2009 NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS, REVEALED
Happy New Year, friends! I hope you had a great New Year’s Eve. New Year’s Eve tends to be one of those events that has a HUGE build up, but actually turns out to be a.) freezing cold and b.) best summarized like this:
Mine New Year’s Eve was very enjoyable . . . and I met a BLACKSMITH! A female BLACKSMITH! (I’m in England right now, which explains it. This would never happen in New York. No one has a FORGE in the city.) It was pretty excellent. So we had champagne and we talked about tools. I own a toolbox, but there’s nothing very exciting in it. Even my drill is tiny and pink and powered by 4 AA batteries.
The blacksmith told me about all sorts of wonderful things, and after we were done, I had resolution number one all ready to go . . .
#1 Get chainsaw
While her tales of the power hammer were pretty great, I have decided I need a chainsaw more than I need anything else in 2009. You may be wondering what I am going to do with a chainsaw in the middle of New York City. To which I would reply, “What CAN’T I do with a chainsaw in the middle of New York City?!”
I feel that once I have my chainsaw, everything else will be a little bit easier. Meetings will go more smoothly. I will get better service. Traffic will move faster. The answer is, and always has been: chainsaw.
#2 Fix economy
2008 will go down in history as the year that all the money broke—the hangover of an orgy of greed, incompetence, deregulation, and flat-out stupidity. We all watched in amazement as money simply . . . melted. We were reminded what a flimsy concept money is in the first place.
Anyway, SOMEONE has to do something. I first thought that maybe Fred and Sharon could help:
But if you want something done right, you can only do it yourself. So that’s on my list. And since I’ll have a chainsaw, I figure this can’t be too hard. I'll budget a week for that.
#3 Finish repairs on the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator
As you probably have guessed, I am a driving force behind the construction of the 17 mile supercollider in Switzerland. My original concept was to have all of the members of Abba collide at 99.9999% the speed of light, almost certainly producing a song greater than Dancing Queen.
My idea was then hijacked by a bunch of scientists, who want to produce a Higgs boson, some kind of fancy particle, which will essentially recreate the conditions that were present less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. Also, it may possibly produce some small black holes and something called strangelets, which are either dark matter particles or the title of a new album by 80s emo princes, The Smiths.
Obviously, my idea is better.
So we’re sitting there, eating some chocolate and cheese, and I say, “Listen guys, what does the world need more? Proof of the Standard Model, or Abba’s first single since 1983?” And the scientists nodded. One of them started humming “Waterloo,” which I took as a good sign. But then they went right back to talking about spinning their particles.
Anyway, the thing broke, which buys me a bit more time to pitch my idea again. Failing that, I am simply going to break into the place once we get it fixed, brining all four members of Abba with me. I am certain that Benny, Bjorn, Anna-Frid, and Agantha will willingly be spun around 17 miles of circular tunnel, 570 feet below Geneva, at 99.9999% the speed of light. Seriously, they will be going so fast, they won’t even notice the collision. I postulate that we will create a DISCO SUPERNOVA, or possibly a new, disco ball-shaped planet.
#4 Find home for the Abba Museum
God, what DIDN’T break in 2008? In perhaps what was the most devastating blow, plans for the Abba Museum in Stockholm went completely haywire. The museum lost its location, and now there is NO SCHEDULED DATE for its opening. HORROR.
On the bright side, this frees up some time for Abba to get spun around the supercollider. On the downside, WHERE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GO TO SEE THE KARATE OUTFITS FROM THE 1976 WORLD TOUR? Where can I go to MEET MY PEOPLE, fellow lovers of Sweden’s greatest musicians? No, a sing-a-long screening of Mamma Mia is not enough. We need a temple.
I have written to the museum keepers to let them know that they are welcome to store the collection in my house in the meantime, and that I will allow people in seven days a week. They haven’t replied yet, but I figure this is because they are busy putting everything into boxes to send to me.
