A New Year's Resolve!

Well, it's time to engage in the most famous of all New Year's traditions. No, I'm not writing of drinking until your head turns soft as a sponge, although I have heard tell that occasional correspondent Lukas P. Short had to be pulled out of a hay-baling machine yesterday after too many bottles of bourbon and grassoline. Apparently, he was wearing nothing but his elaborately decorated Stetson, and that was before he went into the baler. (Are you listening Arianna?)

No, I'm speaking of the New Year's Resolution, that time-honoured, painstaking process of examining the failed, pathetic limitations of one's life and setting higher, nobler standards for the upcoming year.

Riiii-ght. The actual practise goes more like this:

"Hello, me. What would you really like to do this year that would make your life a bit better than last year? Lose a bit of weight? Get fitter? Write a second novel? Right, I'll just jot that down and file it away with this used tissue paper. Well done!"

Of course, many of us are a bit more ambitious. So, whereas, last year, I jotted down the resolutions of a variety of people, for legal purposes I'm keeping to myself this year. What follows are then are my, Earl Fando's, resolutions for 2007. I think it will be a grand year.

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Earl Fando's 2007 New Year's Resolutions - Silly Version

• Beat Stew in golf at least twice
• Get my novel published by an actual publisher
• Get book jacket comments for the novel from the following: Michael Palin, John Cleese, Mike J. Nelson, Henry Kissenger, Bob Woodward, Paul McCartney, Cher, Waylon Flowers and Madame, and Andy Kaufman (if possible)
• Run the New York Marathon Naked (again)
• Ride in the Kentucky Derby backwards
• Prank phone call Bill Clinton pretending to be Monica Lewinsky
• Prank phone call George W. Bush pretending to be Karl Rove
• Get on a blog where the other participants post once in awhile (Sorry, this is from the "bitter" list of New Year Resolutions)
• Dance with Bono during a U2 concert (the Funky Chicken)
• Eat 10 pounds of Wensleydale cheese - not necessarily at one sitting
• Get restraining orders from Keira Knightley, Cameron Diaz, and Paul Harvey lifted
• Stowaway on Space Shuttle - Pop out and yell "surprise" during Earth - shuttle communications linkup
• Score winning goal in Arsenal-Spurs derby match - lift up team strip, revealing undershirt with DOUI advert and mustard stains
• Serve as seat-warmer during Oscars, live-blog during show about how warm Oprah's bum must be judging from her seat
• Invent a self-folding lawn chair
• Translate Much Ado About Nothing into Cornish
• Take Mrs. Fando to Ireland for 15th anniversary (no, really)
• Attend U.S. State of the Union address - repeatedly shout "Damn straight!" after presidential remarks
• Develop abs of steel - crush beer cans with stomach
• Arm wrestle David Cameron and Tony Blair
• Win Powerball and blog for a living