Helpful Tips for the Coming Year

It's 2009, and a lot of you probably made some sort of resolutions. Mine? Give up abstinence and sobriety. Also, come out of the bushes a little more often.

I'm sure some of you pledged to be more "green" in the new year. Hopefully that doesn't mean you're going to swell up like The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man Al Gore. Seriously. Wow. Did he become a eunuch or something?

Anyway, I compiled a list of ways to be more green this year to help you, the reader.

1) Recycle. Especially paper. Plastic just gets remade into office chairs, but recycled paper can--almost--be made into usable paper once again. Or it gets made into cardboard which my kids can then transform into forts and other things to hamper my successful navigation of the living room. Also, something like 70% of the trash in our landfills is paper.

2) Install energy-saving bulbs. This will cut down on the amount of power you use, which means that's less coal and dead goats that we have to burn, thus reducing the release of the most nefarious gas of all: carbon dioxide. Also, cutting down on the amount of power you use will help you save some green--like in your wallet green. Fucking aye! Saving the planet and some cash, all in one neatly little coiled tube? I've got a heart of gold to be sharing this information with you. Be careful, though, with those bulbs when they finally do burn out because they're filled with mercury, which can damage fish, unborn children, and be seen low in the western sky right after sunset.

3) Eat more meat. Did you know that methane is a greenhouse gas? It's true. I'd get into the whole thing about IR-active stretches of the 4 C-H bonds in methane, but I can't really turn it into a sexual pun like I do most other science-based explanations that I offer up here. Think about this: All those farts you're cutting all day that you think no one can smell? Well, people can smell them, but since they don't stink like your feet, we mostly ignore them. Also, do you know what produces a shit-ton (literally) of methane every day? Cows. Eat more of them. They're fucking tasty. I hear pigs fart, too. Eat bacon; save a tree.

4) Turn the lights off. When you leave the room, flick 'em off. I promise, the boogeyman isn't going to jump out at you as you leave the room. Michael Myers, maybe, but the boogeyman, no. I mean, he's just there to dance. Or, you could be more like my wife and turn the lights off when she enters the room where I'm currently lounging. She's all about the saving of the planet.

5) Gamma rays. Irradiate yourself with some high-powered member of the electromagnetic spectrum. Go apeshit. Smash stuff. Wear a lot of purple pants. Forget how to conjugate verbs.

There you have it. Five ways that you can fulfill your goal of being more green this year. You can thank me in December.