with "civil union." They shouldn't have any reason to stop you on that one.

The Dream Shatterer: You Won't Ever Be Rich

"Do you know the difference between you and every millionaire in the world? They decided they wanted to be millionaires and they went out and did it."

There's no mention of marketable skills or work or anything like that. According to the commercial I'm quoting, any loser that wants to be a millionaire can just become one. Step one: Wish to be a millionaire. Step two: Get peroxide ready for all of the paper cuts you'll suffer counting the money that's about to fall out of the sky. Step three: Be millionaire. Step four: Buy midget to become loyal and dehumanized man-servant.

If you won the lottery, then the above could be a true statement, because that's the only hope that most of us have for moving out of our current tax bracket, let alone becoming a millionaire. The truth is, the majority of millionaires have something going for them. They've got business savvy, they can make you laugh until you soil yourself, they can throw a ball really far, or maybe even they have a horrifying lack of morals. If you don't have anything that anyone wants, how do you expect to become a millionaire? If wishing was all it took to get things done, I'd only use the bathroom in the clouds, because I'd be able to fly. If that was all it took, Beyonce would have an Oscar and we'd probably have a shortage of Jews and Black people. To let you know how hard of an uphill climb you're facing, strippers and prostitutes have things that people want and they're still not millionaires.

For the most part, it's safe to say that most of us are never going to be rich. It might be a negative statement, but so is saying that you'll shoot your eye out playing with your Red Rider B.B. Gun. That negativity doesn't make the fact that you're in the emergency room getting a glass eye put in your newly vacated eye socket any less true. Face it: You're not getting rich any time soon unless there's a Monopoly board laid out in front of you.

Scientists estimate that your potential to be rich decreases each year after the age of 22; 22 being the age that most athletes have left college for the pro ranks. That potential coasts until about 26 because that's the age that most CW and Disney Channel actors/semi-talented music acts have been signed. After that, your earning potential drops off faster than Guns N' Roses on this week's Billboard charts. So if you haven't gotten rich by age 26, you're probably not going to.

All of the genius kids have made their fortunes by 20 and the rich kids born into massive fortunes have received their trust funds by 23. If you were one of those, you would have already fired your butler for trying to read this nonsense to you instead of reorganizing your stacks of hundreds by serial number like you told him. That leaves the rare category of small business owners and low-budget inventors looking to happen upon the next big thing, like the ShamWow or the knife that cuts through both tomatoes and bricks (and children) with the same easy motion. Those people almost never make it and if you haven't started filming your infomercial starring that guy who looks like a game show host, you've got no shot at it. Just give up now.

So what hope do you have, Joe Six-Pack or Hockey Mom, of being rich? My guess is that you've got about the same chances as a person does have getting hit by a falling piece of aircraft AND lightning at the same time, during your suicide attempt that came after you realized that you were never going to be rich. Plus, the scam with the syringe in the soda can stopped working around the same time that they realized that no one liked Crystal Pepsi. In fact, the only reason you have to keep going is...no, not your family. It's probably just going to be a fear of death.

It's going to take a drastic readjustment of your goals in life to keep going. So you're not going to be rich. We've already established that 5% of Americans are ever going to be rich, because we haven't started the Socialist Revolution yet. And out of that 5%, at least 0.5% are lottery winners who will be taken for every dime they won by investing in Amway products or commemorative plates, because the same people who are dumb enough to play the lottery every day are the same people who are dumb enough to lose all of their winnings on something as stupid as they are. So you should try to find a more realistic goal in life.

Like "Not telling your boss what you're NOT going to do that day." Since you're not going to be rich, let's face it: You NEED your job and with the economy being what it is, you can't afford to piss away the one thing that's keeping you off the street. Or perhaps you could satisfy yourself with making it to church every week. That way, you can content yourself with being rich in spirit while loading up at the Dollar General. Maybe even trying to lower the amount of liquor it takes to kill the dull ache of failure in your chest. Having the best grammar at the food stamp office. Reducing your food intake to four meals a day. Small goals are what it's going to take to get you from here to retirement. At that point, you won't care about anything because it'll be socially acceptable for you to shit yourself whenever you want.

Look at the bright side: If you were a racehorse, you would have peaked at three and you'd be dead at 18. Of course, the remaining 15 years between you and the glue shelf at Wal-Mart are filled with lots and lots of sex. And speaking of sex, allow me to shatter one more dream for you: Your favorite celebrity is never going to sleep with you.

Batman sues Batman: It doesn't get any stupider than this

Despite the loss of brain function that this level of stupidity inflicts on me, I soldiered on and read the entire article just so I could tell you about it. Hearing about things like this is like kicking my brain in the nuts.

The city of Batman, in southeastern Turkey, is suing Warner Bros. and "The Dark Knight" director, Christopher Nolan for making a movie that uses their city name without permission. I'll let that sink in, because stupidity like this has to digest properly or else you'll get a headache.

The mayor of the city, Huseyin "The Kid in the Helmet" Kalkan, is preparing a list of charges to formally bring against Warner Bros., that include, and I'm not making this up: "Placing the blame for a number of unsolved murders and a high female suicide rate on the psychological impact that the film's success has had on the city's inhabitants." Rumor has it that future charges include "making our kids grades go down in school and making our dogs doodle on the carpet."

Kalkan is also supposed to be getting some stuff together that proves that the town of Batman is older than the 1939 first appearance of the superhero. While he's at it, he might want to come up with a story that explains why the town of Batman waited 69 years to say anything about this. It's not like Batman just came out earlier this year. And I'm sure that the fact that "The Dark Knight" is on the verge of earning $1 billion at the box office has nothing to do with this.

Variety also reports that "former natives of Batman are also said to have encountered obstacles when attempting to register their businesses abroad." No word on whether or not the obstacle encountered was uncontrollable laughter and a prompt dismissal of what is clearly a joke name. After all, if someone came to me and said that they were from Flintstones, Australia, I'd laugh at them so hard that I'd never even notice how offended they were, before they packed up their bottomless cars and left. So naturally, I'd just assume that anyone from Batman was in the child sex trade and was trying to sell me a ten-year old in green shorts.

As for why no one from Warner Bros. ever said anything to the town of Batman about "Batman," I quoted myself as saying, "Seriously?" Getting into my make-believe role of "legal analyst," I speculated further by saying, "My guess is that they didn't know the city was there because of the rampant exploding that happens in that part of the world. Warner Bros. has nothing to worry about because some of the sensitive Arabs in the area probably will have burned the town down before the suit is even completed."

There are also now unconfirmed reports that New York is preparing to sue a host of movies and songs, including "Escape from New York," "Gangs of New York," Frank Sinatra, for his hit, "New York, New York," and every rapper from New York for referring to either the city as a whole or claiming one of the boroughs as their own, along with China, who's looking to go after Jet Li for his "Once Upon a Time in China" movies and Guns N' Roses for the just released "Chinese Democracy." China says, "We were willing to overlook the new GN'R until we heard it. We just can't stand for them besmirching our good name like that. It really blows. Give it a rest, Axl."

The mayor of Metropolis, IL, Billy McDaniel says that "Batman is really screwing themselves out of a gravy train," by not embracing this whole thing. "Who needs dignity when your city can roll in the dough having outsiders come to see if your residents really drive Batmobiles to work? You're missing out, dude."