New Year's Resolutions!

[OSJ]

We know you'll make them, we know you'll break them... But just for the sake of hilarity, what sort of foolishness are you going to attempt in 2016? I ain't shy, I'll go first.

 

1. Stop smoking (Yeah, like after 45 years that's gonna happen.)

 

2. Never exceed recommended dosage of my pain meds... (Oh, stop it, I can't even keep a straight face typing that...)

 

3. Lose fifty lbs. (This is actually in the realm of possibility once I get my new knees.)

 

4. Be nice to chuckleheads on the internetz. (Not bloody likely.)

[JRGoldman]

I've made the same one for three years running, and it works like a charm: 

 

Watch more wrestling, drink more nice whiskey, listen to more good music. 

[Burgundy LaRue]

Sure, why not?  I'll get a good laugh when I look up this thread in a year:

 

1.  Take better care of my health.  I'm not getting any younger, and my fat behind needs to drop serious weight.

 

2.  Spend more time on my personal appearance.  A side effect of getting older is my average appearance ain't so average anymore.  I've got to put in some effort into it now.

 

3.  Take more time off at work.  I need the mental health breaks.

 

4.  Pay off my credit card.

 

5.  Get a new car. Over 16 years and 180K miles on the Corolla.  It's time to upgrade.

 

6.  More Netflix and chill.  This is attainable.

 

7.  Purge cleaning and organizing.  I should be on Hoarders will all the junk I have.

 

8.  Don't spend as much time on the internet.  It's become my best friend.  This is sad.

 

9.  Be a kinder, gentler internet presence.  The smart money is on this being the first resolution I tell to fuck off.

 

10.  Find a new hobby.  And maybe stick to it this time.

 

11.  Become more tech savvy.

 

12. Take an online college course.

 

13.  Start reading and writing again.  Though not on a professional level, I was pretty good at putting words on paper once.  And I haven't done much reading since college.  Time to start again.

[OSJ]

Sure, why not?  I'll get a good laugh when I look this up thread in a year:

 

 

13.  Start reading and writing again.  Though not on a professional level, I was pretty good at putting words on paper once.  And I haven't done much reading since college.  Time to start again.

 

Allow me to suggest Darkness, My Old Friend by one John Pelan, an indispensable collection of short stories coming in March from Fedogan & Bremer Publishers... ;-)

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

Rule of threes for memorability

 

1. I've had to take a semester off because of my flimsy body, and since doctors are still giving me a run around, priority A#1 is to go back to the gym and start getting strong. I'm not nearly as concerned about losing weight as I am about not feeling so weak anymore. The bulk of the weight I want to lose is going to come with the routine of exercising anyways.

 

2. I've lived in California for years without even attempting to do this once, but I do believe it's not too late- this year I am going to start learning Spanish. It's you and me, Duolingo. Let's do this.

 

3. This one is the pettiest and silliest. A central part of my teenage identity was being, among my friends, the best at fighting games. My skill level at them has decreased so much that I feel unrealistic physical disgust. So, in 2015, I want to get good at Street Fighter 5. As good as I can get.

[cool arrow]

I resolve to make one resolution.

 

Done.

[Jenalysis]

Have a job at the end of the year- I'm going to be laid off in August most likely.

 

BL88- SF5 will be easier to get good at than SF4.   They got rid of a lot of the stuff that wasn't really necessary and just added lab time instead of thinking.

One of my goals is to finally hit EVO this year.  This is my last chance (see above)

 

If you're in the LA or SF area, there are plenty of locals to get stomped on to improve.

[Bustronaut]

Johnny, have you tried vaping?  I know it's associated with a LOT of d-baggery, but a friend of mine kicked his pack-a-day habit of 30 years by switching over to it, and now he buys the e-liquids that don't even have nicotine in them.  He said it was really easy, but for him it was the action of smoking that was the main draw - he needed something to do with his hands.

 

My resolution - to drive the shit out of any bus route I'm assigned!

[OSJ]

Mike, I have tried vaping and it's not bad, I think it's more a something to do with my hands when writing. I used to be a pack-a-day man, but now there are days when three or four smokes (generally after meals or with morning coffee) does the trick. I don't know this for a fact, but I suspect that some of the shit they ad to the vaping liquid is probably just as noxious as the tar that you're not getting. As time goes by, I might alternate more and more between the two. As it is, I'm smoking Misty 120s (my wife's brand) which is a pretty mild proposition compared to my Camel 99s, which due to my copd are just way too strong. So yeah, it's a something to do with the hands thing...

[Patrick B.]

1) Lose weight.  Been binging on junk food way too much lately.

 

2) Watch LESS wrestling.  I've been burning myself out on it.

[Ryan]

1. Stop aging. A losing battle.

2. Implant laser death beams in OSJ's new knees.

3. Profit.

[OSJ]

Death beams in the new knees? I must say I like your thinking. Seriously, I'm scared shitless about the procedure, but it's already getting difficult to put any weight whatsoever on my right knee and the left is nearly as bad, so it's either knee replacement or use a walker and I ain't about to do that. The scary thing is the chance of blood clots, not that I've ever had any problems in that regard and I've been doing the aspirin regimen for more years than I can remember, so the chance of clotting is certainly small,but it IS there. 

 

Supposedly a new specialist in joint replacement surgery joins the local hospital in February, (if they don't fuck up the hiring procedure as they seem to do on a regular basis), he's already looked over several pending cases including mine and pronounced mine as being the sort of thing he loves to do. Whatever the hell that means. My doctor said that's a big positive and that this guy is nationally known, but wanted to finish his career in a small town in the Southwest, and Gallup certainly fits that description. Anyway, if he doesn't come on board, SSI will pay for me to be transported to Albuquerque or Phoenix where there's no shortage of capable surgeons. 

