Tag Archives: New Years

new-years-2016

10 Ways to Be a Better Person in 2016

It’s a whole new year. And while everyone’s out making lofty, unsustainable resolutions, forget the grand pledges and get back to basics. Try focusing on a few small areas of your life where key changes will reap big results. If you’re willing to give it a shot, you can be a better person in 2016. You can totally be a better person.

  1. Start cooking for yourself

Don’t you get tired of eating takeout every day? Isn’t it boring shoveling the same three or four menu items down your throat meal after meal? Sure, getting in the habit of cooking your own meals can seem a daunting task, but start with one meal, with just a few simple ingredients. After you eat, wash your dishes and think about three or four ingredients you might use to make your next plate. Once you’ve got a routine established, which won’t take as long as you think, you can think about ditching the delivery altogether. Also, you can stop taking my food out of the fridge. Because yes, I was absolutely planning on eating those leftover meatballs, and no, it wasn’t cool of you to just help yourself.

  1. Get a gym membership

It’s kind of a cliché resolution, but there’s no better way to kick off the New Year than by joining a gym. You’ll look better, you’ll feel better, and you’ll have a lot more energy and confidence. Also, my gym said that I can’t sign you in as a guest anymore.

  1. Put your phone away

Too often we’re glued to our phones. And even trying to resist the constant pull of the Internet makes time spent away from a device feel like an exercise in frustration. So do yourself a favor in 2016 and stop using your phone. Also, stop using my phone. Yeah, I understand that your carrier throttles your data after a while, so maybe you should take it easy on whatever it is you’re constantly downloading. And I don’t care if you’re out of battery, just because mine has sixty-five percent left doesn’t mean I have to share the wealth.

  1. Get better about doing your laundry more regularly

It’s one of those chores that, if you can just stay on top of it week-to-week, you can avoid having all of your clothes stacked up in two, giant, unfolded piles. Just take care of a load here and there, and you’ll have your wardrobe back, and you won’t have to borrow my socks. Which, by the way, it’s not borrowing, it’s just taking. Because I’m not wearing socks that you’ve borrowed, you might as well just keep them. And I think you know this, which is why you keep doing it. I’m sick of having to constantly buy new socks. Just don’t touch my socks.

  1. Stop biting your nails

It’s a bad habit. It’s bad for your teeth. It’s bad for your nails. You’re nails are constantly bleeding. It’s gross. Could you like, do it somewhere else at least? We’re watching TV and you’re just biting and biting, and then you’re playing with a big chunk of fingernail in your mouth, and then you do this thing where you casually try to just spit out the piece of fingernail like I’m not noticing, but I’m totally noticing, and then there are little pieces of fingernail stuck in the carpet. Dude, gross.

  1. Pay your rent

I’m serious man, the rent was due a week ago. And that’s great that you’re able to maintain such a nonchalant attitude about your credit score, but my parents cosigned the lease on this apartment, so I’d appreciate it if you could make your monthly payments on time. Your “money’s really tight” excuse is a little hard to swallow, by the way, especially since you had enough cash to buy that extra gamepad controller for your stupid special edition Zelda Wii U. Right, it’s painted gold, I see, great. I just don’t get why you had to sell your old Wii U to buy a gold one.

  1. How’s that job search coming along?

No, I hear you, it’s a tough market. It’s just a suggestion. That’s all I’m saying, is that maybe you’d have more money if you found a job. Yeah, I get it, I don’t love my job either, but you’ve got to pay the bills, right? Seriously, you have to pay your bills. My mom just got a call from our landlord.

  1. Get your shoes off the couch

Come on man, that’s my couch. I bought it. It’s fine that you eat on it, and sleep on it, whatever. But the shoes, do you have to keep them on when you’re laying down? And while I’m on it, just, if I walk in the living room, and you’re lying on the couch, it might be nice if you sat up so I could sit on the couch too. This isn’t your bedroom.

  1. Try to wear pants around the house

Or at least some pajamas, or shorts. I can see your balls right now. Dude.

