Here’s to an epic 2013.
by Dennis Hinkamp
2012 was mainly a brain freeze for me. I spent most the time in disbelief that we were not smote by some higher power that had become annoyed by our behavior. I was counting on the Mayans but that fell through. I imagine some omniscient being slapping us like a puppy nipping at its heel. Look at me, look me; I’m cute aren’t I?
Well, actually we aren’t. These are just a short list of things that were dull fingernails on my mental chalkboard this year.
Epic: I guess it is just the latest in the escalation of superlatives from groovy, hip, cool, hot, awesome to epic. While I await the new anointed one, I nominate “craptastic!” That was a craptastic bowl game by Alabama Monday and an epic fail by Notre Dame.
Job Creators: This was fun during the elections but like an economy based on spending wildly on Christmas excess, creating jobs is a poor indicator of national wealth. Wars create jobs, diseases create jobs and of course multi-billion dollar campaigns that end in only one winner create a bunch of temporary jobs for advertisers and that deep-voiced threatening narrator guy.
Lance Armstrong: As of this writing he has been stripped more times than a Las Vegas showgirl. I fully expect his third grade teacher to come forward and strip him of the gold star he won for winning the 50-yard dash at recess. The state of Texas has proposed taking away the blue ribbon he won for leather craft at the state fair at age 10. Vatican officials confirm that one of the Pope’s first tweets will be the renunciation of Lance Armstrong’s baptism. This is all about riding a bike, right?
Bucket List: I’m getting to the age when compiling a bucket list sounds more dignified than just going nut-bag crazy on a mid-life crisis binge, but couldn’t we come up with a better analogy? Please just visit my Amazon.com wish list.
I actually heard someone say “LOL;” not the words that it stands for, just the letters as if they were verbally texting. It is another over used cliché to talk about signs of the end times, but this tells me that the machines have won and we can’t tell the difference between talking to each other in person and inputting to a computer.
RSVP is the new expletive: I actually think that people are becoming slightly more civil in response to all the recent tragedies, but somehow we have become so in-the-moment that we cannot possibly commit to an event that is further than 12 minutes in the future. It looks physically painful when I ask people in person so I resort to email and all the electronic invitation plug-ins and I still get virtual dancing in place and writhing to find an answer.
Global climate warming/change/whatever: OK, just for the sake of argument let’s say climate change isn’t all caused by human activity…neither is a giant meteor coming towards Earth but I bet we would rally the world to try to stop the meteor. Stop blaming, start doing.
I don’t want to sound like 2012 was an epic fail; on the bright side, I realized that if you never take down your Christmas lights, you never need to put them up again. Meditate on that.
Dennis Hinkamp did not mention Call Me Maybe or Gangnam Style because those were just too horrible for words.