 

I'm still not fond of the idea, my knees aren't worth a shit now, but I've had them as long as I can remember. ;-) It just seems so weird cutting out a part of your body and replacing it with plastic or whatever the hell artificial knees are made out of. And then, am I going like to have to learn to walk again at 58? Obviously, there's therapy to adapt to the new joints, but it seems like it would be easier to do one at a time, but my doc was adamant that I do both at the same time. His theory (which makes sense) is that anytime you're under total anesthesia that's as close to dead as you're going to get without being dead, so why double the risk with two procedures? Meh.

[Ryan]

If I recall, my aunt had knee replacement surgery on one knee and is in her mid-50s, she gets around fine. Hers was from some kind of infection from long ago that eventually destroyed a lot of the knee internally I believe. From kneeling on a toothpick of all things.

[Matt D]

I resolve to actually work on some of the projects I've brought up to people over the years around here. I have no idea if I'll have any more time to do so but I'll give it a go at least.

 

Happy New Year, you sorry bunch of mensches, trolls, ne'er-do-wells, astoundingly stereotypical geeks, and various and sundry King Kong Bundy cosplayers.

[OSJ]

Thanks, Ryan... I'm sure that I'm just being paranoid, but I've made it this far without any surgery ever (other than setting a broken arm when I was twelve), so the idea of cutting out a joint (however useless it has become) fills me with dread. 

 

How on earth does one kneel on a toothpick? I can at least put my woes down to being stupid and abusing both knees playing SS on shitty fields while carrying an extra fifty lbs. every weekend for about twenty years. I hadn't played since high school and started up playing modified softball with a bunch of guys that were five to ten years younger and in much better shape when I was 31 and had just quit drinking. It seemed the thing to do at the time and I kept it up until 51-52 when the after effects of having to soak my legs in ice just sort drained the fun out of it.

[offspring515]

My Dad had to have both knees replaced because of chronic arthritis pain. Was rough going at first but he's really happy he did it. 100% turnaround so far as pain and what he is able to do now.

Resolutions for me? Losing weight (a constant), save more money, and spend more time having fun and less being a worry wart.

I'll likely achieve none of the above, but so far (8 hours in) so good!

[OSJ]

My Dad had to have both knees replaced because of chronic arthritis pain. Was rough going at first but he's really happy he did it. 100% turnaround so far as pain and what he is able to do now.

Resolutions for me? Losing weight (a constant), save more money, and spend more time having fun and less being a worry wart.

I'll likely achieve none of the above, but so far (8 hours in) so good!

 

Thanks! After nearly falling twice yesterday as the left knee just seems to buckle at random now, there's no putting this off. I love to go on long walks and this last year walking to the mailbox has been as good as it gets. Hearing the positive outcomes from folks like your dad helps a lot as I still have trouble getting my head around the idea of joint replacement, so thanks again!

[Super Ape]

1.) Keep a weekly planner to write down important future events, so I don't stress about things I have no control over until then.

2.) Monitor my food intake, specifically my sugars.

3.) Re-establish learning habits (I'm using Duolingo to work on my rusty Spanish, and also teaching myself philosophy).

 

Those are my big three. I believe that a lot of resolutions fail because they are formed in a vacuum; I don't really call my list "resolutions" so much as I call them "Measures," since they were formed in response to various stimuli alerting me of my physical and mental health, as well as my dissatisfaction of where I am as an individual, as well as a husband and father.

 

Anyone making similar resolutions are welcome to contact me and use me as an accountability partner; you won't get any proselytizing out of me, just someone to help you keep track of your own goals.

 

Best of luck, DVDVR crew.

[Dewar]

Only resolution I made for this year was to spend less money eating at restaurants and the work cafeteria. I'm not too shabby at the whole cooking deal, just need to devote the time to actually doing it.

[OSJ]

On 12/30/2015 at 1:37 PM, OSJ said:

We know you'll make them, we know you'll break them... But just for the sake of hilarity, what sort of foolishness are you going to attempt in 2016? I ain't shy, I'll go first.

 

1. Stop smoking (Yeah, like after 45 years that's gonna happen.)

 

2. Never exceed recommended dosage of my pain meds... (Oh, stop it, I can't even keep a straight face typing that...)

 

3. Lose fifty lbs. (This is actually in the realm of possibility once I get my new knees.)

 

4. Be nice to chuckleheads on the internetz. (Not bloody likely.)

Okay, nearly 4 months in, that's enough time for updates... I know I should do this on the 30th to be really accurate, but I am old and likely to forget, so here it is... For myself, miracle of miracles #1 actually took place. #2? Never you mind. I have never advocated peculiar behavior or massive quantities of controlled substances, but they have always worked really well for me. #3? To be continued,meeting with the surgeon next week to see if I really have the balls to go through with this. Main worry at this point is post-op pain and whether or not it can be controlled. I need the doc to understand that what would kill most people I call "breakfast". 

#4? Oddly enough, I haven't felt the need to really savage anyone on the 'Net, the three a-holes on this board that I found irritating managed to get themselves Johnny Cashed in relative short order with very little prodding from me. I did watch Beware of Mr. Baker just to see if the old bastard had any good one-liners that I could swipe, but he's as unoriginal insulting people as he is brilliantly original as a drummer. I must say that film didn't really do anyone any favors, only Charlie Watts came out looking good (because he's Charlie fucking Watts, of course.) Jack Bruce came off as an arrogant chucklehead and Clapton a totally gutless ponce. I can totally see him hiding in the corner of the room while Bruce and Baker screamed at each other. Fuck him, Alvin Lee and Jeff Beck were always better anyway...