Archive for the ‘new year’ Tag
I realize that it may be a little too early to be posting on this subject but what the hell. Every year I tease myself by listing a number of resolutions for the new year. My success rate leaves much to be desired but occasionally I actually DO complete a few. I’m posting early because my rate of success this year has been dismal. I’d blame some of it on my better-half who just completed her first year of retirement. To say she’s been a huge distraction is an understatement – goodbye to my wonderful days of PEACE & QUIET. Here’s my list for 2025 and all my lame excuses.
Read at least 100 books by years end (more if possible). If I finish reading my current book by years-end I will have read only 88 books. FAILED
Complete at least four illustrations for use as gifts for next Christmas. COMPLETED
Complete one sculpture using a technique I haven’t used before. FAILED – Due to my total lack of interest and laziness. Maybe this coming year I can get it done.
Show more patience to my better-half’s retirement adjustments. COMPLETED – I’ve shown more patience than ever before but I have a long way to go to satisfy her.
Attempt to write some serious poetry that’s worth reading. FAILED – Completed a few poems and a couple of limericks but I wasn’t happy with the less than adequate results.
Continued monitoring of the grandsons for new and exciting cuss words. COMPLETED – This may have been the easiest one to complete. It’s official, and thanks to day care, school, and some family adults the “F-Bomb” has been released. I’m so proud!!
Continue to ignore all of the weird and bizarre health tips from the Internet. COMPLETED – Thanks to all you internet experts and your misguided and incorrect medical BS.
My final tally was disappointing – 4 of 7 completed. I still have a few weeks to give a great deal of thought for my resolutions for 2026. It’s good to set goals even if you’re reasonably certain they won’t all be met.
🎊🎊🎊
BETTER LUCK NEXT YEAR
I was really disappointed with my terrible showing on the 2024 New Years resolutions. Barring any unforeseen catastrophes I hope to do much better in 2025. I admit that my bout of laziness during those warm summer months didn’t help. I just had too many distractions!
*** HERE THEY ARE FOR 2025***
Read at least 100 books by years end (more if possible).
Complete at least four illustrations for use as gifts for next Christmas.
Complete one sculpture using a technique I haven’t used before.
Show more patience to my better-half’s retirement adjustments.
Attempt to write some serious poetry that’s worth reading.
Continued monitoring of the grandsons for new and exciting cuss words. (Minimum of 1)
Continue to ignore all of the weird and bizzare health tips from the Internet. (This one is too easy.)
I plan on being more serious about completing the resolutions this year. I’ve always set goals for myself for most of my life with a great deal of success. This will be a lot more fun because the only person looking over my shoulder these days will be ME!
CHALLENGE YOURSELF
Earlier this year in September I posted an update of my New Years resolutions. I only listed five items this year rather than my normal ten because I’m old, lazy, and distracted by damn near everything. Here is my final tally for 2024. I have to say it’s a little disappointing. See what you think.
READ MORE THAN 100 BOOKS
This is a big “INCOMPLETE”. After checking with Kindle and my home library I missed my target by two books. I’m currently reading book number 99, but I won’t get it finished until sometime in January (it’s a large tome).
TRY TO BE A LITTLE FRIENDLIER TOWARDS THE REST OF THE WORLD
This was the hardest one for me. I’m claiming a big “COMPLETE” because I feel I discovered a simple solution on how be friendlier to the rest of the world. I’ll just limit my contact only with people who I like and those that like me back. That has vastly improved my “niceness” profile because the people who dislike me never get to hear from me.
KEEP DUNKIN’ EXPENDITURES TO LESS THAN $40.00 A MONTH
I claim a big “COMPLETE” on this one. Fortunately for my wallet, my better-half retired this year. I’ve been freed from those constant coffee runs to Dunkin Donuts to feed her coffee addiction. That leaves me approximately $400.00 a year to feed my favorite addictions for a change.
COMPLETE EIGHT PAINTINGS OR PRINTS
This resolution was another “INCOMPLETE”. I finished only five prints so far due to a two-month bout of absolute laziness. I’ll certainly improve this next year, I hope.
LEARN AT LEAST FOUR NEW CUSS WORDS FROM MY GRANDSONS
This is another “INCOMPLETE”. I was only able to come up with one new cuss word that I overheard when my two grandsons were having a private conversation. I was eavesdropping like any good adult should do but I’m still not sure which one of the boys said the magic word “shitster”. I have no context for that word, but I sure liked the sound of it. Being a “shitster” is probably way better than being a gangster. At some point I may ask the boys for clarification but first I may use the word during a conversation with their parents when they’re close enough to hear me. LOL
😒TWO OF FIVE😒
HOW DID YOU DO IN 2024?
