Ryan's New Year's Resolutions for 2012

By Ryan

0. Learn a normal counting system

I've tried everything I can think of and cannot stop beginning numeric lists with the number zero. Learning Roman numerals didn't work. Trying to forget about the concept of "zero" didn't help at all. Drilling out the temporal and parietal lobes of my brain didn't do anything except make my insurance premiums go up. I gotta start counting at "one" though, or people are going to start thinking I drilled out part of my brain! I don't even know what the word nothing means anymore, but I can't stop counting at zero!

1. Be less judgmental

All in all, I look down my nose at a lot of people - people I think aren't up to my level, so to speak. I don't think they deserve it; I'm not better than anyone, so why should I act like it? In the new year I'm going to try to be more accepting and less judgmental. I'm going to listen to all sides of an argument - hey, maybe that racist joke IS funny, after all! Maybe it's okay to imply that you'll rape a minor on a widely-read internet forum "for the lulz;" the times sure are changing aren't they?! I just have to keep an open mind that there are different strokes for different folks, and so what if their whole thing is trying to foist a rotten, dying white male status quo up by making gay jokes! STOP BEING SO JUDGMENTAL, ME!

2. Be more positive

This kind of goes along with being less judgmental. I have a problem seeing all the good in the world when it's not served to me on a silver platter. In 2012, I want to accentuate the positive! The war in Iraq is over! There's a huge vortex of trash in the ocean so big it's named the Great Pacific Garbage Patch; maybe it'll form into a permanent island where we can grow those awesome plastic trees that are in such high demand! North Korea, Syria and myriad other nations are probably going to fall apart at some point in the near future; but so is the USA, so let's use this as a learning experience guys and gals! So what if nothing is real? Let's just keep on keepin' on and pretend!

3. Destroy the idea of 3D movies

3D movies make my head hurt. I've only seen one or two, and they may have been softcore pornography, but afterward my head and neck hurt PLUS I felt really bad about myself and every decision I'd ever made up to that point. I'm going to end this whole 3D fad for good. My plan is two-fold:

A.) Stab out my left eye (mad props to TLC's Lisa Left Eye Lopes) with a fork

B.) Go see an action-packed blockbuster 3D movie and sue the movie industry for discrimination against one-eyed people when I can't keep up with what's happening

Bang, 3D is dead and I'm rich as hell. And all it costs me is an eye! I HAVE TWO!!!

4. Read more

Seriously. I buy books all the time! Doesn't seem to matter where I'm at, on the Kindle, browsing the iBooks, at a Barnes and Noble, rooting through a burned-out Waldenbooks at a condemned mall, in the secret Borders under my apartment building, I'm always just buying books and rarely reading them. If you're anything like me you have stacks and stacks of books - classics and NEW classics alike - that you're just dying to rip into and absorb their forbidden knowledge. Make it a point, like me, to catch up on some reading starting ASAP! The new year can be your excuse to pick up Mein Kampf and finally finish it. Me, I'm going to make it a point to absolutely, completely absorb the ultimate truths in the Liber AL vel Legis and call on Nuit to put an end to all matter. It's going to be a great year for books!

5. Be more assertive

I'm what you might call an "alpha dog" at work (alpha as in alphabet, where I'm the A number one!) where I'm constantly saying things like "No, Margaret, YOU collate the copies - I'm busy and the sexy IKON guy hasn't come to fix the document station so you'll need to do it MANUALLY for Miss Johnson by 4PM!" But outside of work, well yowsers, I'm a kitten. I'd like to maybe get a girlfriend at some point, but I don't exactly put myself out there. I have a lot to offer: crippling depression, bad skin, a healthy dose of apathetic nihilism, terrible ideas about the inner workings of our clockwork earth, etc. So why not put myself out there, get back on the market? Instead of telling the cute gal at the coffee shop "Just a black coffee, thanks" I'll say "Just a black coffee, and do you know about the Illuminati that control the world?" We'll strike up a conversation, and maybe, just maybe if she can see through my tears of blood, we can go on an awkward date where I scream uncontrollably at UFC fighters pummeling each other on a big screen TV in a sports bar. Here's to hoping...

6. Die, I guess

That whole Mayan Long Count calendar thing that predicts the world/the universe/time/everything is going to end on December 21, 2012 is probably a load of malarkey. That doesn't mean some crazy fundamentalists aren't going to do everything in their power to make it happen. Trust me, I'm one of them. I'd predict that by November, 2012 we, as a civilization, will in all likelihood be reduced to living in bunkers thousands of feet beneath the surface of the irradiated, diseased Earth. The plaguewelders will of course bring forth their rotting corporeal beings into the bunkers with help from the ruling technocracy, just as the prophets predicted, and life as we know it will be extinguished when the last human dies sometime in December, 2012. Maybe the next world will be better for you? I don't know, I'll probably be with Marshall "Do" Applewhite and the Heaven's Gate crew surfing on comets by then, so good luck to you!

All in all, 2012 looks like the best year yet, or at least the most inevitable year after 2011 due to the one-way nature of time's arrow! Stay cool!