Let it be Resolved...

I am hereby making the following three New Year's resolutions:

This is a chore that I've been working on for since some time in 1995. I'm down to about 900 songs left to rank in a 17,000 song library. And I've done this by listening to each and every song. I no longer listen to them alphabetically -- at some point, Itunes threw me a curve by starting to ignore "The" and "A" at the beginning of song titles, and it screwed up my list. At the same time, I was getting deep enough into the list that every time I added a new album, I had three of the songs from that album automatically sorted to the top.

Anyway, 900 is a pretty easy quarter, so even if I add a lot of music, I should have no problem finishing during the year. Then, my inner nerd can come out and do calculations to determine statistically which are the best albums, artists, etc. It should be a hoot.

On the surface, this seems like a very traditional resolution. But I'm not looking for a six pack. Or even a flat belly. I just need to get back to the point where I look like a normal guy who drinks a beer every now and then, as opposed to a normal guy who consumes a pint of ice cream, a full pork roast, and a six pack every single evening.

Not too long ago, I went to put on my belt as I was getting ready in the morning. When I reached for the belt loop, I found that I was already wearing a belt, and that my gut prevented me from seeing it. That's 100% true, and I'm not happy about it.

I know I don't have the willpower to eat right, so I'll try to eat poorly slightly less often, and I'm definitely going to make time to exercise again (that aspect was really missing in most of '09). So far, I've spent two hours and eighteen minutes on exercise in the past four days. That's not really all that good, especially since 45 minutes of that was walking the dogs a couple of nights ago. But we'll see how this goes.

I don't know where I'll find the time, but I have a lot more to offer. I have dozens and dozens of pics to post from two trips and a New Orleans wedding. I have videos going back to summertime that I've not even viewed, much less filtered out the amusing and posted. Getting together with friends leads to stories that make me laugh so hard that my gut hurts, but I relay almost none of it back to the internet.

A big reason for that is when I sit down at my laptop, my brain is far, far away from the fun things in life. I've always been able to keep work and fun separate, and they don't mingle easily in my mind. If I get started, I can type all day, but getting started is trouble. (That's why I'll often have two posts in a really short time -- I did it all in one flurry of writing).

For example, here's one from over the Christmas/New Year's holiday.

One night during the break, Mrs. theskinnyonbenny and I were out back having drinks with Crystal and Brent. For some reason, Crystal handed me her cell phone (which she also did while drinking in Boston and during that wedding the week before -- not sure what she's doing there). I took it inside when I needed a drink refill, and for no particular reason, I started scrolling through her contacts.

I found one who I don't really know, but who I remember from their class reunion last summer. She had texted him once before -- a generic "it was great seeing you" kind of thing after their reunion. So I selected him, and sent a message.

"YOU'RE WRONG! I did not have crabs during college!"

Then I waited a few minutes and sent this one,

"Sorry -- sent that to the wrong contact."

Do you see how brilliant I am? I completely added credibility with that second one without trying to explain, allowing the receiver to make what he would of it.

That led Brent to tell an unrelated story, save the appearance by the same parasite.

His college roommate's father came to stay with them and slept on the couch in their apartment. God knows who they had on that couch, but the fathr caught crabs from sleeping there. Then, he went home and gave them to the guy's mother.

To make matters worse, they were in college at UNLV. Can you imagine coming home from a Las Vegas trip, giving crabs to your wife, and then having to convince her that there were no prostitutes involved? Oh, what a nightmare. I'm laughing all over again.

I hear a good story like that one almost every week. In 2010 a few of those might make the blog.