I didn’t really want to call them Resolutions because they’re really not. I tend to think of Resolutions as change you want to effect on your life. You are changing something you find deficient.
Yes, I do have really high self esteem and yes I do think I’m God’s Gift, so yes I think I’m perfect in every way and therefore don’t think I need to change anything. (Please note invisible sarcasm font).
However, I do think I’m in a pretty good place as far as not thinking I need to change anything that’s deficient. If anything, I need to develop goals that go above and beyond where I am right now to make me better.
Therefore, I’m doing this as a 2025 Goals Post, not a Resolutions post. Does that make sense? Okay, let’s move on.
I’m going to split them up into categories. Without further ado:
GOLF
I was able to get to a Handicap Index in the 20s (it’s currently 26.7) and I was able to shoot in the 90s, which were the two things I wanted to achieve in 2024. One additional achievement (which I had not planned) was to place in the top three for my club championship standings. For 2025, I want to:
- Lower my Handicap Index to Underage Drinking Level (Less than 21)
- Shoot an 18 hole score of 89 or better.
- Win a tournament.
- Place in the top three of the club championship.
FITNESS
I did pretty good last year as I was able to get Personal Bests in Bench Press, Squat, and Deadlift. For reference, I’m 5′ 9″ 175. This year, I want to:
- Do one NFL Combine bench press rep (Two 45 lb plates on each side or a total of 235 lbs.)
- Do one rep of Squat at 300 lbs.
- Run 2 miles in less than 23 minutes (Army standard for my age)
WORK
I want to promote, but I can’t promote unless my boss either retires or promotes and that’s not within my control, so I’m going to choose things I can control. For 2025, I want to:
- Get five non-performers to either quit, transfer, or retire. (I’m really not that much of an asshole, but one bad apple…. These people gotta go. And no, I can’t just fire them. HR blows.)
- Get three of the employees that I’m mentoring promoted.
- Implement one cost-saving initiative company-wide.
INTELLECTUAL
Reading Christopher Moore has really gotten me into stimulating my intellect. That works both in terms of what you consume and what you create. For 2025, I want to:
- Read 5 more Christopher Moore books.
- Create a 7 episode minimum series of fiction for this here site.
- Create something visual. I’m not sure yet if this would be a short film or a collection of photographs. I’ll need to flesh this out some…
What say you?
There’s only two novels I’ve ever read more than once.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (many times) and Roughing It by Mark Twain.
Other than that I read quality historical biographies, primary sources when I can.
Technical manuals for all sorts of gear I will never see (although I lived on a nuke submarine and filmed an SR-71 and grew up in the Smithsonian) is always interesting as well.
I got drunk on the most amazing cocktails I’ve ever drank. But after, since it was about 10-ish PM, I sobered up to continue watching “100 Years of Solitude” on Netflix.*
I’ve read the novel 4 times, most recently last April. IMHO, it’s the 2nd best use of Spanish AND creativity in general, after both parts of Don Quijote were published in the early 1600s. And this is the only booky book hill I’ll die in.
Saved the last episode of this ”season” for later. It’s faithful to the novel and, to the filmmakers credit, there’s very little narration. Sure, we don’t get prose like “Bad luck has no crevices” or “The exquisite shit that is glory”, but the production and acting are TOP. The series stands on its own and is WOW WOW WOW. I apologize to my professors for crap translation.
* long day of touristin’ in a coupla hours. This melatonin is 100% placebo.
Can I do placebo acid? Kind of afraid of the real stuff but
“Placebo Acid” is an album name I can’t decide is inane or incredible.
It’s like it was made up in an LSD haze or by a record company AI bot.
My 2025 resolution is to try to learn to write like this guy here. Standing sheepishly in the corner in awe.
Just to make myself crystal like. I mean this killer story written by our lord savior, BALLS, all hail.
Me n’ Balls r ritin 1 day
u b the illustrator
(I shall run the cameras and post-production equipment, gentlemen. Thank you)
Agreed but you must let me shoot some of the “lesser” scenes
I’ll show which buttons to push.
I sorta miss using a pencil at work. Now everything is done on a computer, including proofreading and editing. My pencils are only used in the field for some quick notes.
And don’t get me started on how the youth “writes” on paper… it truely brings me back to reading my seven year olds homework.
