You Say You Want a Resolution?

New Year's Eve. I'm at work. Our systems are down for year-end updates. Our computers are intact, which is how I'm able to type this. Boredom doesn't even begin to describe this day. I didn't even have my usual miniscule amount of work to do this morning. I bought a magazine this morning, but I've already read the entire thing, cover to cover. I've still got two-and-a-half hours till I'm off.

In keeping with the holiday, I suppose I could kill some time by jotting down some potential New Year's resolutions…

1. Spend less money. Honestly, I blow way too much money (on food and DVDs, mostly). Now that we're planning a family trip to Disneyland next year, we've gotta start saving. I'll need to bring food from home instead of buying lunch, and I'll need to restrict my movie-buying to only must-have titles and rent the rest (Christ, we belong to both Netflix and Blockbuster!). Or hey, how about I actually watch the 600+ movies I already own? Or at the very least, the 38 Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies I bought in December when I dove into the HD pool and bought into BOTH formats in one weekend? There's a resolution-within-a-resolution for ya: finally start watching all the movies I've collected over the years.

2. Lose a few pounds. I've already successfully cut out the caffeine; now I need to cut out the non-caffeinated soda entirely and drink more water. Once the weather warms up, I can go back to walking the dog every day, which will help too. I'm not trying to lose a ton of weight and get all ripped or anything crazy like that, but yeah… I could definitely drop some pounds.

3. Write every day. Even if it's just a blog entry. Ideally I'll be writing a new novel or screenplay, or maybe finishing some of the short stories I've started over the years, but in any case I should be writing daily…. Even when I don't want to. Emailing Donovan twenty times a day does NOT count.

4. Read more books. I read four books in 2007, and two of them were in the last week (and both were favorite books that I'd read before, so do they even count?). Pathetic. For a semi-intelligent adult (not to mention a wannabe writer), this is embarrassing.

Hmmm. These don't seem terribly difficult. Resolutions are seldom kept, but with a little discipline… well, let's revisit this in 365 days and see how it went. Maybe I'll surprise myself.