January 5, 2004 — 4 PM

I Didn’t Like That Year, Can I Get A Refund?

I suppose it’s a bit devious to promise not to write about something and then fulfill that promise by writing nothing at all. It’s a bit like the second grade, when you kept insulting Billy and then, when he protested, you promised “not to say it anymore.” Then you went on insulting him by claiming that you had, in fact, only promised not to say the word “it”, rather than the insult itself. A clever chap, you were.

Well, actually, I was on holidays, like everyone else. Mostly I ate a lot of food and during the time inbetween meals, I digested both the food and the endless “Year That Was” and “Best of 2003” articles that give journalism a bad name. Frankly, it made me want to avoid writing. Am I the only one that finds year-in-review writing a tedious waste of ink and pixels? Unless you were just born, you were around all year, and if you need an entire year’s worth of news and events summed up in a single page, then you probably didn’t care that much about any of it in the first place.

In some ways, year-end journalism is a bit like the reruns on TV. Except that to air a rerun, some technician just slides in a video tape and presses play. Writers actually have to write the articles again, and it’s often just as much work to summarize something succinctly than it is to write about it in the first place. Imagine if instead of a rerun of your favourite episode of Law & Order, you got to watch the actors and writers and directors talking for an hour about the experience of making the episode, how each plot point developed and resolved, and, naturally, What It All Meant.

Of course, the arrival of a new year is still a moment to celebrate, even if it’s with a nasty hangover and two hours of daylight before the sun sets. And you know, come to think of it, I’d feel cheated if I didn’t get my two bits in when everyone else already has. So, naturally, I’ve put together my own list…

* * *

Luke’s Ten…No, Let’s Make It Five Reasons to Celebrate a New Year

5. The erosion of civil liberties in the name of “freedom” is, like, so last year.

4. Everyone born on February 29th gets one hell of a party — I mean, it’s been four lean years. (Next year we can go back to teasing them.)

3. Odd-numbered years are just, er…well, I mean, between you and me, don’t they seem a little shady? All uneven and stuff, and damn, that last one was even prime. How weird is that.

2. Now that I’ve paid — and then some — to have repaired both my crappy fridge and stove (Oh, the part that needs replacing just happens to be really expensive? Oh, how about that! Who woulda thunk!), with happy guarantees on each job, I might just have a year of happy cooking.

1. 2004 might just be the year that everyone wakes up and realizes that Stupid Ugly Vehicles (SUVs) are money- and fuel-draining pollution beasts that offer no particular advantages to the 80% of us who live in cities, and so the car manufacturers are finally making hybrid vehicles that save fuel and might just lessen our Western habit of making a big fat sloppy mess of the world in the name of oil and Progress.

Okay, the last couple are both maybes, but a man can dream, can’t he?

Previously: A Bit Flakey

Subsequently: MacTricks

January 2004
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