Their hand written notes, as infrequent as they are, look like an Andy Worhol (on heroin) offering.
Don’t get me started on pencils . . .
Kind of like using my pencil from time to time, just wish it was bigger.
Yes, Lane Kiffin, running up the score on Duke does indeed show that you should have been in the play-offs.
Truly “What was it like being the last regret in Al Davis’s 50 year career full of fuck ups?”
Lane Kiffin is so pretty, what with his doughy baby face. So cute.
Post-game handshake in the Gator Bowl ’bout to be really interesting.
Look, I’m sure Lane Kiffin is an unsportsmanlike cock, but dammit fueling hate is something I really admire.
Duke coach should absolutely have sucker-punched him at the 50.
Yeah I’m sure Manny Diaz sucker-punching Lane Kiffin would’ve not garnered the interest of the Jacksonville PD.
Force of habit. They would have seen ‘Duke’ on his hat and shirt, figured his Daddy knew somebody who knew somebody who knew SOMEBODY and then they would have shrugged and shot Lane Kiffin in the back.
Good point, forgot the Dukespanic pretty much equals Honky.
lol throws his players under the bus “I told the other coach I didn’t call those throws, the kids did that on their own” again, gotta admire the weasel
Liberace clock:
The second hand has a limp wrist
https://ibb.co/jgyWsN3
Folks, the worst thing has happened. My violist got food poisoning and now I’m in need
(dun dun duuuuuun)
of a violist for tomorrow. Panic has set in.
I play viola.
I play viola.
This is America, you don’t have to look for a violist; a violist will find you.
Oh, wait. Sorry, I mean “violence”.
Here’s one with puffy sleeves. Call her.
I’m Spartacus!
Wait…FUCK!!
Damn, that Duke kid is dead.
why damn and not huzzah
I had no idea he went to Duke probably because it’s way too obvious
There’s a stone in the colonial-era graveyard near me where the carving mentions that the guy graduated from Yale and Harvard.
Guy died in like 1780, just in case you wondered how long it’s been since people never shut the fuck up about graduating from Yale or Harvard.
Well at least there was a UConn grad to dig the hole.
In 1780?
Not fucking likely.
True, too early for inbreeding.
Good sir, I believe you are referring to our cousins, (attractive), at the University of Maine, Orono.
They go by the name ‘Black Bears,’ somewhat ironic given that Maine it literally the whitest state in the Union, and are famous for cemeteries in which one of four names is on every headstone.
/glares angrily in Stephen King
There was a tweet long ago from some genius who wrote, (paraphrasing here) “I used to love Stephen King when he’d write shit like ‘the manager of the town dump lived alone in a decrepit trailer. He kept a Hand of Glory in an old Boston Red Sox cap. The rats and crows were his to command” and then I moved to Maine and realized King wasn’t writing fiction.
Debating whether to record another episode of Todd’s Surf Journal tomorrow. It’ll be partly sunny at best and the water temperature is 58.6° (that’s 15° Canadian), which is pretty daunting.
Then I remember…
Goddammit, Todd.
Sandy Koufax with two types of peanut butter.
Rockabilly Skull looks on approvingly.
Don’t ask for any details but “Honey creamy?” is how Ted Cruz asks his wife for sex.
https://twitter.com/DukesMayoBowl/status/1875012579787223498
I give the Pop Tarts Bowl the slightest of edges over the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, but both need to be heavily involved in the national championship decision.
Duke making it a game after all, in front of tens of fans in attendance.
Yeah, about that
It’s a great new year to RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!!!
I don’t remember how many of these photos you had posted before I finally figured out that:
A) They were not the same stock photo over and over;
and
B) There really was a team named The Kraken.
Good eye. I had assumed it was the same photo.
How dare you two. All photos are game day originals.
I had faith in you!
I know! I told you I finally noticed!
They all look identical, but photographer Brick finally saw the subtle differences.
Roger that
I had an idea I wanted to share: movie soundtrack karaoke. Basically, you do karaoke versions of the songs from a movie soundtrack, in order. Mainly because I want to perform this banger:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdaaGlyu7EQ
If I said “that idea sucks,” is that a huge compliment in your household?
That’s some prime Jamie Gertz.
