New Year's Resolutions Already Broken

merica from coast to coast set a personal best record Saturday when it was forced to announce, collectively, all resolutions made for 2004 have been broken since January 1st. The resolutions, some made half-heartedly to feel as if the maker was doing something different, and others made as die-hard declarations of change, were broken consistently in larger and larger numbers since the beginning of year.

Among the favorite quickly-broken resolutions are health concerns, resulting in promises of daily exercise or more attention to dietary needs. Resolution scientists at M.I.T. calculate approximately 63% of resolutions made address these concerns, and big fat America decided not to be concerned about the concerns entirely by Saturday. Excuses for ceasing daily exercise programs included: "Just don't have the time," "Just don't have the floor space," "Just don't have the energy," and "Just don'wanna." The most common cited excuse in quitting new diets was found to be attending a restaurant with friends where they had something really, really good, or the occasional explanation that a box of Twinkies woke them up, calling from the cabinet to be eaten.

Approximately 32,000 promises to go vegetarian or vegan this year were already broken as well, 12,385 of them because resolution makers just found out turkey isn't a vegetable. Resolutions to eat less fast food were abandoned when people found out how much easier it is to eat fast food than slow food, not to mention the comparative speed difference.

Other popular broken resolutions concerned finances, including putting more money into savings, spending less impulsively, and getting into the stock market. Frequent reasons for giving up these resolutions include being too difficult to save money, wanting to pick up something cute, and losing a whole ass in the stock market. One resolution maker reported the failure of his New Year's promise to save money when his dealer wouldn't negotiate a price drop.

Among rarer career-oriented resolutions were pledges to move up the ladder at work, especially for plenty of roofers out there. Quite often incompetence on the job led to quick dismissal of these resolutions, though researchers aren't ruling out complete unsuitability for a career or work in general, a total lack of motivation, and being universally loathed at the workplace. Steve Compson of Miller Beach, Florida, insisted his rejection of his New Year's oath was due to deciding he was happy not having all the troubles of assistant manager, and waiting to see if Lyle takes that sweet Burger King gig.

Resolution watchers found Americans are not only complete failures at controlling forces outside themselves, but the nation also does extremely poorly of holding true to promises of character improvement. Personal pledges to be nicer to people and listen to what they are saying were dropped like bad habits right away, frequently citing how much other people weren't nice or listening to them, with a few cases of he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about and the bitch just won't shut up thrown in for good measure.

Promises to have more confidence were brushed off when resolution-makers realized they lacked the personal power of change to do so. Several oaths to build self-esteem and fight depression ended with resolution-makers crawling into large tubs of cookie dough ice cream, and some still have yet to come out again.

On a more personal note, resolutions to get laid like cheap carpet haven't worked out for most either, often due to personal unattractiveness in non-reporter cases or incapability of saying anything without sounding like a smarmy ass. Then again, it's always possible women just don't give a brother no play.

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I can't get to sleep. A question's been plaguing me lo these many nights, inspiring endless head-scratching and the use of dated vernacular like "lo." All the members are alive, the audience is out there and hungry for it… who is preventing the Men At Work reunion?

Like a shooting star they burned brightly and then disappeared. For a very brief time in the 1980s, from 1982 to 1985, Men At Work were popular music. Who would you throw up against them? Pat Benatar? The Go-Go's? Pitiful imitations Men Without Hats? All were common slaves in the arena against Men At Work—the gladiators.

However, the attention of the American public changes quickly, and by 1985 the group disbanded after the poor commercial showing of their third album. At least that's what the Behind the Music guy said. My question, though, is what's stopping the reunification of the 80's greatest band?

To head off any potential arguments, the live shows played by Colin Hay and Greg Ham under the billing of Men At Work does not constitute a Men At Work reunion. Not until the original recording line-up for the albums Business As Usual and Cargo is reconstituted is Men At Work really reunited. There is no just cause to prevent this, as far as I can see.

The natural conclusions one would reach, as with any band, is that internal conflicts keep the majority of them apart. I refuse to believe this. You've seen the videos, those guys get along like aces. Digging a hole, jogging in place, juggling, they do everything like real sports. And yet now, all these years later, they're missing out on a chance to bring real happiness back to the charts, not to mention make a tidy killing back in the record business. However, something is in the way.

I think it goes much deeper than the band. Far-reaching forces outside have prevented a Men At Work reunion. This goes high, people, all the way to the top. The American government has a vested interest in keeping Men At Work from returning to their former glory as the hottest band from Down Under.

