Jim: I realize we didn’t get to a couple awards, but since we’re already three days into 2007, I’m going to jump to the final category, the New Year’s Resolution.

I usually have quite a few. Last year my resolutions included seeing my abs (not quite, but I did work out a bit more consistently), get better at Turkish (did okay in this area, enough to convince my parents that I’m competent over here), and submit work to more publications (this one I did well, appearing in the Washington Post, the Washington Examiner, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, the New Hampshire Union Leader, Commentary, as well as more frequent appearances in my other outlets).

(Back in 2003, I resolved to invent a widely-used buzzword. I was a year off, because the following year I came up with “Pajamahadeen.”)

It took me a while to realize I ought to focus my resolutions on what Steven Covey refers to as my “circle of influence.” For example, I can’t make the book a bestseller, that’s up to the book-buying public. I can work on the book until it’s a product I’m proud of.

So, for 2007:

Get back in shape to the point where I can play flag football on the Washington Mall again. (As it was, I was a very slow lineman with bad hands.)

To be a better reporter, and to get my readers to feel as if I’m always giving them new and useful information. On a related note, to listen to my Democratic friends more, because if a broken clock can be right twice a day, they might be right once in while.

To continue my tentative steps into new forms of media, despite frequent comments that I have a face for radio and a voice for silent films.

To keep On Tap its same on-line atmosphere of laid-back fun and wiseassery, even when I’m back in the States and we can finally do this in person again.

Cam: Hey Jim, nice to see you stop by! Hope Ireland was well, and you left some Guinness for the locals when you departed.

So here are my New Year’s Resolutions:

To be a better talk show host. I’ve been blessed to be able to do this for a decade now, but I still feel like there’s so much I have to learn. Who would have thought that speaking into a microphone can be such a complicated job.

To be a good husband and father. I’m responsible for the well-being of six people, and I cannot tell you how stressful that can be at times. I hope that I can learn to relax and just enjoy the time that I have with my family.

To write a screenplay. In 2006, I explored the possibility of writing a book, but eventually put it aside. I have a few ideas for a screenplay, however, and even if nothing comes of it, I’d like to be able to say I finished it.

To go to Las Vegas with Jim and Marshall. Jim’s back in March, and I think Memorial Day weekend would be a great time for the three of us to head to Vegas. In fact, maybe we could pull a Kos and host the OnTap Convention in Vegas. The three of us and all three of our readers can attend! No Shempu though. Last time he was in Vegas he… well… let’s not go there.