002 was a banner year for news. As long as the banner said, “BO-RING!�

Yes, as we reach the beginning of a brand new news year, we look back on 2002 with more than a slight Elvis sneer of derision, like a party guest finally leaving with a heavy hangover and leaving our sofa and rug stained with vomit. 2002 may go down in the history books as, “The Year of ‘…Anyway…’�

Like a half-assed sitcom following Friends and preceding ER, much of 2002 felt squashed in-between two major news periods. Following hot on the heels of the events of Sept. 11^th and the bombing of Afghanistan that heralded the War on Terror, things settled down into a dreary boredom in 2002 as Americans waited for big news events that still have yet to come—the bombing of Iraq, a resolution to the North Korea situation, and any evidence Osama bin Laden is alive or dead. All original and fascinating news is being greedily reserved by the newsmakers, as if they’re holding out for a news sweeps week.

Early 2002 was host to the Winter Olympics, the globally-conceded most boring of all Olympics, in the globally-conceded most boring state in the union, Utah. Thank whatever you call a God for the much-covered flap when ice-skating Canadians David Pelletier and Jamie Salé were robbed of their rightful gold medal by a sly-footed French judge, or your only memories of it would be a gaggle of fruitcakes slapping a puck with a stick in the atrocity called “curling.�

Much of the early news year was limited to the images of Enron’s senior staff shrugging before a Senate sub-committee with a less-than-convincing “I dunno,� followed by footage of a shrapnel-filled site in downtown Israel as the violence that made the Middle East famous escalated to ludicrous heights, until an all-out assault on Yassir Arafat’s bunker broke the boredom very briefly. There was also Ray Brent Marsh, the Georgia crematorium owner who tossed the bodies in the lake and passed the savings on to you. Thanks to Marsh, along with multiple kidslaughter defendant Andrea Yates and the hockey dad who loved local sports a bit too much, the first few months of 2002 news were occasionally livened up by local heroes.

An historical Oscar win for Best Actor and Best Actress by African-Americans Denzel Washington and Halle Berry helped draw attention away from the fact the Hollywood community now considers Opie the Best Director in its midst. Even the biggest celebrity murderer of the year was only former Little Rascal Robert Blake, leaving Court-TV to wait patiently for the shoplifting trial of Winona Ryder.

Summer gave everyone a little hope for a brighter news year when nine miners faced certain doom, trapped in a mine shaft, and no one was happier when they were retrieved alive and healthy. Then the week ended and everyone went back to bitching about terrorism and the tumbling stock market.

As the rate of insane presidential utterances concerning Iraq increased, Americans hit the peak of the news year when a series of sniper attacks across America finally put an end to superfluous Elvis coverage. However, it wasn’t enough to save a pisser as a news year, and after the sniper suspects were arrested America quieted once again. Republicans received a boost from a record low-voter turnout off-year election and Trent Lott’s ill-conceived pro-segregationist remarks embarrassed the Bush administration, something that is truly hard to do.

News pundits have a great case for 21^st century to be the most boring yet, but the commune news is quick to remind everyone 1901-1910 was a pretty crappy decade for news and the 20^th century didn’t heat up until the sinking of the Titanic and World War I. We can make this one even better, just keep working at it.

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It's clear you are as strong in your convictions as I am, Nuttley. It reminds me of the old parable/tale/cliché of the immovable object meets the irresistible force. Each of us is so well-matched in so many areas. A chess game or series of questions on 1980s television trivia would go on for centuries, or until one of us died, and would solve nothing for the time invested. It's high time we settled this dispute in the only way remaining: A race around the world!

If I could see your face, would I see fear in your eyes, Nuttley? I doubt very much your fearlessness in facing such a trial, even if I don't doubt your tenacity. The simple fact is, when I set the appointment to meet tomorrow morning in London at Big Ben, I can practically hear your nervous breath tremble at the thought. A race around the world—is he mad? Yet I know you will be there, because despite the apparent insanity and recklessness of it all, you are both a man of your word and a man of fervor. You will be there tomorrow morning, because you know it is the only way to win our argument.

The rules will be simple, as previously established in the obscure chapter of Robert's Rules of Order for around-the-world races. Journey shall be over sea, air, or land through any available means, but you must go all the way around the world and establish your presence at the agreed-upon global markers. In short, it doesn't matter how you get there, but you must get there, Nuttley. I know you too well, though; you wouldn't cheat, it's beneath you. You won't find me beneath you either—I will be directly ahead! Ha!

