Every year, my new year's resolution is to write more. Every year, alack and alas!, I fall woefully short (unless to-do lists are suddenly flying off the bookshelves--though that might be interesting, depending on the lister and what they need to get done. "Bake cookies for PTA sale." "Hide body." "Clean crime scene." "Double check with UV light!!!"[Requisite overuse of exclamation points] "Take vitamin." "Mend unitard." The mind reels with the possibilities. Though I wouldn't publish my to-do lists. One, they're pretty boring. Two, they're kind of shameful, especially since they all start off with "Make to-do list" just so I can cross off one thing right away.) of most writing goals.

But not this year! I've busted out the ol' thesis, resolving to rewrite, refine, and rededicate myself to all things Wally Mustache. I've spent the last three hours going over one page. Page One. At this rate, I'll be done with the thing just shortly before the technological breakdown, when all things electric shut off (this occurrence happening just after I've pressed saved but slightly before I'm able to print[I'm parenthetical-tastic today]).

Of course, it's all because of the double-edged sword called the Internet. It's too easy to blame the Internet, so instead I'll list some interesting things I learned in the course of fact-checking one page of my thesis:

-Jack Tripper pretended to be gay even after the Ropers left "Three's Company"

-"Halloween" came out in 1978

-Another name for Bloody Mary is Mary Worth

-I can creep myself out just reading about "Halloween" and Bloody Mary on Wikipedia (or typing about it right now)

-"The Love Boat" is apparently not a copyrighted name, as several different pornos also are called "The Love Boat"

-"Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" is a take off on "love in" which is itself a take off on "sit in"

-The woman who recently had octuplets and already has six other children came to Kaiser Permanente from an outside doctor when already pregnant

-24% of people.com respondents said they liked Jessica Simpson's "new, curvier" figure

-High-waisted pants look pretty bad on everyone except Jenny McCarthy.

And this is the problem about rewriting: facts, the necessity of them, and how we're surrounded constantly by them. I thought I had left all my fact-checking days behind when I quit journalism. Drat.