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.

aking a page from the Bush playbook, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel "The Little Mermaid" Sharon promised unilateral action against Palestine if any more Israeli civilians were victims of terrorism. Among plans proposed by the angry, vodka-swilling P.M., severe financial sanctions, cutting off all contact with the Arab state, and building individual "people-sized" walls around its citizens.

"This is, how you say, horseshit," grunted the frustrated P.M. at a press conference Friday. "For too long Palestinians have turned a blind eye to terrorists and terrorist collaborators, and they must be held responsible for the actions of those who commit these acts. Israelis are a peace-loving people and we’re going to bomb terrorist states into oblivion if that’s what it takes to get peace."

Released to the press at the time were drawings of several plans Sharon had reportedly stayed up all night making in a drunken stupor. When asked if one of the pictures of a monstrous tank rolling over a tiny Palestine was drawn to scale, Sharon retorted, "What do you think?"

In addition to the world’s biggest M-1, other administration plans displayed in bright 64 Crayola colors included stick figures, presumably inhabitants of Palestine, with individual walls around each one. Sharon refused to answer many more questions on the individual plans, and kept nodding off with persistent inquiries. Others in the administration offered to explain proposed ideas as best they could.

According to Homeland Security Advisor Yuri Gatoton, each individual walled cell would contain a hole that attached to a refrigerator, not pictured in the drawings, as well as separate buckets for poop and pee. The design was presented by Sharon as the best way to assure against terrorists connecting with residents of Palestine to form larger terrorist networks. Gatoton also explained some of the other plans Sharon drew.

"That’s a horse, that’s an A-bomb, that’s a man with a football helmet. I imagine the man with the helmet is provided protection when the A-bomb is set off over Palestine. The horse, as you can see, will have to be able to jump clear over the Palestinian borders without setting foot in the actual state—keep in mind these are rough sketches, and hopefully we’ll never need to test these in real life if Palestine cooperates in efforts to stem terrorism."

Nine out of every 10 individuals in the world condemned Sharon’s plans and questioned his stability, even longtime Israel buddy the United States. In a press statement, president Bush stressed Israel should avoid taking unilateral action until all other measures have been explored, and professed "extreme disappointment" Sharon so frequently colored outside the lines in his drawings.

Even the usual critics of the president agreed with his assessment of the Israel situation. Vermont Governor Howard Dean, the leading Democratic candidate for the 2004 presidential nomination, expressed his opposition to Israeli action.

"We all sympathize with Mr. Sharon’s struggles against terrorism, for they are our own. But a country not the United States cannot act on its own authority against another country without providing any sort of proof or going through all options first. Also, Bush is a moron."

At the risk of offending those of you in this world who were attempting to appease Omar Bricks this holiday season, I think it's safe to announce that this Christmas was a bona fide, Class A, Jesus Christ barfing into a French horn wipeout. No car, no immediate future promises of a car, and no surprise celebrity blowjobs to make up for the fact that I didn't get a car for Christmas. If you've ever been kicked in the nuts by a kangaroo, then you know the kind of pain I'm talking about here.

The week before Christmas I started to get the feeling the car thing wasn't going to happen when my cousin called to ask me what size kilt I wear. I told him I can squeeze into a size you'vegottabefuckingkiddingme, at which point he said something about how he'd have to eyeball it then and hung up. Bad omens rarely come so clearly or call collect.

I held out some hope until Christmas Eve, when I left the garage door unlocked in order to facilitate a magical car surprise Christmas morning for any interested parties who might want to sneak a Ferrari in there while I was sleeping. Not that I realistically expected anyone in my family to have that much class, but I figured maybe some drunk would pull up to my house by mistake and leave his keys in the ignition. Could happen. Of course, the down side is then I'd have some drunk sleeping in my garage while I was out Christmas joyriding, but I can't honestly say I'm sure there's not one in there somewhere already. So I figure I'd at least be breaking even on the deal.

Around 2am I thought I heard a would-be Santa out in the garage, but it turned out to just be a family of raccoons eating the paint off my lawnmower. I was tempted to chase the hungry little bastards off with a claw hammer, but since it was Christmas I decided to leave them be so they could go off somewhere to die in peace. I'm not sure how toxic the model paint was that I used to paint the flames on that lawnmower, but there was a picture of Jonestown on the back of the jar so I'm pretty sure that spelled bad news for any forest animals or neighborhood kids who've been teething on those tasty paint chips. All I know is Darwin didn't need to go all the way out to Galapagos to find this kind of natural selection in action.

I went back to sleep and dreamt that George Burns was there shitting sugarplums into my cereal bowl, only they weren't sugarplums. When I woke up it was Christmas morning, but not the kind where you come downstairs to find your heart's desire wrapped up under the tree. No miraculous car in the garage, not even some long-lost depressed relative who'd signed the title before wrapping the exhaust hose around into the driver-side window. No such Christmas magic for Omar Bricks this year.

So I did the rounds, got some socks and a juicer that blows right through socks like they were made out of tissue paper. Not bad. Somebody got me a beer mug that says "Fuck You!" that was pretty nice. Got a deworming kit for Foghat, though frankly I'm not sure if that's a nice precautionary gesture or a subtle hint that my dog has worms. Like I'm the only one who hasn't noticed and my dog's some kind of gnarly science exhibit, ruining family picnics and shit. I'm not even sure how you're supposed to check for that kind of thing, I guess I've always assumed it would be obvious. Like your dog wants to go fishing all the time or something.

Anyway, it was a pretty standard Christmas in the life of Bricks, nothing to be ashamed of. And refreshingly light on death threat Christmas cards this year, really. But I'd be lying if I said my Christmas spirit wasn't thrashing around at the bottom of a lake, wearing cement Reeboks right about now. All because of the Christmas wish too beautiful to come true. But I suppose it could be worse. I could be my neighbor Dale, I hear he's got some dead raccoons he can't find somewhere up in his crawl space that are making his entire house smell like Teddy Roosevelt's bunghole. Yuck.

Bricks out.

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