New Year's Resolutions
Self-improvement is a holiday away
written by Nick on January 3, 2026

People have a funny way of celebrating holidays. Sure, there're the graces of alcohol's omnipresence and jabber between family and friends, but some holidays like to employ unique traditions as to separate themselves as distinguished and thereby better holidays. For instance, on the Fourth of July the local authorities tend to look the other way when a pedestrian is having some fun with roman candles. On Easter the younger children search for egg-shaped prize capsules (as we refer to them in the Dallamora family) that contain candy or pocket change. My point being that all holidays allow you to pursue a day filled with lavish proportions of fireworks and candy. Well, all but one. You see, people enjoy a sense of clarity with the coming in of the New Year. It's like being handed a clean slate to play with. So what do you do with your clean slate? Well you try to keep it as damn close to clean for as long as you can. This ultimately results in what is called a New Year's Resolution.

An interesting concept: Once a year you try to improve yourself by identifying and doing away with your worse traits. Looks good on paper, but how many people actually know what it is they should change about themselves? That's why I've decided to help out our celebrity friends and comprise a list of New Year's resolutions for a lucky few.

Johnny Knoxville

New Year's Resolution: Stop accepting the first role offered to you.

Though I'm not sure Mr. Knoxville is aware of this, you actually are allowed to breeze through a script before you agree to do the movie. This allows actors to select movies where their character is developed in accordance with their wishes, but more importantly lets the actor know if the movie is going to be coupled with Kangaroo Jack in a combo package at Best Buy.

“The Ringer” is a movie about a young man who's in an overwhelming amount of debt and chooses to pretend he's mentally retarded in an effort to sweep the games. Did he even ask people what was going on throughout production at any point? If I were to sum up the progression of society across my lifeline in one phrase it would be “politically correct”. With this in mind I'd say that minority-induced stabs that are likely to raise controversy are sort of on the decline and should be avoided like Ugueth Urbina at a gas station.

“The Dukes of Hazzard” was a contemporary remodeling of the popular television show that aired

What? I'm sorry. As I was saying, people in the 80's really just wanted to see cars doing jumps and crashing through cardboard signs so

On second thought, what do I know? Kudos, Johnny. Kudos.

Stephen Colbert

New Year's Resolution: Cancel “The Colbert Report” and report to “The Daily Show” immediately.

As the most one-dimensional actor in the United States it would seem as though Mr. Colbert should have kept his night job and never branched off of “The Daily Show”. Yes, he was very popular on the show, arguably the fan favorite of all Jon Stewart's correspondents, but it just isn't enough. As good as a spin-off may sound to your executive buddies you may rest assured that it's a terrible idea and the world is better off dead.

“Eyyy, I don't understand modern law where's the soda? Eyyyyyyy”

Colbert's character just doesn't need his own show. Some people are just naturally born second bananas. Look at Paul Schaffer or Art Garfunkel. It's nothing to be ashamed of, man. What you should be worried about is choking every last bit of flavor from the one character you're capable of portraying, leaving you tainted and miserable at the bottom of a barrel. Hell, even the commercials he stars in use the same character. I'm beginning to wonder if Colbert isn't actually an actor at all and that's just how he acts all the time. When you're acting as the same character for a longer amount of time than you spend acting normally would your act then be considered your normal personality? These are questions that Stephen Colbert braves every day.

The Florida Marlins

New Year's Resolution: Recognize the existence of your fan base.

People actually care about your team, you know. The third worst average attendance in the MLB does not grant you the right to strip your team down every other season to save on costs. For a team that reeled in two World Series trophies before celebrating its 15 th birthday the Florida Marlins sure are unhappy. If the owners of this team think that it's perfectly legitimate to rip a team up by the floorboards and start over using cheap farm hands to scrape by and tell their fans “This is a rebuilding process” yet again, then god damn. Baseball is quickly becoming more and more of a business and less and less of a game that means a lot to a large amount of people.

My suggestion: sell the team. You obviously do not care about the sport with enough respect to show signs of good faith to your fans and I'm sure there are far more lucrative businesses than baseball, so just give up. I don't think Florida Marlins fans will hold anything against you.

50 Cent

New Year's Resolution: Get shot a bunch more times.

Kenan Thompson

New Year's Resolution: Leave all television programs not currently in syndication.

