Happy New Year

Well, ladies and gentlemen, 2004 is just about kaput. 2005 is bearing down on us. It seems like the year is ending on such a downer note, with the Tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia and all...

Since the most wise and beautiful Chickscumalready said a bunch of good stuff about the disaster, I'll not repeat what she said. Read it, I'll just say "ditto," except for the part about a tornado messing up the apartment complex, that never happened to me, and I'll not lie and say it happened.

Insane numbers of people lost their lives. Quite frankly, I can't quite wrap my mind around it. It's thought that on one Tamil-controlled island, 3/5 of the population was wiped out. Think of your five favorite people. Poof, three of them gone. I really think it's worse to think about it in those terms than to try to imagine 60,000 people.

I'm not going to be all depressing and morbid. It's New Year's Eve. To quote the hooker from Forrest Gump, "Everyone gets a second chance." Bad things happen. This time it was a natural disaster, but often, it's not bad luck and acts of nature, but we ourselves who make bad things happen. Seems to be an historical pattern we can't break, but I'm going to play eternal obnoxious optimist in the face of reality and say: maybe 2005 will be our year.

For those of you who are so inclined (and who, more importantly, have the fundage), the Red Cross said that they'll use all money donated to the International Response Fund to provide relief to the victims in Southeast Asia. To make a donation, click here. No pressure. I've been broke, too. Whether you donate or not, let's all try our hardest to live life like it could be washed out to sea tomorrow.

To quote Colonel Potter from M*A*S*H (what's with me and all the pop culture references? Hey, at least I'm off my Harry Potter kick), "To the new year. May she be a damn sight better than the old."

Kick some ass in 2005.

Hmm, maybe I'll give up swearing in the new year.

Naaaaaaah. What's the fun of hitting your head on something if you can't cuss in a most undignified manner after you do it?