The Public Resolutions

Yeah, yeah, yeah

I'm the kind of guy who makes New Year's Reso- lutions. I do it pretty often, and I stick to them because I set a daily reminder about the list to hit my email box every morning. Most days I delete it without reading it, but every few weeks, I read it and take the kick in the ass to heart; the system works well for me. So in 2012, this helped me to make a running and gym mark, hit the number of posts I wanted to hit here, achieve the weight I was looking for, and some other personal stuff. It works more than half of the time.

In 2013, I'm resolving to do a whole bunch of stuff -- 20 in all -- and three of them impact you, assuming you read the blog. (And if you don't, why are you here, reading this? Makes no sense.)

1) Continue the 10 posts a week pace. If I'm inspired or see some low hanging fruit, this can spike, but the state of Web advertising and link farms now is that you don't really get the boosts that you used to from a viral list. I do better now with longer pieces on things that people are interested in (Chip Kelly to the Eagles, for a recent example), which feels better anyway.

2) Add a monthly podcast. I got the gear as a present a while ago, and, well, it seems like an interesting thing to try. If only to torture you all with more tracks from my old band.

3) Try, try, try... to be more positive about sports.

A little behind the curtain here... sports blogging has become a lot less lucrative over the years that I've done it. It used to be that you could make an easy four figures from the hobby, not that I ever counted on the cash; now, it's a fraction of that, and the payments keep getting worse as Web advertising rates and ad networks squeeze content providers, and the content farms keep taking over. Not that I ever did this for the money, but it was always a nice little reminder on the days when I didn't want to go back to the computer for the second shift.

Well, the money for Other Things is a little better now, and so is the life -- working from home can seem like house arrest, but commuting is far worse. I just had a longtime irritant in my football fantasy league flame out, and my enthusiasm for continuing that league (and every other, since he's not in them) spiked. If you run a league, I can't recommend getting away from the life cancer owner enough; it's like getting a get out of hell free card from the universe.

Finally, the Eagles are starting over, and I'm excited for it. That, and the end of the 2012 NFL season. Lord, has this been a slog.

So, with all of that said... thanks for your continued patronage.

Now, go click on some ads, you moochers. Papa needs a new pair of everything.

(What, you expected me to get classy in 2013?)