Dibs on the Grease soundtrack
I’ll take Grease 2.
Because Mrs. Horatio loves that movie like the third child we never had, and I know every fucking song by heart whether I want to or not.
(Mrs. Horatio is my favorite designated driver, but she therefore also gets to choose the soundtrack)
I was going to make fun of that, but honestly it’s been so long since I’ve seen it that I have no idea what the sequel soundtrack is like. I just remember “Michelle Pfeiffer good, everything else shitty.”
Your criticism of the movie is tough, but fair.
Found a funny:
You people mocking the death of the Cybertruck driver make me sick. That man had a family. He leaves four children without a father: Kayden, Ryleigh, A-10 Warthog, and Augustus Maximus Decimus Cicero Caesar
In a snub to dad, A-10 Warthog is going by “BRRRTTTT” and will not answer to their given name.
O7
Ah, the Gator Bowl. Root for Duke? Root for Lane Kiffin?
Meteor it is!
I beg to differ
https://youtu.be/0TvJy2Ot48M?si=Dics6Zlwpp7GMQBF
https://youtu.be/4acayiZAHaM?si=pjPL41M4G2SzTFX3
5×45 (two plates on each side of an Olympic bar), is 225.
There.
You’re 10 lbs. close to one of your goals. You’re welcome.
Hooray for math!
I’ll take, “Things Never Said In Chapel Hill” for $600, Ken.
How much does it really matter, SEC?
/I know Texas is SEC now but survived only thanks to an utterly bullshit failure to call targeting
//But seriously even the SEC pretenders to the final 12, AL and S. Cakalaky got beat.
///one hopes the impending stroke out of Paul Finebaum will free the airwaves from one more dipshit going forward . . . but probably we cannot get that lucky.
Yeah, I still don’t know how the fuck that wasn’t targeting. The first thing that hit him was the helmet. He LED with the helmet! What else do you fucking want?!?
The bafflement of the announcers before they got their marching orders to close ranks for the SEC champs was hilarious (or enraging, if you root for the Sun Devils).
Look there’s fouls on every play that get missed. We complain that the game handles QBs with kid gloves then go run around crying everytime a no-targeting happens.
I’d have been just as happy to see ASU QB Sam Levitt die on the field so long as that no-call is left alone.
If you get rid of targeting, that;s fine by me. Gladiators can gladiate. But if you have that rule in place and, more to the point, you stop play and go to the replay to get the call “right” BUT . . . then just fucking ignore the rules you’ve put in place to the astonishment of everyone with a set of eyes that function – then you’ve lost what little integrity you have left. If we let ’em play, then let ’em play — then ASU gets their best defender all second half . . . but he was (correctly under the rules) booted for targeting from an earlier game. It was not a close call that needed some fuzzy definition of a catch or insufficient video evidence. It was just screwing.
/no ASU rooting interest, just looking for a modicum of refs not blatantly fucking up replays — if you stop the game to sell me a fucking beer, then get the call right.
Looks like those OSU-ND predictions are coming true. At least it’s better than Texas and Law & Order: SVU: PSU.
Only one SEC team left and it’s the one that just joined the league
Gotta love it.
Cash Jones is cash money.
He pays dividends.
What the hell, you guys? I put out this obvious cry for help and not a single one of you calls ahead to let the lifeguards know to be on their toes?
if/when ND wins this, think I am done with the JV playoffs. But congrats to LemonJello, Magical Pony, and THEEEEE other Clubhouse supporters on their inevitable championship.
It would be kind of amazing for the semifinals to consist of the 5-8 seeds exactly.
Like Freezer Vodka League?
It had occured as you have written — can you please now do something about Collinsworth?
/either or both of them
We don’t have to watch the Sugar Bowl, right?
Fuck no. I just turned it off myself.
You can go back to Young and the Restless.
(also a documentary about Notre Dame altar boys after priest happy hour)
I thought it was an infomercial about juvenile insomnia.
Many years ago, my dad and I were both sick at home on a weekday, and we were watching the noon news. Bill Burns was the news guy, local Pittsburgh legend, and at the end of the broadcast he said ” stay tuned for the Young and the Breastless”
My dad and I damn near died laughing!
Are the pass rushers that good or the QBs that bad?
Let that hayseed chuck it!
