42. Go see a play or musical.
In this entry of the U.S. News & World Report list, "50 Ways to Improve Your Life in 2008," Sara Dabney Tisdale waxes eloquent on the magic of theatre and how live performances are special in a way a trip to the local cineplex could never be. Reminds me of some of the special moments I've had as a performer in live theatre:
- Forgetting the words to "You Can Go, But Be Back Soon," as Fagin in Oliver! and making some up on the spot, like Wayne Brady.
- Being told, after the first weekend of performances, that the seat of my costume--which had been in prominent display to the audience--had a sizable hole in it.
- Having a free-range cow almost do an unplanned cameo in the chautauqua tent show at the Dakota County Fair.
- In rehearsals for a high school production of Dracula, having my kiss of Lucy reacted to with revulsion and "You don't have to slobber all over me!"
43. Visit Shea Stadium or Yankee Stadium before they're gone.
Please stand by while I muster up an ounce of interest in this...nope...can't do it...sorry.
44. Avoid air travel delays.
The idea expressed by Christopher Elliott's piece is to use the tools available through the Internet to know ahead of time whether your flight is going to be late...even to the point of researching how often--say--American Airline Flight 123 from Dallas to Honolulu arrives on time. (88%) What Our Man Chris fails to mention is that you will never...NEVER have to deal with flight delays if you simply do what I do: drive.
Granted, that drastically increases the total time it takes to get to Honolulu from Dallas.
45. Try wines from unexpected places.
England and Canada are producing fine wines now. It used to be that locales so far north (or south) of the equator just didn't have a long enough growing season to produce wine-grapes. But now--thank heaven for Al Gore!--global climatic changes are making the miracle of producing wine in Slovenia possible. Kind of makes you want to go out and drive a badly-tuned SUV, eh?
39. Share ideas at changemakers.net.
This is kind of a Facebook for community service organizations. The idea is to stop competing for funds to run each program, and instead, collaborate on what works and what doesn't. I logged on recently and was warned about ever allowing a large, purple-haired woman named Rosetta to volunteer. It seems she likes to make all the decisions...and smells funny.
40. Commit random acts of kindness.
I'm so glad that U.S. News & World Report phrased it like this. In the movie Evan Almighty, in order to form a plot-fitting acronym, they were called "acts of random kindness," which really doesn't make much sense when you parse the sentence. Is it even possible for kindness to be random? Seems to me it has to be specified toward someone or it doesn't qualify as kindness at all...just eccentricity.
The idea began in 1993, in a Bakersfield College classroom presided over by Prof. Chuck Wall. (How can someone named Chuck Wall be a professor of anything? And are you sure his last name isn't Wagon?) The movie Pay It Forward was based on Professor Chuck's assignment. This leads me to issue a reminder that Sixth Sense star, Hackney Joke Cement, ended that picture in a state of lifelessness officially known as being dead. I'm just sayin'...
41. Avoid recalls: Make your own toys.
Avoid my wrath: Stop telling me what to do.
36. Adopt a dog.
Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society, says that dogs "are an antidote to loneliness and offer unswerving loyalty." Being a veteran dog-lover, allow me to educate you on some other benefits to canine companionship:
- For those without access to small children or grandchildren, dogs allow you to practice babytalk such as, "Ooh, I gotcher ball! Yes I do! Who loves the baby? Huh? Who loves the little shnookums?"
- Cardio-vascular health is improved by running upstairs to let the dog out before it urps on your carpet.
- Speaking of urping dogs, there's just nothing that quite matches waking up to the distinctive urlp-urlp of Man's Best Friend trying to empty its stomach.
- With a hungry enough dog, you rarely need to empty the garbage can.
- Some dogs have the job of cleaning toilets licked.
- I never worry about getting crumbs on the kitchen floor. Have you met my dog, Dustbuster?
- Muscle tone is greatly enhanced every spring by doing the Backyard Doodie Deep Knee Bends.
- With our youngest now in college, we thought we would be suffering from a lack of stress, but our dog has recently learned how to get out of our backyard and test the brake systems of passing motorists. Yep...the ol' ticker still works!
37. Volunteer for your local fire department.
I've been helping out by setting abandoned houses on fire. It's a great arrangement. The firefighters get the practice they need in order to stay sharp, the property owners collect insurance money, and I've now earned my third-degree ninja badge by consistently getting away with it.
38. Recycle your Christmas tree.
If U.S. News & World Report's list of ways to improve my life in 2008 includes one more Get Green idea, I am going to urlp-urlp in Al Gore's biodegradable house slippers. But if you do decide to follow this particular bit of advice and run your Christmas tree through a chipper so it can help to build landmass in southern wetlands, make sure it's not an artificial tree. Trust me, it's not a fun experience.
31. Take your kids to the voting booth.
Those in the know are saying that if we demystify the actual, practical process of placing a vote, our children will be more likely to be involved in the process when they reach 18. It seems to be backed up with statistics, but I wonder why it doesn't work when it comes to putting clothes away in drawers.
32. Remember the life of Martin Luther King Jr.
Oh man, this is so unfair! How am I supposed to make a joke out of this and not be accused of a hate crime? If it were Abraham Lincoln, or George Washington, or even JFK...but not MLKJ!
