(Lately, it seems that lists have been popular on the Rightfully So website, so I’ll add mine.)

The conventional wisdom says that we should use the arrival of a new year to resolve to make changes in our lives in order to better ourselves… you know the drill… lose weight, make nice with the ex-, floss teeth twice daily… and a bunch of other crap that you’ll never do.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? It’s a bunch of crap that will fail to happen, and it will fail even before we celebrate the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

So, why set yourself up for that? Why make a bunch of resolutions that are destined to fail? Why not make a list of resolutions that you can keep?

In that spirit, here is my list of things I resolve for 2006:

  • I will not smoke any cigars.
  • I will not play any video games on any system whose name begins with X and the next three letters are BOX.
  • I will not perform any human embryonic stem cell cloning.
  • I will not watch any professional baseball, basketball, hockey or soccer games.
  • I will not not install any “Vista” preview products from Microsoft.
  • I will not fill a burlap sack with puppies and kittens and throw the sack over Niagara Falls.
  • I will not watch any new episodes of The Simpsons.
  • I will not get a large-screen, digital, HD-ready television to replace my 20-year-old, nine-inch Toshiba.
  • I will not call in sick to work unless I truly am sick, or I just don’t feel like going in that day.
  • I will not violate copyright laws by downloading illegal copies of Duran Duran songs from P2P networks.
  • I will not plan for my retirement.

Have I missed anything?