  1. Don’t spoil Star Wars

No, I get it, it’s over and done with. But I still can’t believe you spoiled Star Wars for me. That’s nice that you had time to catch the midnight showing on opening night, but you really didn’t have to come home and tell me all about it. Especially when I was like, “Dude, stop … please, don’t say anything,” and you were like, “No, I’m not going to spoil anything, but …” and then you told me like three huge spoilers. That was not cool. And yeah, so just going forward, in 2016, whenever, just don’t talk to me about Star Wars, about any movie really. Just don’t talk to me at all, about anything.

Happy New Year from Times Square!

Wow, the energy here at Times Square is just nuts. It’s not even lunchtime yet, and the whole place is going crazy. This is exactly how I’ve always dreamed it would be, the festive atmosphere, all of the people, the hustle, the bustle. I can’t believe we’re only twelve hours away from 2015, and we’re going to be right here, right in the middle of it all, at the crossroads of America when the clock strikes twelve.

nytsqurrr

And I thought we were getting here early. I guess all the real New Yorkers know what’s what, that you have to come even earlier to stake out a good spot. I can still see the ball though, that’s the most important part. But the stage is so far away, I doubt Ryan Seacrest will notice this cool sign I made. It’s a piece of pink cardstock, it says, “Hey Ryan! We’re so happy to be here in NYC!” Yeah, I’m not too great at coming up with cool slogans, but it’s sincere, we really are very happy to be here. And I dressed it up with all sorts of glitter and ribbon and confetti. Maybe one of the cameras will pan to it, and maybe Ryan will see it on one of his little monitors somewhere.

Yeah, you’re right honey, that coffee I had on the way over was a big mistake. I can’t believe there aren’t any port-a-potties set up. Where are all of these people supposed to go to the bathroom? Luckily, it’s so cold that it’s hard to separate the feeling of having to pee from the sensation of all of the blood leaving my extremities.

No, I can’t be negative. So what, so I have to hold it for a little longer, that’s OK. It’s all about the experience. Times Square, New York City, 2015. Someday we’ll have our own kids, and we’ll be sitting at home in the living room watching the ball drop on TV, and I’ll tell the kids, “Kids, do you know that your mother and I went to Times Square one year?”

And the oldest will be a teenager, and he or she will probably be going through that defiant teenage period, not wanting to hang out with the family, definitely not on New Year’s Eve. “Yeah, you told us that story a million times,” will be the reply. But I’ll know that underneath that sourpuss face, there’s going to be a feeling, a disbelief, like really? My parents went to Times Square on New Year’s Eve? That’s so cool.

You’ll never guess what just happened. There was a commotion going on maybe twenty feet away, and so I pushed through the crowd and got close, and it was a street performer! It’s freezing out, I have three coats and two scarves on, but this guy just had a vest, no shirt, just a vest. And he started juggling bowling pins! Wow, the crowd was going wild. Only in the Big Apple, right?

But then, oh jeez, things just took an ugly turn. This guy started passing around a disgusting old hat, I guess begging for change or something. Everybody kind of just looked at their feet, I felt bad about having recorded his whole act on my phone, so I gave him some spare change, I think it was like thirty-seven cents. But then the guy to my left passed the hat without giving anything. The performer got annoyed, he started saying something about photos and money. I don’t know, good thing there are so many cops here to keep a lid on any trouble. They carted him away, hopefully to get a coat, it’s really, very cold out here, way too cold for only a vest. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s homeless, if maybe they’re not doing him a favor. That’s no way to make a living.

Man, I thought I could hold it, but I can’t hold it anymore. There’s still something like ten hours left. If there weren’t so many cops here, I could probably pee somewhere, maybe a cup. I get a shy bladder around large crowds, but this, I don’t know, I’m ready to pop. There’s a dude to my left who looks like he just wet his pants. That’s actually not a bad idea. I mean, it’ll dry, right? And it’s not like I’m going to go back to the hotel. I’ll lose my spot. OK.

Ah … I can’t tell you how great that felt. And I’m sure it’s not going to last very long at all, but I’m just so warm, my pants anyway, I don’t remember ever feeling this warm. But there it goes, now it’s getting cold. And now it’s getting really cold. Ooh, and now it’s freezing. I should have thought about that maybe. I mean, it’s chilly out, yeah, but I didn’t think it was below freezing. Maybe if I just bend back a little, point my crotch toward the sun. This has got to evaporate, right?