Deliverance delivers dammit!
Seems like both teams agree with the Louisiana Attorney General that it’s too early for football.
Is the ginormous lady in these horrid Taco Bell chicken nugget ads “famous” in Our Darkest Timeline?
/first full day of work in quite some time
Me: “Heading out early. See ya!”
Like the boss
I told them that I won a fantasy championship, so they understood.
/there is one guy among 40-ish employees that I can talk to about football
But 37 you can talk to about maple syrup!
Players had to settle with a Hail Mary from midfield.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVSp19uL9kg&pp=ygUsbGVhZ3VlIG9mIHRoZWlyIG93biBnb2Qga25vd3Mgd2UgaGF2ZSBhIGdhbWU%3D
To teh KatrinaDome!
“Heckofa job, Kingie!” – George B., TX
For 2025:
-buy a juicer (had tangerine juice this AM and OMFG WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE)
-develop a rotine where I can fit exercise + work + cooking within 12 hrs. a day or less
-socialize socialize socialize.* My natural hermitin’ impulses got the better of me in most of 2024. That rrrrrrlly bummed me out needlessly
-travel to Perú or ‘nother LATAM country
-prepare office invoices weekly. This should be #2, after the juicer
* NFL playoffs excepted. I am sane, you knoe
Don T in 2024 (artist’s conception):
Wait until you try blood oranges. Put some carrots in for health, they’ll hide in the strength of that blood orange flavoUr.
I looove carrots. Will do!
a few peeps put fresh ginger root in it, if available. Delicioso y healthy, either way
I’m confused. Do you want a DFO style roasting of you and your goals? Or do you just want others to post their catheter-related hopes for the next 12 months?
My initial thought is the former, I hope.
[Jots down idea for invention: velcro catheter (so it doesn’t accidentally fall out). Contacts Polish equivalent of the USPTO see if the intellectual property rights are still available]
The first one but I would not mind catheter-related hopes and dreams.
Brick’s goals for 2025:
Balls, when you go for your last goals, remember:
I have a full Hollywood level VFX studio in my home with full-on remote working capabilities, including camera/lens packages that will knock your dick stiff;
I am a tremendous writer but I am a quirky artist so you must force me to work or I forget and do something else. I’m like a house cat in this regard. You’ve seen this before;
You know who we will get as our illustrator.
Remember that. Also please don’t fire me.
(Note: Brick has been fired by some of the best companies in the world, including Walt Disney Feature Animation, Eastman Kodak when they ere still a component of the DJIA, Industrial Light & Magic, Sony Imageworks, NBC Television, etc etc the list goes on. Interestingly, every one of those companies hired me again on future projects.)
I’m always looking to fire. Brings balance to things.
Let’s do lunch
When I get back to L.A. mid-January
All lofty goals Buddy and my money is on you to knock them all out.
This is my final full year of service. I retire in June 2026 so my goals are all legacy related. I want to produce a complete, well as complete as possible, set of continuity files for my replacement. When I say as complete as possible I mean the only thing that worries me is stuff I just don’t think of. Those one offs or once every few year situations that my advice, system or process may not get included. I also want to divest all references and gear I will not need in retirement. Just keep the hiking and climbing stuff and give the rest to the youngsters.
That ought to fill up 2025 for the kid.
Also watch more old Monica flicks… can’t forget that one…
Keep a rocket launcher (just in case)
Congratulations!! Very jealous and happy for you!
This is a great goals list
Back in school, when I was working out almost daily and much much younger, I could bench 225. Those guys doing that weight for more than a few reps is crazy. Think my 1 Rep max was 255. I’d like to think I can get there again but my weights at home only go up to 150 (75lbs each dumbbell), and not going to go to a gym, cause like, people.
I’m hoping to golf more, but not going to track my scores in any kind of serious way.
I’m also going to keep on my better habits journey and stop eating as much as I have been and keep working out, running and playing lacrosse at least 5 times a week cumulatively for them. Plan to walk a bit more too
And I’m going to drink more water. I’ll be bougee and add a lemon slice to it. Not for any health reasons, it’s just I’ll drink more water with the lemon than without
I am trying to avoid Boo’s recent troubles, so I’m drinking water like my life depends on it.
Talk about scaring someone straight…