New Year’s Resolution

2006 is a brand new year, and as always January is a good time to make a new resolution for your life. Most people take this opportunity to try to change their lives in a healthy way… you know: eating less, going to the gym, flossing, whatever. I’ll try to make some of those healthy resolutions too one of these days, but for now my only new year’s resolution involves drinking copious amounts of alcohol. heh, ok, well, i’m sure i would have drank my fare share this year without any kind of resolution, but my resolution deals more with *where* i’ll be doing this drinking.

i was thinking the other night how i’ve lived in (or at least near) San Francisco for *ages*. how many nights have i gone out drinking in SF? hundreds? thousands? more? but when i really think about it, how many different bars have i been to in SF? a handful maybe. i, and everyone i know, always end up going to the same places over and over and over and over again. In san francisco, there is this huge tendency to always go do things in the neighborhood you live in. if you live in the Sunset, then you eat, drink, and go out in the Sunset. if you live in the Mission, most of your activities will end up near the Mission. people pick a few spots that they like and just visit them time and time again. yet, there is sooo many different places out there in SF that i have never explored.

so here’s my idea: visit a new bar every week this year. 52 bars in 52 weeks. well, 50 i guess since i started 2 weeks late. i know it’s ambitious. that’s a lot of bars. but i think i can do it. This year, i’ll venture out and try different bars all over the place. from lounges to dive bars to pubs, i’ll seek them all out. I’ll hit up places in North Beach, the Tenderloin, and other areas of the city that i’ve rarely hung out in. It wont always be easy to drag people out to try something new, but it’ll be worth it to check out s lot more of what SF has to offer.

Luckily, i’m not alone in this endeavor. My good friend Tom has agreed to help, and will be going to all 50 bars with me. You know that someone is a true friend when they agree to do such a difficult and exhausting task without even a second thought. With Tom, i think it’ll be possible to succeed and reach the goal.

if on Dec 31st of this year, we can look back and say that we’ve visited 50 bars, we’ll know that we accomplished something. it might not be a incredible something, it may not even be a useful something, but hell, it’ll be something dammit. and that’s better than nothing.

*v