Well, it’s New Years Eve once again. This was a fun holiday when I was in my teens and twenties but these days not so much. I never really understood what the big deal was and still don’t. It’s just a day and night made for drinking, carousing, and avoiding sobriety check points. I hope none of you become victims of that stupidity and cause an accident that may harm yourself and others by drinking and driving. In my years as a police officer, I made a point of not working on this holiday. I took the day off and then occasionally drank too much, caroused too much, and got really stupid. I managed to survive but only just.
This year I’m housebound and safe from the fits of holiday stupidity. Please be safe . . . and not too stupid. I wouldn’t want to be reading about any of you on “the day after”. Let me bring a few smiles to your lips before you decide to begin your celebration by taking a little trip to the 1980’s for some occasionally rude and hilarious humor.
- If the shrimps come in on a shrimp boat, how do the crabs come in? On the captain’s dinghy.
- Why did Miss Piggy miss her last concert? She had a frog in her throat.
- What happens when you moon in bumper-to-bumper traffic? You wind up with your ass in a jam.
- What’s the difference between a counterfeit dollar bill and a skinny girl? The counterfeit bill is a phony buck.
- What’s the definition of a real lady? Someone who doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, and only curses if it slips out.
- Why did they name the new feminine hygiene spray SSY? Because it takes the PU out of pussy.
- What happens when a guaranteed condom breaks? The guarantee runs out.
- What’s 138? Dinner for four.
- When do you know you’ve had the world’s best head? You have to pull the sheet out of your ass.
- What’s the difference between frustration and panic? Frustration is the first time you find out you can’t do it the second time, and panic is the second time you found out you couldn’t do it the first time.
BE CAREFUL OUT THERE
I’ thought I’d start the new year with a small collection of limericks. This collection should be rated “PG”, so keep the youngsters away. Happy New Year to all of you limerick aficionados. Today’s collection concerns:
Sexual Misfortunes
Two middle-aged ladies from Fordham,
Went out for a walk but it bored ’em.
As they made their way back,
A crazed sex maniac
Leapt out of a bush and ignored ’em.
🍷🍷🍷
An unfortunate sailor name Bates,
Had performed the fandango on skates.
But a fall on his cutlass
Had rendered him nutless
And, well – virtually useless on dates!
🍆🍆🍆
A nudist, named Roger McPeet,
Loved to dance in the snow and the sleet.
Till, one chilly December,
He froze his poor member,
And retired to a monkish retreat.
🍩🍩🍩
Ancient octogenarian, Hugh,
To his wife remained steadfastly true.
This was not from compunction,
But more the dysfunction
Of his spermatic glands – nuts to you.
🍆🍩🍆
What better way to kick off a new year. Here’s one final limerick with a religious bent for an oh-so inclined friend.
❤️
When Lazarus came back from the dead,
He still couldn’t function in bed.
“What good’s Resurrection
Without an erection?”
Old Lazarus testily said.
AMEN TO THAT
These are the normal lame and politically correct ones. Let’s get real for a change!!
I post my resolutions almost every year and I have yet to complete them all. Once again, I’ll post my top ten and just hope for the best like always. Well here goes nothing one more time.
- Read 8.33 books a month (That’s 100 books for all of you math majors).
- Keep the number of F-Bombs to less than a hundred a week. (I’m dreaming on this one.)
- Spend less than $50.00 a week on Dunkin Coffee. (That’s just for my better-half. They’re too expensive for me.)
- Drink less than last year but more next year. (I’m dreaming!)
- Visit only the classiest porn sites. (No more than 10 per week unless provoked)
💥💥💥
- No naked dancing near the picture window in the living room. (We have nervous neighbors!)
- Try not to argue with my better-half too much. (The operative word here is to try.)
- Teach the grandsons no more than five new swear words. (And maybe learn one or two new ones from them.)
- Try to be more polite to all of the doctors that have been manhandling me for years.
💥💥💥
There are my ten candidates for 2023. I’ll be certain to post a midyear review in June.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL
Drive Safe
Another year of pandemic, bad economy, fake news from the media, bad this and bad that. I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted by it all. We can’t seem to trust anyone anymore about anything. I hope we don’t follow in the footsteps of our European allies. If the pandemic doesn’t kill them fast enough, they may start killing each other as they’ve done so often in the past. We don’t want to be dragged down that rabbit-hole again for any reason.
I’ve been hearing about how terrible the economy is all year and how those whiny retailers just never seem to have a good Christmas shopping season. Headlines like “Christmas Sales Fail to Meet Expectations” are the same every year it seems. Fortunately, this year a lot of that Black Friday nonsense before Thanksgiving didn’t happen and probably saved many people from being injured trying to get a big-screen TV into their shopping cart at Walmart.