Why? Without getting into the complicated details of trade, tariffs, super-power standings and plenty of things I don't fully understand, let's suffice to say that what's good for Men At Work is good for Australia. And what's good for Australia is bad for American business. Our country has struck an unholy alliance to keep the roster of big super-power countries as it is. If Australia breaks through to become a super-power, it could piss off a number of countries, just for example, oh, say, France? England? Canada? That's all I need to say.

Australia has formed such a threat for quite some time, and this unholy alliance, which has existed since 1972, has been worn and weakened over time. Several times Australia verged on super-power stardom—the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the Veggimite sandwich, the Crocodile Dundee series. The unholy alliance is under more strain than ever before to restrain Australia. And through threats and extortion they've kept Men At Work unemployed. It's a travesty.

At another time I'll tell you why Blind Melon has not reunited. To sum up, their lead singer and songwriter is dead.

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Apparently some construction crew Einstein had a brainstorm watching E.T. the other night, since I woke up Saturday morning to find my neighbor's construction site completely enclosed in some kind of gigantic biohazard flea tent. Thank God I'd ditched out on the idea of camping there overnight, since I'd likely have been trapped inside and I bet everything stinks like malathion in there now.

Cruelly denied access to my neighbor's basement-in-making, I decided to do the next best thing and find out what's in my own basement, since I hadn't been down there in about eight years and my memory wipes clean like a credit report after seven. I couldn't even find the key to go down there until I checked in Foghat's party ball, the strange, amorphous blob of unidentified household detritus he pushes around like a bag lady raised by owls.

After I de-balled the basement key and broke the seal on the basement door that had been keeping everything inside in a permanent state of 1997, I took my last, deep breath of fresh air before voyaging down into whatever mummy farts and radon leaks had been lurking in the air under my house since back when Hanson was on the radio.

At first I was a little apprehensive heading down those stairs, not knowing quite what could be down there in the dark, waiting to jack up my Jill. I had a bad experience once in Canada, getting locked in some stranger's cabin in the middle of the night and having to shimmy up out of the basement coal chute after a misunderstanding about bathroom etiquette. I wasn't looking forward to reliving that again, plus I'm pretty sure I don't have a coal chute.

But then I realized that any kind of creepy naked chainsaw killer down there would likely be way off his game after the eight-year vacation, and probably would have grown some hilarious deep-sea fish adaptations after spending nearly a decade in the dark, too. And I'd pay to see that shit. Then I remembered about the halogen floodlights I had installed in the basement, after Foghat lost his lucky tooth down there and I got sick of blowing through candles for my miner's helmet looking for the damned thing.

After finding the switch and flooding the basement with enough light to incinerate any hiding mutated chainsaw freaks, I took the plunge into a land of mystery and wonder.

Or at least a lot of shit I forgot I had. Hula hoops, an airplane wing, and a gun that shoots billiards balls. And some sick bastard had painted a life-sized portrait of Nancy Reagan using real meat. Then there was the huge refrigerator with a normal fridge inside, and a mini-fridge inside that one like a giant refrigerator Matrioshka doll, I guess at some point I had shit that needed to be kept really cold.

A voting machine? Jesus, did I get elected? And I have no idea where those tricked-out dirt bikes came from.

But the most interesting thing I found down there was the giant crate of off-brand NyQuil I spied behind a wax statue of Evander Holyfield over in the corner. What's the story behind this stuff? Anybody who's got more than FM radio between their ears knows that cough medicine is only good for two things: methamphetamines and hilarious gag ice cubes. But a case? Man, that's a lot of ice cubes.

I'm not sure why I would have bought an entire case. Actually, I'm not sure how I bought an entire case, I don't think they sell it that way outside of New Mexico. Either they get a lot of colds down there or tweakers run the government. Maybe I was on a road trip and just didn't want to pass up the opportunity.

Then again, it was a knock-off brand called NiteWipe, so maybe they had to sell it by the case to get people to buy the stuff. Well, it worked at least once.

So now you know the story behind how that weird blue-green igloo ended up on my lawn, and how I distracted the construction shmoes long enough to make a kamikaze run on the biodome to make sure they didn't really have an E.T. trapped in there. Incidentally, I also added a concrete mixer to my carnival of basement thrills downstairs, which should make for some interesting speculation in another eight or nine years.

Bricks out.

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