Have a question? E-mail Rob Gleeson and Sven Stoker at headtoheadcolumn@gmail.com.

 

Dear Head to Head:

Hey guys! Glad the column is back for 2010! I’m having a really hard time coming up with good new year’s resolutions. Can you help me out?

John, Nelson Hall

 

John,

New Year’s resolutions are all about making you better!

What don’t you like about yourself and how can you fix that in 2010? It’s as simple as that!

In helping you pick some good resolutions, I took the liberty of scouring your Facebook profile and I came up with some great ideas!

For starters, how about a resolution to stop wearing your DU key lanyard around your neck like it’s a backstage pass?

Are you going to a Rolling Stones concert or just back to your dorm room? I also see that you’ve got frosted tips.

They weren’t hard to notice, since you’ve got an entire photo album dedicated to them. Frosting is meant for cake, not hair.

Boom! Two resolutions done in less than 30 seconds. Isn’t it easier having other people give you your new year’s resolutions?

The Gleeson family has an unorthodox approach to New Year’s: every year my mother, the lovely Jane Gleeson, takes it upon herself to write three new year’s resolutions for each of her children.

She reads our resolutions for the coming year in front of the entire family; that way we can hold each other accountable! It’s a ton of fun and usually only one or two of us end up crying.

Think of it like an annual suggestion box, but with higher stakes! This year I got some really good ones!

One: bring a girl home. Mom: “It’s been 22 God damn years and no girlfriend…what am I supposed to tell the neighbors?”

Two: stop being a pansy. “Do you still hold your nose when you go under water? Do you?”

Three: read the Bible. “I’ve seen your stand up. If God asks, I don’t know you.”

-Rob

 

John-

New Year’s is a celebration all about staying young and pretending that no time at all has actually passed. 

Why would college students, in the prime of their life, want to pretend to be any younger?

Well just look at this New Year’s hottest celebrities, the nation ignored the annual ball dropping in New York to more closely focus on the ball dropping of Paul, the oldest Jonas Brother.

And many of the nation’s “new year’s countdown clocks” have been recently readjusted to “Miley-Cyrus-turning-eighteen countdown clocks.”

It doesn’t matter what your actual resolution is: going to the gym more, going out to eat less, or wasting less money buying acne-plus calorie-enriched gravy nuggets, because all resolutions aim to accomplish two things: becoming absurdly rich and having an impressively fit body (ironically something this advise expert clearly knows nothing about).

However, no mater how hard you try, resolutions always seem counter-productive:

“Maybe if feed enough cash into this weight-machine at the gym, my rock hard abbs will just come out of a slot at the bottom.”

Or “maybe this year I can pick up some extra spending money by selling off my body parts to a research hospital.”

This year, let’s honor the media’s beloved Tiger Woods and set the bar just a little bit lower. 

Make your resolutions more attainable: “This year I will only wear baggy clothes to hide my brand new 2010 blubber layer,” or, “This year I’ll stay home for the neighborhood cash-bonfire barbeque,” or even try, “This year I will forever end my golf career and sleep with a 50-year-old Perkins’ waitress.”

But then again, maybe it’s just too late.

Insincerely,

Sven