So there I am, last night, around two o’clock in the morning, and I’m doing lines of cocaine off strippers’ tummies with Mario Lopez, and I shoulda been happy, but I was just a little sad, cuz I knew the birthday festivities were coming to an end. Oh well. Had to happen sometime. They started last Thursday, with me consuming nearly a 12-pack of Killian’s, and ended up under the stage at the Foxy Lady. Just me, Mario, Mo Vaughn, and a few dozen scantily clad women. Some of you might call that extravagant. I just call it “Monday”.

But now, in the haze of a grey Tuesday morning, it’s time to wake up, wipe the crust of out my eye, find my pants, and think about the year to come. After all, it’s the last year I’ll have in my 20s. Might as well, you know, make the most of it. And that involves planning. And checklists. And lots of other spontaneous things (such as planning and checklists). The first thing on the list is “Explain To The Girl How Tawny Means Nothing To Me, It Was Just This One-Time Thing, And It’s Really All Mo’s Fault”. Assuming I can check off that box in pen as opposed to the blood squirting from my punctured neck, I can get to the rest of the list.

So, in an effort to actually achieve these things, I’m publicly publishing them, so you can all hold my accountable for them come November 15th, 2005. I haven’t quite sorted out the exact order in which I will do them, but maybe together we can come up with a prioritized list sooner rather than later.

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• Skydive. Always wanted to do it. Finally at a weight in which I can. Last time I had the opportunity to do this, I was 250 pounds and the limit was 240 pounds. I’m now just over 210 pounds. And this time, maybe I’ll be with people who aren’t drinking Red Bull and vodka on the way to the jump zone.


• Take dance lessons. Go ahead and snicker. The Girl and I both want to do this. I mean, c’mon, have you SEEN “Shall We Dance?” OK, um, me neither. Point still holds. I wanna learn how to do more than the White Man Overbite man popular in “When Harry Met Sally”. Chances of The Girl and I being in the same city by next Fall are 100%, so chances of this are high. Not sure if I want to learn Swing, Salsa, or Lambada though.


• Finish “Grand Theft Auto III”. Lame, but somehow important. I completely missed the videogame boom, and only own a PS2 due to my brother’s over-generosity last winter. I played it out of obligation at first, but after finishing the “Buffy: Chaos Bleeds” game, realized that I kinda liked it. As mentioned above, The Girl won’t be here for a while, so I have lots of free time on my hands. And I’ve already printed out something like 250 pages of tips and storylines to get me through this bad boy. This fits into that “Holding On Desperately to Immaturity” category of things to do over the next year, along with “Puke In Bushes One Last Time”, “Kick a Marmaset”, and “Make Fun of Norwegians.”


• Publish “Wading in the Velvet Book II”. Gonna get a head start on this one, methinks. Also going to get a foreword by George Clooney. Or Brad Pitt. One of those “Ocean’s 11” guys. Except for the Asian one. I don’t think he’ll help sales one bit.


• Watch entire, extended “Lord of the Rings” in one day. See “girlfriend isn’t moving up here for a long time and as such I have time to kill and opportunities to do this that will disappear once we live together”. Other items in this category include “watch WWE pay-per-views with brother while crushing empty beer cans and chucking them at the screen” and “erect an altar dedicated to Eliza Dushku’s breasts”.


• Install self as despotic leader in third-world country. This can’t be that hard. I’ll just take one of the small ones. I’m not that picky. So long as they are cable-ready, I’m there with my iron fist ready to rule.


• Study metallurgy to develop iron fist. This should probably happen before I take over the third-world country in order to make that whole plan more feasible. But only after I beat “Grand Theft Auto III”, since it’s difficult enough hitting the L3 button. Left hand has to be the iron fist-having hand, since at my right hand, I’ll have a pet cougar, and he’ll be soft, named Fluffy, and be highly pet-able. And somehow I think my reign of terror might be terror-free. Oh well.


• Find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. This whole “three licks” is Commie propaganda. Can’t believe how they’ve managed to pull the wool over our collective eyes. I’ma gonna get to this bottom of this. After the whole Dushku Breast altar thing, of course.


• Release an R&B record. Look, Ron Artest can apparently play professional basketball and make one simultaneously, so how hard can it be? Thank God for that revelation, because I have a stack of titles for R&B songs that I’ve been working on for years now. I don’t wanna give away the whole CD here, lest it get file-swapped before I can properly release my masterpiece, but I can give away a few titles to whet your whistle: “All Up In Your Grille”, “(I Only Love You When You’re On) Top”, “Featuring Ludacris” (Featuring Lil’ Jon), and “My Love Flows Like a Forty”.

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OK, well, that’s a pretty good start, I guess. Should keep me plenty busy over the next 12 months. Any addendums or corrections are welcome. Cheers.