#5 Bring back Cookie O’Puss
When I was a tiny mj, the ice cream chain Carvel used to have a series of ice cream cakes, which they would relentlessly pimp on our local television stations. The Carvel ice cream cake family included Fudgie the Whale, the Tie Cake, and C.P. (the “celestial person”), which was some kind of alien shaped like a light bulb with an ice cream cone for a nose. None of this made a lot of sense, even to a five year old who didn’t care what it was as long as it was MADE OF ICE CREAM. Carvel could have sold cakes in the shape of giant rats, or guillotines, or Paul Revere’s etching of the Boston Massacre, and I wouldn’t have cared. As long as they all had that delicious vein of chocolate crumble between two flavors of soft serve, I would eat it.
But even I remember slightly questioning Cookie O’Puss. Which was especially odd, because he was GREEN, which suggested a high probably of MINT ice cream, which is my lifelong favorite. Cookie O’Puss was the friend of C.P., the alien with the ice cream cone for a nose. That he was an Irish alien with a slight Brooklyn accent made it all the stranger.
Cookie O’Puss made me nervous. But then LOTS of things made me nervous when I was four years old. Kiss dolls. The band Queen. Teenage boys who talked about dragons. That fourth grade girl in my cab who tormented my friend.
I should explain that I went to Kindergarten in a cab every day. This was because there were only four people in my area going to my school, so the district thought it would be more cost-effective to hire out a station wagon from the local cab company. The local cab company was staffed entirely by a crew of burned out Hell’s Angels that hung out at a place called Phil’s, which was essentially a biker bar.
So on the first day of Kindergarten, my mother put me, her tiny mj, into a maroon station wagon driven by an ENORMOUS HELL'S ANGEL named Mr. Jimbo. Years later she confessed the terror that she felt on that first day . . . but Mr. Jimbo liked kids, and he drove well, so she grew to accept it, and to like it. It turns out that large, bearded, tattooed, leather-vested bikers are EXACTLY who you want shepherding your tiny children. No one messes with Mr. Jimbo or his little charges.
Anyway, there was this girl named Danielle who was, as I remember it, Satan’s very own spider monkey, and her #1 occupation was tormenting people smaller than her. I was a very meek child, but things must have built to a head. She was bothering us Kindergarteners relentlessly one day and I just went POW with my enormous lunchbox. (Which was plastic, and heavy, and had a pair of shoes in it, because I had to change my shoes once I got to school for some reason. The shoes fit perfectly into the place where the thermos was supposed to go, so every single day of Kindergarten, I got: "What are you having for lunch, Maureen? SHOES?” At first, this made me very upset, but after the first three months or so, I started to reply, “YES. I AM HAVING SHOES FOR LUNCH.” This is when I learned that Kindergarteners do not excel at multiple rounds of verbal jousting, and generally had no idea where to go from there. They might manage a “Ew, gross.” But by that point, the barb had lost its sting, and they knew it.)
Anyway, Danielle was perpetrating some form of evil on my friend, and I was just mad as hell and couldn’t take it anymore, and down came the lunchbox. This shocked EVERYONE, such was my gentle and meek nature. In fact, I didn’t even get in trouble, because my teacher said, “If Maureen hit her with a lunchbox, it must have been pretty bad.”
Which was SCORE FOR ME, except we then found out that Danielle had recently had brain surgery.
We kind of got along after that, but it was a delicate détente. She gave me a weird looking elephant she’d made of masking tape, which also made me nervous, because it was so freaky looking. I hid it in a drawer, because I was too afraid of it to get rid of it.
Anyway, Cookie O’Puss was just one item on a long list of concerns. But I still WANTED ONE. And I think 2009 is the year they should come back.
#6 Mo Better Blogs
More blogs. More stuff. All the time. 2009 is the year I plan to make you truly sick of me.
#7 Write some books
Which will include Suite Scarlett three, and A BOOK I CAN'T TELL YOU ABOUT YET.
This list is sort of rough, and I’d like to improve on it. So if you have any ideas, please let me know.
And now, let me give out a SIGNED BOOK to a random commenter from the last post. And that random commenter is Cat, who spread Cheer by volunteering at a homeless shelter over the holidays. Cat, send me your address!
For now, that is the end of the book giveaway. And I say FOR NOW, because there will ALWAYS be times in the future that I give away some books. You never know when it can happen.