You might expect me to take a plane all the way around the world, given my friend Danny Turrell has a pilot's license, but the thought doesn't appeal to me. Traveling by air alone might get me there first with little question, but taking the less paved path of boat and land travel would make victory all the sweeter once it's in my hand. I'm not ruling out a short sally in a hot-air balloon, mind you, but if you expect me to flutter on gossamer wings rather than plant shoed feet on firm ground, you're sadly mistaken.

We shall carry only that which fits on our back, Nuttley, eat when we can catch food, drink when we can lay hands on water. It is a test of will as much as speed, endurance as much as swiftness. Of character even more than rate of travel. The exact mathematical formula is C=d (s X w+E) I think, but you'll have to check with a mathematician. I'm a raconteur.

Don't even ask to bring along your girlfriend, or even your pot-belly pig; no race around the world has ever been a family affair. The solitude of those moments as you bicycle toward the end of the Asian continent are the importance of the experience. The loneliness of the vast open sea as you search desperately for fish to eat and fresh water to drink crossing the Pacific ocean. I wouldn't deprive you of that, Nuttley, and wouldn't allow you to deprive yourself either.

We're agreed, I assume, to meet tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time in London, at the base of Big Ben, where large crowds of friends, well-wishers, and the simply curious will gather in droves to see us off. They'll think us mad, I'm sure; I couldn't deny the possibility they're right. It will be a rigorous test of character, one we'll both be better off for. But once I win—and I will win—there will be none of these petty arguments ever again, and I'll prove the Cure is and always has been a better band than Echo and the Bunnymen

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What kind of noise does your brain make when you think? A hum? A whir? I've come to believe that mine's more of a rattle and frankly, this week that's got me concerned.

What could be rattling around up there? Loose juices? Snot? Who can say? For all I know there could even be a little matchbox car up there from when I was a kid. I'm not saying I remember ever sticking one up there, but like most people of my generation, I took a lassaiez-faire attitude toward toddlerdom that I've since come to regret. Who kept records of that kind of thing back then? Shit, I could have a juice cup up there.

You ever get tired of arguing with someone who's already made their mind up about something? I do. Take my friend Dave, for example. Gay as a floral-patterned thong. Only he doesn't think so. Dude just doesn't want to listen to reason, while even Kansas housewives know that only gay guys part their hair like that. Some people just like to argue for the sake of being assholes, but you mark my words. One day he'll out-gay us all.

Another thing: as far as I'm concerned, we won the Revolutionary war. America. Hands down, forget about it. Some people may like to waste your time with their nit-picking and armchair quarterbacking of the situation, but tell 'em to go piss up their hipwaders. America 1, New England, 0. End of discussion.

You ever notice how, in a noisy environment, the number 406 sounds just like "oral sex"? In other news, I think the drive-up ATM is going to have to satisfy all of my banking needs for a while. At least until a certain prudish bank teller who never heard the story of "Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Open-Hand Slapped in Public" gets transferred to Siberia or wherever they send the girls who turn down the promotion-for-sex deals you're always hearing about in men's magazines.

Which is a bummer, since I've never been totally comfortable with the whole ATM concept. You just know there's some sick shmo out there running around in the middle of the night, wiping his ass on ATM keypads. There are just too many people out there for it not to be true. It may sound like something I'm just making up to fill column space, but it really is true, I actually shared a cab with the guy. Longest six blocks of my life, we had to keep stopping every time he saw an ATM or a pay phone.

I'm thinking of pitching NBC a sitcom idea I had based on a joke I heard in a bar one time. In the joke, this taxi cab driver picks up two naked guys and a naked girl at the airport. When they get to their destination, the cabbie turns around and, with a glance, realizes that obviously none of them could be carrying any money. The woman cups her breasts in her hands and arches her eyebrow, asking "Will these do?" The cabbie nods and she climbs in the front seat and they do the deed. The woman gets out of the cab, and then the cabbie turns to the two naked guys in the back seat and says the punchline, which I can never remember.

But I think it would be a funny show to have these three naked people traveling all over the world, doing funny things to get by without any money. There wouldn't be any explanation of why they were naked, of course, since that would probably get complicated and make it less funny.

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