The Dharma Bum

by Jaysen Buterin

"The pen is mightier than the sword, and considerably easier to write with." - Marty Feldman

Greetings and salutations all you true believers out there in the OFF! Realm.

Let me be the first to congratulate you on surviving another year on this gigantic rock that's hurtling elliptically thru space hoping not to hit anything - hopefully you all still have all your fingers and toes, you didn't poke anyone's eye out, and you didn't get caught running around the house with the good scissors. So here we are in 2002, the second year of the new millennium...or is it the third year? Depending on which calendar you use, consult, or utilise for arithmancy...Happy New Year, and if you're like me and still have the March page of your 1997 calendar hanging up -

Happy Bloody New Year - only three more to go until the new millennium, which as we as we all know was supposed to be the end of the world as we knew it...and yet we feel fine.

While some scribes and soothsayers choose to wax historic about the past 365 days, or prophesise about what the next 31,449,600 seconds will yield, there's no need for me to do that. You all are a gifted lot - you were there (well, most of you anyway, if you could pull yourself away from Temptation Island or Survivor long enough to realise there's an entire world outside of that alluring and hypnotic box - although some would cunningly disagree.) My point is, we're still here and bowing a head in reflection on the losses of that tragic day in September, perhaps we're all the stronger for it. Personally I think any year that the human species doesn't manage to deliver itself into the hands of its own extinction thru its well-proved and time-honoured precedent of sublime stupidity by rarely learning from our mistakes, is a good one. There's always going to be some disgruntled twit out there with a grudge against his own government, or some daft git with a radical cause and a gross misperception of his ontological deity of choice, who are all ice-skating up the same hill and will go away in true hydra fashion, and still we persevere. To quote a great philosopher, Monsignor

Dennis Miller, "It only took us 40 million years to grow opposable thumbs, hopefully it won't take us another 40 million to pull them out of our collective asses."

As you can tell, one of my New Year's resolutions is to no longer turn a blind eye to the foolish inconsistencies that are the hobgoblins of the little mind of man, to no longer veil my words with egalitarianism and sheer innocence - but to speak out with cynicism and sardonic wit, and to lose my little Buddha by the time swimsuit season rolls around. Actually I don't know that I made any resolutions, more like stuff that seems bloody obvious that I should change in my life. Of course considering where I was for New Year's Eve, mind-blowing oracular epiphanies aren't the easiest thing to come by when surrounded by such good friends and allergic mirth. Of course being the homesick puppy that I am, my beloved Lady and I were back in the Show-Me state and started off our evening meeting with friends and perusing the downtown bar scene, but only being able to stomach the same plastic parade for so long, we relocated to my second family's house, with about 30 minutes to spare until the witching hour. The beautiful thing is that even with the marvel of digital cable, and over 200 channels of enervating fodder to choose from, the only channel we could find with a countdown clock was the Weather Channel - so our Auld Lang Syne and New Year hugs were all sung to the tune of the Charlie Brown theme song as the Weather Channel showed us a silly tanned man, standing in front of a giant blue screen, pointing at things that weren't really there.

The hijinks and hilarity of New Year's Eve almost rivaled the levity we shared on New Year's Eve eve (what the hell is the day before New Year's Eve called anyway?), where with my dear friends the Kestersons, we passed away the hours watching the Court TV "Cops" marathon and inventing our own simulacrum of the "Cops" drinking game. The rules are quite simple really (and note that the word "drink" can be replaced with the word "shot"): 1 drink for every time a gent appears on screen shirtless; 2 drinks if he is both shirtless and toothless; 3 drinks if he is shirtless, toothless, and sporting a mullet - or 1 drink if it is just the mullet on its own; 2 drinks for the appearance of the inebriated corpulent lass with a mullet; 1 drink for every bleeped out expletive; and if you see the guy in the "Suck My Butt" T-shirt (I only wish that I were making this up) you have to slam your entire drink. Now if that isn't a romantic evening by the fire, I don't know what is. So as the new year's sun sets slowly in the West, I bid you a fond farewell - with 363 more days to go/to keep all my fingers and toes; and the fun's just begun/for we'll all be as one; when the topless male mullet explodes. God bless limericks. G'night kids.