This year was also the coldest year on record for the Ball Drop, with 14 degrees and a -7 degree wind chill, which is why last year I was five minutes late and this year I didn't even make the attempt.

This year is a good year to:

spend some time in jail seeing how the other half lives. Of course, if you are already a member of that other half, this is a good year for you to get out and get some fresh air, and take some friends with you.

read Marx and apply it at the local level. Let's start with Rudy Giuliani's paycheck, shall we?

If we're lucky, this year we'll see...

Newt's Fall from Grace (vote for House Speaker coming soon to a Congress near you!)

A line drawn in the sand against the federal "welfare reform laws"... by the states. (Okay, it's a bit far-fetched, but we can always hope.)

U.S. aid to UN reforms in the form of... paying its back debts. (Okay, this one's really unlikely. But it's at least as likely as all those predictions that Elvis will make his next appearance as a strangely shaped mold in Nancy reagan's refrigerator... isn't it?)

Is this the year that Bill and the Boys, following the interests of both the free market and academic freedom reverse the administration's peculiar stance on exportation of encryption?

Is this the year that George Rupp learns to love a dynamic and newsworthy home page?

Is this the year that O.J. learns the meaning of the saying, 'Payback is a mother'?

For the answers to these and other burning questions, stay tuned...