Mine New Year’s Eve was very enjoyable . . . and I met a BLACKSMITH! A female BLACKSMITH! (I’m in England right now, which explains it. This would never happen in New York. No one has a FORGE in the city.) It was pretty excellent. So we had champagne and we talked about tools. I own a toolbox, but there’s nothing very exciting in it. Even my drill is tiny and pink and powered by 4 AA batteries.
The blacksmith told me about all sorts of wonderful things, and after we were done, I had resolution number one all ready to go . . .
#1 Get chainsaw
While her tales of the power hammer were pretty great, I have decided I need a chainsaw more than I need anything else in 2009. You may be wondering what I am going to do with a chainsaw in the middle of New York City. To which I would reply, “What CAN’T I do with a chainsaw in the middle of New York City?!”
I feel that once I have my chainsaw, everything else will be a little bit easier. Meetings will go more smoothly. I will get better service. Traffic will move faster. The answer is, and always has been: chainsaw.
#2 Fix economy
2008 will go down in history as the year that all the money broke—the hangover of an orgy of greed, incompetence, deregulation, and flat-out stupidity. We all watched in amazement as money simply . . . melted. We were reminded what a flimsy concept money is in the first place.
Anyway, SOMEONE has to do something. I first thought that maybe Fred and Sharon could help:
But if you want something done right, you can only do it yourself. So that’s on my list. And since I’ll have a chainsaw, I figure this can’t be too hard. I'll budget a week for that.
#3 Finish repairs on the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator
As you probably have guessed, I am a driving force behind the construction of the 17 mile supercollider in Switzerland. My original concept was to have all of the members of Abba collide at 99.9999% the speed of light, almost certainly producing a song greater than Dancing Queen.
My idea was then hijacked by a bunch of scientists, who want to produce a Higgs boson, some kind of fancy particle, which will essentially recreate the conditions that were present less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. Also, it may possibly produce some small black holes and something called strangelets, which are either dark matter particles or the title of a new album by 80s emo princes, The Smiths.
Obviously, my idea is better.
So we’re sitting there, eating some chocolate and cheese, and I say, “Listen guys, what does the world need more? Proof of the Standard Model, or Abba’s first single since 1983?” And the scientists nodded. One of them started humming “Waterloo,” which I took as a good sign. But then they went right back to talking about spinning their particles.
Anyway, the thing broke, which buys me a bit more time to pitch my idea again. Failing that, I am simply going to break into the place once we get it fixed, brining all four members of Abba with me. I am certain that Benny, Bjorn, Anna-Frid, and Agantha will willingly be spun around 17 miles of circular tunnel, 570 feet below Geneva, at 99.9999% the speed of light. Seriously, they will be going so fast, they won’t even notice the collision. I postulate that we will create a DISCO SUPERNOVA, or possibly a new, disco ball-shaped planet.
#4 Find home for the Abba Museum
God, what DIDN’T break in 2008? In perhaps what was the most devastating blow, plans for the Abba Museum in Stockholm went completely haywire. The museum lost its location, and now there is NO SCHEDULED DATE for its opening. HORROR.
On the bright side, this frees up some time for Abba to get spun around the supercollider. On the downside, WHERE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GO TO SEE THE KARATE OUTFITS FROM THE 1976 WORLD TOUR? Where can I go to MEET MY PEOPLE, fellow lovers of Sweden’s greatest musicians? No, a sing-a-long screening of Mamma Mia is not enough. We need a temple.
I have written to the museum keepers to let them know that they are welcome to store the collection in my house in the meantime, and that I will allow people in seven days a week. They haven’t replied yet, but I figure this is because they are busy putting everything into boxes to send to me.