No, officer, I didn’t pee myself, I just, I spilled my coffee. Yeah, and then I lost the cup. No, come on, I swear, I’m a tourist. You can’t take me to a shelter. Look, it’ll dry. Please, you have no idea how long I’ve been planning this trip. And what am I supposed to tell my kids? No, honey, you stay, just stay here and celebrate and have fun. One of us needs to be here for when the ball drops. Yes, officer, I’m coming, please, one second here. Honey, take my sign, just, if you see any cameras, try to grab someone’s attention, point to the glitter. OK, I’m going, I’m going. Baby, if they let me out of the shelter, I’ll try to swing back to the hotel, change my pants, and I’ll see if I can’t make it back here. Jeez, there’s no need to get pushy, I’m coming, all right. Honey, Happy New Year! Let me know if you see anybody famous!

Rethinking the holidays

I’ve got a bad case of the post holiday blues. Christmas is over. No more presents left to open. I always used to hide like half of my presents away, saving them for February, March, something to get me through the cold, wet winter. If it got so bad that I couldn’t take the dismal stretch of time expanding outward in front of me, I’d open a Christmas present and let myself bask in a fleeting moment of joy. But the people who give you gifts, they want to see you open them up right away, on Christmas, not two months later, and so people just stopped giving me presents. Or they’d stop wrapping them, just handing me a foot massager or a brand new pair of windshield wiper blades.

Everybody has so much fun at Christmas. The best part is taking off the day before, and depending on what day of the week it falls, you might get the day before that off as well, a four, maybe five day weekend. And then sure, you’ll go back to work the next day, but nobody does any work in between Christmas and New Years. It’s all a big joke. Show up at the office but just kind of hang out and talk about presents and go out for drinks during lunch.

But then it’s New Years and then it’s over. What’s next? Three months of winter. Valentine’s Day isn’t a real holiday. I propose that we move Christmas to the end of February. We could still do the old holiday season, but this would now be exclusively for New Years. Think about it. You just get done with Thanksgiving and a month later you get the Christmas/New Years knock out punch. Let’s spread it out. Let’s give ourselves something to look forward to.

Christmas in February makes so much more sense. Just as everybody would start winding down from the New Years celebrations, you’d start hearing Christmas music and seeing Christmas decorations in the mall. Some of your killjoy friends would complain, stuff like, “I don’t see why there has to be Christmas decorations in December! Can’t we at least wait until January?” and then your secular friends would say stuff like, “There’s nothing in the Bible that says anything about Christmas being in February! That’s not even when Jesus was born!” and your traditionalist friends would pipe in with, “We need to move Christmas back to December! This an outrage!”

As a country, we don’t have that many holidays. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Fourth of July. What else? Sure you get your days off for Labor Day, Presidents Day, a bunch of other whatever days. I think we need to rethink the holidays. We need to have it so no two months go by without a holiday. I’m talking like holiday, holiday. Like two days off from work, at least. And we’ll spread them out so there’s always something relatively close to look forward to.

Just think about the winter months. It’s so depressing, nothing ahead. Easter is kind of losing its secular appeal, if it ever even had any. And it’s on a Sunday, so nobody gets off work.

This fits in with my whole theory that we need a lot less work, as a country. We need a three-day, four-day work week, tops. We should only be working five hours a day at the maximum. And we need lots more holidays. Tons more days off.

And we need to start including the service industry in these holidays. I always hate that whenever ninety percent of the country is off having a good time, there’s always one or two people selling tickets at the movies, or pumping gas. Let’s stagger it out so that they can join in the holiday spirit also.

I thought writing about this would cheer me up, but it didn’t. We’re still in January. It’s really, really cold. I wish I had a week off to look forward to. Remember that stuff I said about the three-day work week? Make it a two-day work week. I promise I’ll shut up and stop complaining if I can just get a two-day work week. I’ll work really hard. I promise. Seriously, those will be some of the most productive ten hours you’ll ever see.