You want to know what I think is a colossal waste of time? No, tough shit; here goes.
New Year's Eve/Day.
Yup, the old end of the year extravaganza with the champagne, noise makers, gunshots, making out with someone you just met; the whole nine yards. Waste of time, for the most part.

Doesn't make sense, no matter how you try to sell it. People spend the better part of the day getting really drunk (that's not the waste of time) so they can count down to one and puke all over some stranger in a $1000 ball gown. That's the waste of time.

I am consistently amazed at the fact that people will spend hundreds of dollars to sit in a ballroom at a second rate hotel, buy really expensive drinks, get their "complimentary champagne toast" at midnight and say they had fun. Now, I suppose if you were to get a fancy hotel room with a Jacuzzi tub in the package, then we're talking. But then, wouldn't it be better to just skip the party, grab some better booze, get buck nekkid, grab your date and count down to midnight in the tub? Thought you'd like that. Just wish I could get the wife to go for that one. Just maybe. . . but I digress.

I used to look forward to someone I knew hosting a New Year's bash so I could get pickled and find an equally drunk young woman to swap spit with at the stroke of 12. Never really worked out that way, but I kept trying. For years. Finally, one year it happened. I was lucky enough to be next to someone as drunk as me and, by golly, I got lucky. Next thing I knew, I was engaged and now have been married 14 wonderful years. Maybe the drinking is a waste of time.

So, nowadays, it's stay at home with the neighbors, drink, set off some illegal fireworks, freeze our asses off outside and go to bed really late. Not so bad, and it only happens once a year. Admittedly, there are a couple of neighbors I wish would get a little drunker, but I always have the wife to give a sloppy one to when the clock strikes 12.

So, maybe New Year's Eve isn't so bad, for me anyway. I'm not stupid enough to leave my house. Last time I did that was for "The millennium." What a fucking waste of time and money that was. Paid a bunch of money to go to someone else's block party, freeze my ass off, get soaking wet (it rained like crazy), have a bunch of punk teenagers drink my beer, and have no apocalyptic end of the world. Waste of fucking time. So, I now stay home. The drunks are going to have to hit someone else on their way home from their disappointing parties.

Now, New Year's Day there is no defense for outside of the selection of college football games. Rose Parade? Hate it. Hope it finally rains on the piece of shit this year. Please. I actually know one of the float designers (Raul Rodriguez). He's made a bunch of money designing the most gaudy flora adorned recreational vehicles known to mankind. He's an unusual, but nice enough guy. He just makes his living in a very strange way. Besides, the Rose Parade is singularly responsible for the population boom here in California. So, I say fuck it. Rain, baby, rain.

The other thing that bothers me about New Year's Day is the craze over resolutions. Why the hell do we wait until the end of December to make these life changes we so desperately need? No real reason. It just seems so neat, so easy to do. It's 1/1/06, time to lose weight, quit smoking, quit drinking, stop having reckless sex (wait, why give up a good habit?), quit cussing so much (fuck that). All empty promises we wait to see how long it takes to break. Nice. Here's a suggestion, quit snivelling, quit stuffing your piehole, get off the couch, quit blowing strangers, and change your life now. If you don't want to, fine; but don't make a big deal about the first day of January because you think everyone else does.

With that, here's my New Year's resolutions: Drink less beer; drink more gin. Have more sex, different sex, awesome sex; all with my wife; lift more weights; have more fun; eat more food; eat different food; live my life; fart more often (done); just do the things I'm already doing now, only more of it.

There, I feel better. Now I need to shop for gin. Bombay Sapphire. There is no other.