It’s no wonder the people in this country are depressed after more than two years of the pandemic, mainstream media ranting and raving about every little thing, and presidential doom and gloom from Trump to Biden. We been beaten to our knees with a constant barrage of misinformation, innuendo, and outright lies.
I normally have a great deal of optimism for the future but that’s only true if the up-and-coming younger voters start looking and listening carefully at what they’re being told in the schools, universities, and everywhere else. They must learn the hard way how to teach themselves to recognize the truth when they see it and the lies when they hear them. Politics is an ugly game and has little or no mercy on the uninformed.
Things may not be great but it’s not the end of the world. It’s politicians attempting to propagandize the populace with crisis after crisis so we’ll throw the bums out and vote the other bums in. The pandemic is just one more thing in a long list of topics where we can’t rely on anyone to give us the whole truth. It’s an old and vicious game and we the voters continue to stick our heads in the sand and condone it year after year. Shame on us and shame on those responsible.
So much for the end of 2021. Good-bye and good riddance. I can only hope that things improve this coming year but don’t expect those irresponsible politicians, reporters, pundits, professors, and high school teachers to keep you and yours up to date with true facts. Read, research, ask the questions that need to be asked, and remain skeptical. It’s your duty as an American citizen to question your government, don’t hesitate. We can only hope 2022 will show some improvement and I think it will, if we don’t spend all of our time fighting amongst ourselves. If that continues, we’re all screwed.
Every Useless Thing will return on January 2, 2022.
GOODBYE 2021, WELCOME 2022

‘Christmas Eve in Maine.’
How is your holiday season progressing? Are your preparations ahead of schedule or behind? Is your Christmas tree real or artificial? Are your kids driving you crazy yet? Has your alcohol consumption increased progressively with the holiday pressures? All really good questions but as we all know they’re rhetorical.
The drumbeat of Christmas is getting louder each day. I go to sleep thinking about what I’ve accomplished that day and wake up thinking about all of the stuff that I still need to accomplish today. I am so full of Christmas cheer I could scream out loud. After rereading this paragraph I think I discovered something else I must be full of. You get my drift, right? I’M LOSING IT MAN!
Here is my kitchen table as I found it this morning:

Trust me when I tell you the entire living room and family room look exactly like it as well. I’m knee deep in Christmas and there’s still 18 shopping days left. It could take us until sometime in February to repack all this stuff and I can’t wait. At least the damn cat seems to be enjoying himself:

I haven’t had my breakfast yet but since I can’t eat in the kitchen I may retire to the deck and eat there. That’s right, the sun is shining and it’s still warm enough to sit outside and have breakfast. It’s madness I tell you.
Even Mother Nature appears confused by the weather. I took a stroll around the property yesterday for no other reason than to get a little sun on my pasty white body. I found this lonely little flower in the side yard. One stupid dandelion that’s decided it’s really not December but April. I can officially say this is the latest I’ve ever seen any flower growing and blooming.

‘The all-time dumbest flower on the planet.’
I’d like to continue on with this post but I’m getting the evil eye from my better-half. It’s time to get back to my Santa duties. Everything has to be just perfect for the grandsons when they arrive (in two and a half effing weeks). Sorry about the language but all these red and green colors are finally getting to me or maybe it’s just my requested Christmas aneurism finally showing up.
I hope someone tells Santa just what a good boy I’ve been this year. He owes me big time.
It’s finally time for me to step up and put in writing the things I’m pledging to do at some time in 2014. I tried to keep these resolutions as reasonable as possible so I at least have a chance to live up to them. Here they are.
1. Read five books a month.
2. Teach the grandson one curse word per month once he begins talking.
3. Keep the number of F-bombs below 100 a week.
4. Drink less brandy than last year but more than next year.
5. Spend less than $300.00 at Dunkin Donut for the entire year ($25.00 per month).
6. Stop dancing naked near the picture window in the living room. It scares the neighbors if their complaints mean anything at all.
7. Fight to my last breath to keep chickens and goats from becoming part of my life.
I could have listed a few more but why set myself up for complete and utter failure. I did that last year and I should be learning from my past mistakes, you’d think.
* * *
I tried to convince my better-half to give me her list for 2014 but I ran into a brick wall. She appears to be a believer of never putting anything in writing regardless of who makes the request. I even tried intimidating her a little. I attempted to make her comply by threatening to post a few crazy resolutions and tell the world they came from her. I won’t repeat her reply since I do try to keep this blog at a PG rating. I admit she has a pretty effective way of intimidating me and that will also stay a deep and dark secret.
AHHHHH ANOTHER NEW YEAR HERE IN PARADISE.