Ok, this is a selfish one. Kenan isn't doing anything wrong on Saturday Night Live, it's just that he's Kenan Thompson. I'm never going to be able to whole-heartedly respect anything that he's a part of as long as I live. It really is the price you pay for portraying any inane character on a Nickelodeon sitcom. All the zeroes must look really nice on the paycheck they hand you, but chances are it's going to be the last paycheck you see for a while.

Nickelodeon has the funny ability to tempt rising stars into its safe waters, only to brand and engrave a permanent acting scar across your cheek. As talented an actor as you may be and as much potential as you may show, nobody is going to be able to get over the fact that you played a screaming lunatic for three and a half seasons.

It's nothing personal, man, I just want to be able to watch SNL without experiencing Vietnam-like flashbacks.

Mariah Carey

New Year's Resolution: Leave everyone alone again.

Mariah Carey was born on March 27, 1970. In 1995 her hit “One Sweet Day” was widely celebrated by the legions of R&B fans nationwide. Her wide vocal range and ear-piercing pitch kicked ass and everyone flinched in pain fluidly. In 2000 Mariah Carey died of unknown causes just before her movie “Glitter” was to begin filming. She is lived through her cat Gumdrop.

We should have been so lucky.

The thing is that a year ago Mariah Carey was not a problem in anyone's life outside of immediate friends and family. One was able to enter and leave virtually any retail store without hearing one of her songs, her movie was scarcely available at video stores, and she wasn't on any awards shows. For all the world knew Mariah Carey was toe-up dead and was never coming back.

Nothing like a comeback CD, is there? Because when it comes to experience nothing fine-tunes a musician more than 8+ years of collecting rust and angst against the industry you're trying to break open. Forget the fact that she's ten years past her sexy stage, or that R&B in general is boring and whiny, but try to concentrate on the woman behind the music. This isn't Jenny from the Block or the lady from Black Eyed Peas. This is Glitter. Shine on, Glitter. Shine on.

Rafael Palmeiro

New Year's Resolution: Stop being such a jackoff and start owning up to mistakes.

Rafael Palmeiro did something very bad. He cheated at a professional level sport and made attempts to get away with it. When confronted by the courts' system he lied under oath. When his test results came back positive he shifted the blame to a clubhouse leader who passed his drug test(s). Who was once a Hall of Fame worthy hitter is now amongst the ranks of Danny Boneduce and OJ Simpson in “Trivial Persuit: Scumbagz Edition”. Jason Giambi failed a similar test and almost apologized (well, the equivalent of staring blankly at a white, canvas wall and mindlessly repeating “I'm sorry” a couple times). Were it not an eternal blemish on a game I love dearly I would consider a public apology admirable.

So what's there left for this guy to do? He's surely lost his Hall of Fame bid and his professional career has been left in shambles. Nobody respects him, let alone wants him to play for their baseball team. Imagine your first home game on your new team and getting booed solidly for 15 seconds and again at every at bat. Well, I guess his career isn't entirely over.

“Rafi, m'boy, there's this great show on VH1 you should be thinkin' ‘bout”

The Executives at CBS

New Year's Resolution: No new shows that revolve around police investigation or the court systems for one year.

Though this resolution could wind up proving quite beneficial, not all resolutions are feasible. Actually this resolution is so impossible that I've decided to supply a list of new show ideas for these CBS executives to use:

Small town country girl with a crippling case of southern draw moves to the big city to straighten out a corrupt court system. Suggested actor(s): Dolly Parton, Ice T, a professional wrestler.

A young white cop teams with an elderly black cop to crack down on inner-city crime in the best new drama on TV. Suggested actor(s): Frankie Munez, Ice T.

“Crack Rocks” A murder mystery which focuses on crackheads who kill each other for crack. Suggested actor(s): Ice T.

As you can clearly see the world around us has a lot of cleaning up to do. Hopefully 2006 will be a breath of fresh air after 2005 inhaled a cigarette with a single drag. As for you, my more mundane readers, I have suggestions still. If you're innactive throughout the large majority of the day, do some jumping jacks every once in a while. If you skim through my 450 word articles for the captions, read a book once in a while. If you have a gambling problem, put it on black. The quickest way to end a gambling problem is to lose all of your money.