#5 Bring back Cookie O’Puss
When I was a tiny mj, the ice cream chain Carvel used to have a series of ice cream cakes, which they would relentlessly pimp on our local television stations. The Carvel ice cream cake family included Fudgie the Whale, the Tie Cake, and C.P. (the “celestial person”), which was some kind of alien shaped like a light bulb with an ice cream cone for a nose. None of this made a lot of sense, even to a five year old who didn’t care what it was as long as it was MADE OF ICE CREAM. Carvel could have sold cakes in the shape of giant rats, or guillotines, or Paul Revere’s etching of the Boston Massacre, and I wouldn’t have cared. As long as they all had that delicious vein of chocolate crumble between two flavors of soft serve, I would eat it.
But even I remember slightly questioning Cookie O’Puss. Which was especially odd, because he was GREEN, which suggested a high probably of MINT ice cream, which is my lifelong favorite. Cookie O’Puss was the friend of C.P., the alien with the ice cream cone for a nose. That he was an Irish alien with a slight Brooklyn accent made it all the stranger.
Cookie O’Puss made me nervous. But then LOTS of things made me nervous when I was four years old. Kiss dolls. The band Queen. Teenage boys who talked about dragons. That fourth grade girl in my cab who tormented my friend.
I should explain that I went to Kindergarten in a cab every day. This was because there were only four people in my area going to my school, so the district thought it would be more cost-effective to hire out a station wagon from the local cab company. The local cab company was staffed entirely by a crew of burned out Hell’s Angels that hung out at a place called Phil’s, which was essentially a biker bar.
So on the first day of Kindergarten, my mother put me, her tiny mj, into a maroon station wagon driven by an ENORMOUS HELL'S ANGEL named Mr. Jimbo. Years later she confessed the terror that she felt on that first day . . . but Mr. Jimbo liked kids, and he drove well, so she grew to accept it, and to like it. It turns out that large, bearded, tattooed, leather-vested bikers are EXACTLY who you want shepherding your tiny children. No one messes with Mr. Jimbo or his little charges.
Anyway, there was this girl named Danielle who was, as I remember it, Satan’s very own spider monkey, and her #1 occupation was tormenting people smaller than her. I was a very meek child, but things must have built to a head. She was bothering us Kindergarteners relentlessly one day and I just went POW with my enormous lunchbox. (Which was plastic, and heavy, and had a pair of shoes in it, because I had to change my shoes once I got to school for some reason. The shoes fit perfectly into the place where the thermos was supposed to go, so every single day of Kindergarten, I got: "What are you having for lunch, Maureen? SHOES?” At first, this made me very upset, but after the first three months or so, I started to reply, “YES. I AM HAVING SHOES FOR LUNCH.” This is when I learned that Kindergarteners do not excel at multiple rounds of verbal jousting, and generally had no idea where to go from there. They might manage a “Ew, gross.” But by that point, the barb had lost its sting, and they knew it.)
Anyway, Danielle was perpetrating some form of evil on my friend, and I was just mad as hell and couldn’t take it anymore, and down came the lunchbox. This shocked EVERYONE, such was my gentle and meek nature. In fact, I didn’t even get in trouble, because my teacher said, “If Maureen hit her with a lunchbox, it must have been pretty bad.”
Which was SCORE FOR ME, except we then found out that Danielle had recently had brain surgery.
We kind of got along after that, but it was a delicate détente. She gave me a weird looking elephant she’d made of masking tape, which also made me nervous, because it was so freaky looking. I hid it in a drawer, because I was too afraid of it to get rid of it.
Anyway, Cookie O’Puss was just one item on a long list of concerns. But I still WANTED ONE. And I think 2009 is the year they should come back.
#6 Mo Better Blogs
More blogs. More stuff. All the time. 2009 is the year I plan to make you truly sick of me.
#7 Write some books
Which will include Suite Scarlett three, and A BOOK I CAN'T TELL YOU ABOUT YET.
This list is sort of rough, and I’d like to improve on it. So if you have any ideas, please let me know.
And now, let me give out a SIGNED BOOK to a random commenter from the last post. And that random commenter is Cat, who spread Cheer by volunteering at a homeless shelter over the holidays. Cat, send me your address!
For now, that is the end of the book giveaway. And I say FOR NOW, because there will ALWAYS be times in the future that I give away some books. You never know when it can happen.
Labels: resolutions, science, the Large Hardon Collider
posted by Maureen at
11:08 PM
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