33. Listen better.
What?
34. Learn American Sign Language.
There is an exponential boom of ASL learning going on. "According to the Modern Language Association, the number of students enrolled in ASL classes in higher education institutions leapt 432 percent between 1998 and 2002." I can testify to the veracity of this factual fact. Why, on the highway alone, I see more and more people using sign language to express how they think my driving is Number One...even though they seem to be using a different digit than I would to get that message across.
35. Stop drinking bottled water.
Of course, the editorial staff of U.S. News & World Report - who are all charter members of the Nature-Good/Humans-Bad Society - think drinking bottled water is evil because only 20% of the plastic bottles get recycled and they are transported by carbon-spewing trucks and kept cool in freon-leaking refrigerators. My personal reason for avoiding bottled water has a lot more to do with having more important uses for my money - like buying gasoline.
26. Get a raise.
To the extent that having more money could help me pay down my credit card debt faster, yes, this indeed would help to improve my life this year. But the whole idea about ingesting yeast enzymes, covering yourself with a damp towel, and sitting on top of a warm oven...I don't think that's what most non-bakers think of when they hear the term "raise."
27. Click on compact fluorescent lights.
I learned a couple things by reading this section of the U. S. News & World Report list:
- Those springy-looking lights are going to be legally mandatory in 2012. (Once again, George Orwell is looking less and less like a novelist with an interesting idea and more and more like a prophet with a bad sense of timing.)
- Those springy-looking lights, the poster children of the Let's Get Green Society, contain mercury and will require special handling when they die after 5 years. (Every silver lining has a cloud around it, apparently.)
28. Set up a Roth 401(k).
This I like! The more people squirreling away money for the Roth retirement dream, the better.
29. Use software to catalog your property.
Every year, I get a little letter from my insurance agent reminding me to make an inventory of everything in my house. It will make getting a settlement in case of fire, flood, or fondue malfunction a lot easier. What I've learned by reading this paragraph is that U. S. News must have a financial interest in Quicken, because paper and pencil aren't good enough for keeping an inventory...it's gotta be computerized using the "Quicken Home Inventory and Savings Suckage" program.
30. Donate your money better to charity.
This suggestion has to do with something called "donor-advised funds," which are run by community foundations, financial-services firms, or other nonprofits. My head starts hurting just thinking about it. Can't I just write a check and put it in the offering? Please? Or isn't that green enough for you? Bleck.
20. Study geography.
What...was this list written by out-of-work teachers? Get off my back.
21. Put the freeze on identity theft.
I've never really been too worried about identity theft. I'm not all that hot about my current identity, so if somebody wants it...
22. Analyze your investing strategy.
I actually did this before reading this list. The report came back, "Your investing strategy sucks. As a matter of fact, so do you. You can forget about ever retiring, though we are flabbergasted that you're currently even able to hold down a job, you pathetic, sniveling excuse of a goof-wad, you."
23. Hedge your portfolio.
Uhhh...this has something to do with Wall Street and stocks and bonds and "past performance is not a guarantee of future results." So, to tell me to hedge my portfolio is like telling Paris Hilton to exercise her brain-power.
24. Use your mobile phone for everything.
The idea behind this tip for improving our lives in 2008 (from the January 7 issue of U. S. News & World Report) is that the 4-in-5 Americans who have both a mobile phone and a landline home phone could save about half of their communication costs by getting rid of their landlines. In addition, you get the added bonus of being able to get out of a boring conversation with that geeky guy from work by saying, "What? Hello? You're breaking up," then snapping your Razr shut and keep driving.
25. Switch to geothermal heating.
Finally! A positive twist to the whole global warming thing!
15. Go to Ivy League classes online.
The exciting thing about this is that several colleges are allowing downloads of class notes, lectures, reading lists, assignments, and exams...for free. Of course, without paying tuition you don't get an actual -- you know -- degree at the end of it all, but self-improvement is self-improvement whether or not you get a piece of paper to prove it.
I took advantage of this before it became an official program. Well...actually...before it even became legal. And I was able to hack in and get the sheepskin mailed to me, too! Yeah, that's right. I've got a degree in political ethics.
16. Make a "Not-to-do list."
And this is the first thing on it.
17. Swing by your local library.
Oh come on...playgrounds are playgrounds...who cares whether it's by a library?
18. Read an international newspaper.
This could be fairly challenging without the help of our friendly, online translator, babelfish. With its help, I was able to turn the Korean version of "Amazing grace: how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me," into "Magnificent grace: With sweetness fortune B together as the sound which stores the person who is unfortunate."
19. Make your favorite blogs come to you.
I know this one really seems self-serving on my part, but there it is: U. S. News & World Report, Vol. 143, No. 23, page 50. Instead of having to traverse the information superhighway in order to keep current with this bit of blathering, you can have it emailed to you or do the whole "RSS feed" thing which is too technical for you to understand, but put simply, involves elves moving the content from here directly into your personal computer by magic. All of which will make your life simpler (yay!) and my ego bigger. (impossible!)