Today’s the day that I began my yearly chore of putting together my list of New Year’s resolutions. I realize that for most people New Year’s resolutions aren’t taken all that seriously and that over the years they’ve become something meant to be humorous. In my righteous attempt to do it seriously this year I decided to search the Net for any new ideas or tips that could help me. Amazingly, I found quite a number of websites with prewritten lists made for both children and adults. I guess they think that just printing off the list from their webpage gives some kind of credibility to people who are too lazy to take the time to do it properly. Shame on all of you who decided to take the easy way out and use one of those sites.
Here’s one of those lists suggested for younger children and you can decide just how lame it is or isn’t. Or better, would you want your kids to use this list or make up their own.
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I will do my homework in time.
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I will sleep in time.
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I will drink milk and water, and limit aerated drinks.
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I’ll never give out personal information such as my name, home address, school name or telephone number on the Internet or to strangers.
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I’ll be nice to other kids. I’ll be friendly to kids who need friends – like someone who is shy, or is new to my school.
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I will wear my seat belt every time I get in a car. I’ll sit in the back seat and use a booster seat until I am tall enough to use a lap/shoulder seat belt.
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I will apply sunscreen before I go outdoors.
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I will try to stay in the shade whenever possible and wear a hat and sunglasses, especially when I’m playing sports.
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I will try to find a sport (like basketball or soccer) or an activity (skipping rope, dancing or horse riding) that I like and do it at least three times a week!
You have to admit this list is no more than politically correct nonsense. You may be able to force your kids to accept this list as their own but their heart just wouldn’t be in it. I continued my search looking for more resolutions that applied mainly to adults and found much more of the same. Premade politically correct BS which didn’t help me at all. I then sat down at my desk and put together this list of humorous adult resolutions found at another such site.
1. This year, I’m just making one New Year’s resolution: Stop making resolutions. My only other resolution is to quit breaking my resolutions.
2. I probably shouldn’t be making any new resolutions this year…mainly because I’m still working on the ones from last year.
3. This year my New Year’s resolution was to stop saying ‘Seacrest out!’ after I ejaculated.
4. I will stop peeping into my boyfriend’s female friends profile on Facebook.
Again I was disappointed. The adult resolutions while trying to be humorous were even more stupid than I’d expected. I was forced to go to the archives once more and find my posted resolutions for 2013. I was expecting no surprises because I couldn’t remember a single one of them. Here they are with the results of my efforts of which I’m truly ashamed.
1. Don’t wear sweat pants outside the confines of the house less than twice a week (demanded by my better-half). FAILED
2. Pay less than $75.00 a month at Dunkin Donuts. I failed at the $50.00 level, now I’ll just up the monthly amount and hopefully be successful. COMPLETED
3. Tell my better-half I love her at least twenty times a day (again her idea). FAILED
4. Attempt to develop a casual and platonic friendship with my weird neighbors. FAILED
5. Convince my better-half that pizza is not an official food group and refuse to eat it more than once a week. FAILED
6. Don’t call the President a stupid, effing, liberal, socialist, narcissistic A-hole more than twenty times a week. FAILED
7. Read 3 non-fiction and 3 fiction books a month. COMPLETED
8. Fire at least 1000 rounds of ammo a quarter to fine tune my shooting skills to prepare for the impending anarchism which will follow. FAILED
9. Take a vacation to some exotic and strange non-American land (like maybe Boston, New York, San Francisco, or LA). FAILED
10. Refuse to eat dog food more than three times a month to help pay for my mandated Obamacare taxes. COMPLETED
It appears that my accomplishments for 2013 were an abject failure. The fact that I couldn’t remember any of them leads me to believe that in my attempt at humor I cheapened the New Year’s resolution process. What I’m about to show you is NOT, I repeat NOT the final version of my resolutions for 2014. This is just a draft list with my initial thoughts on the matter and I’m sure some changes may be required. See what you think about these.
(Draft Only)
1. Start washing my hands after I use the restroom or just stop peeing on my hands.
2. Stop licking almost everything (well almost everything).
3. Never eat yellow snow or brown asparagus (for you lovey).
4. Spend less than $1000.00 for coffee at Dunkin Donuts this year.
5. Claim my pet as a dependent on my tax return.
6. Start smoking to lose weight.
7. Watch less T.V…. in standard definition.
8. Buy larger clothes.
9. Help kids stay safe by not texting on my cell phone while driving near crosswalks.
10. Stop buttering my doughnuts.
Well there you have it, my first thoughts on the subject for 2014. I certainly need to give it a little more thought as you can see. If you really think about it though, it just makes good sense to have fewer resolutions every year. It helps to keep you from disappointing yourself too much and you’ll then feel less guilty about how little willpower you really have. Hopefully I’ll have my final version completed prior to New Year’s Eve which will give me one more thing to celebrate.