Yo, I got some New Year’s Recolutions

J.B. Sivanich

One of the perils of the modern world is that sometimes we become too caught up in its craziness to pause and reflect about the world, our lives and the meaning of existence.
I was just telling my friend the other day about how it seems like I’ll be too busy exchanging tweets with Christopher Walken and Chad Ochocinco to ever finish my screenplay about a father and a son in charge of safeguarding an ancient book that could redeem society from an invasion of extraterrestrial “prawns” in post-apocalyptic South Africa. It’s a shame that my obra maestra may never see the light of day, but a modern man’s gotta tweet.
Yes, yes, while I am busy 364 days of the year thinking about how awesome I am, I try to take one day out of the year – sometime just before New Year’s – and dedicate it to pondering how – if possible – I could be even more awesome. It’s a tradition many call making New Year’s resolutions.
An annual resolution of mine is to become less and less like my parents. I try to do this in steps; in 2008, for example, I removed all the camouflage seat covers from my 1978 Ford Bronco. In 2009, I made sure to wear no green nor gold for at least two days of every week.
This year, I am trying to only drink PBR with dinner and find substitutes to accompany breakfast and lunch. Sooner or later, I might even give up hunting when it’s not hunting season. Hell, maybe one day I will stop voting for third-party candidates and just vote Republican.
Besides these resolutions, I try make more generalized ones. For instance, two years ago, I made a resolution to include a Shakespeare quote in every conversation I had regardless of whether that quote was pertinent to the conversation at hand or not. This year I am aiming a little higher.
My first resolution is to bring some “haute couture” to LU – I think I read somewhere that I might be eligible for federal funding for undertaking such a tall order. While there are quite a few posers on campus who think they know what “glamour” is just because they once did their hair like Anne Hathaway and have a stack of their Mom’s old Vogues, I feel that it’s my duty as the owner of the only body worthy of a Botticelli on campus to use my canvas to its full potential.
Therefore, I will set a few rules for myself:
No. 1. No clothes by designers or brands that my roommate can pronounce correctly.
No. 2. Sunglasses will be worn at all times, including during meal times, classes and intramural basketball.
No. 3. Underwear will not be worn unless it is the most expensive article of clothing tocuhing my body.
My second resolution is to start my own YouTube show. It seems as though a lot of people these days think their opinions about Miley Cyrus and acoustic covers of Rihanna songs are unique and original. Turns out they’re wrong. Only my opinions of Miley Cyrus and acoustic covers of Rihanna songs are wholly unique and original.
It seems as though every vapid, self-obsessed loser out there has his or her own YouTube show, so it’s actually a little uncharacteristic that I don’t have my own show yet – hopefully 2010 will see that fixed. I am more vapid and self-obsessed than any other loser – well, not including Fox News television hosts – so I think I will be pretty successful at this.
With Jay and Conan in the pits and Letterman embroiled in sex-at-work scandals, I feel as though it’s only a short matter of time before celebs like Denzel and Tobey start stopping by my futon to share a few laughs.
My number one resolution – the one I am most set upon accomplishing – is to stop a terrorist attack. I mean, how great would it be to stop a terrorist attack? Having your face splashed across every local news program in the country, fist-bumping the president in a Rose Garden press conference and never having to pay for a drink, medical operation or taxi fare again all sound pretty agreeable to me.
Plus, just think of all the people that you saved; they would probably spend the rest of their lives sending you a bunch of free shit and name their children after you – I always felt that J.B. had a chance to compete at the top with Juan and Mohammed.
My plans about how I am going to go about this are a little fuzzy; I have a few ideas, but I can’t share them with you at this moment. Ever since I was 6 years old and my Mom told me that I saved the whole neighborhood from burning down by turning the stove off, I’ve known that it was destiny for me to be a hero. I just hope my reward is a little better than being allowed to crack open a bag of Cheetos even though it’s not dinner time.
So terrorists, if you’re reading this, take heed: If you see a guy in a three piece Tessori Uomo and Heath Ledger-esque shades whose voice you remember waxing poetic about drunken Mariah Carey antics on a megahit viral video right behind you as you are about ascend to heaven, you better think twice – and when I say “think twice,” I really mean hesitate so you make my job of stopping you a little more manageable.