Out with the old…

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/01/2017 (3221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s the second day of 2017 and all you hip and happening kids know exactly what that means, don’t you?

It means you can’t remember a (bad word) thing from the last 48 hours, because you destroyed too many brain cells on New Year’s Eve.

But Uncle Doug is not here to judge your questionable lifestyle choices; no, Uncle Doug is here to help you survive the next 12 months unscathed by unveiling his much-beloved Annual Super Cool Guide to What’s In and What’s Out for the New Year, starting with:

OUT: Pokemon Go

IN: Stalking politicians

BECAUSE: It’s not that we hate wandering through the park and stumbling on random clots of dweebs staring down at their cellphones instead of enjoying the beauty and majesty of nature. No, hold on: that’s exactly what it is! Look, if you’re determined to use your phone to hunt down and capture imaginary creatures why don’t you just head down to city hall or the legislature and try to snap a photo of an honest politician.

OUT: Donald Trump

IN: Donald Trump

BECAUSE: It’s about time we all realized it doesn’t matter what we think of The Donald, because he won the (bad word) election and the world is stuck with him.

Sure, he might lead civilization to the brink of the abyss, but it will be worth it because we’ll have at least four years to look on in wonder as this human train wreck proves that things can always get worse, which will make for some lively Saturday Night Live episodes.

OUT: Frosé

IN: Cheap whisky

BECAUSE: What? Is it possible some of you don’t know about frosé? It was nothing less than the hottest drink from last summer, an alcoholic slushie made by freezing rosé wine in ice cube trays then whipping it up in a blender along with strawberries, sugar and a shot of vodka. Is that a cool, hip thing to drink or what?

Answer: No, it is not! The time has come to take booze away from nerds sporting man-buns and bring back liquor cleverly concealed in brown paper bags. You’ll still get a hangover, but it will lessen your risk of getting Type 2 diabetes. Cheers!

OUT: Rock stars dropping dead

IN: Rock stars rocking on

BECAUSE: Let’s have another moment of silence to remember David Bowie and Prince and Leonard Cohen, musical geniuses who fell silent in 2016.

This year (sniff!) we’re getting back to the good old days when rock stars stuck to the basics — trashing hotel rooms, smashing guitars and living lives of total excess, thereby giving the rest of us non-musical mortals something to aspire to.

OUT: Reality TV

IN: Virtual-reality headsets

BECAUSE: We are not the only ones who have had it up to here with TV reality programs featuring badly behaved housewives and naked people trying to survive in sweltering jungles in hopes of becoming B-list celebrities.

Let’s abandon the despair of the real world and live the rest of our pathetic lives in a virtual environment populated by zombies and dinosaurs and Swedish bikini models via the technique of strapping those insanely popular foam rubber VR goggles to our pasty faces.

OUT: Fake news

IN: Gossiping over the back fence

BECAUSE: We have some excellent news for you: regardless of what you might have read elsewhere, the Queen is, in fact, NOT dead! But you don’t want to believe us, do you?

No, you want to put your faith in the epidemic of fake news stories that became, arguably, the defining cultural trend of 2016. It was the year in which “post-truth” was declared Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year.

You’d be better off getting your headlines from crazy Uncle Bernie around the Thanksgiving dinner table, or the cat lady who lives next door.

Also, we heard Justin Trudeau is, in fact, a space alien. We’re just saying.

OUT: The provincial legislature

IN: Costa Rica

BECAUSE: If it’s good enough for Premier Brian Pallister, it’s good enough for us.

OUT: Creepy clowns

IN: Stephen King

BECAUSE: Teenagers dressing up like creepy clowns in a pathetic effort to scare the bejesus out of innocent people was arguably the most disturbing trend to come out of 2016.

The truth is, real clowns are bad enough, because there is no (bad word) way all of them can fit into one of those tiny circus cars, right?

Listen up teenagers: put away the clown masks, please, and leave the business of terrifying people to the professionals.

OUT: Pizza Rat

IN: Lab rats

BECAUSE: It was the most perplexing Internet trend of the year — video footage of a scraggly rat dragging a slice of pizza into New York City’s subway system became a viral sensation, winning the hungry rodent millions of fanatical admirers around the globe.

We don’t want to tell you who to love, but why not reserve some admiration for rodents that are giving their lives in the name of scientific research, instead of trying to eat themselves into the grave by consuming a diet rich in carbohydrates and grease?

OUT: Prescription narcotics

IN: Legalized marijuana

BECAUSE: Hey, dude, like, um, because, dude, it’s 2017 and, um, we are totally jonesing for a family-sized bag of Doritos, dude.

Also, dude, after surviving 2016, we are definitely going to need it to mellow out over the next 12 months. Anyone else feel like watching Easy Rider?

OUT: Political leaders of every stripe

IN: Robots

BECAUSE: OK, maybe we are trying to ingratiate ourselves with the mechanized overlords who will soon rule the planet, but if you think about it, could a legion of evil automatons capable of shooting death-ray lasers out of their artificial eyeballs do a worse job than our current braintrust?

That does not compute.

OUT: Pollsters

IN: The Magic 8-ball

BECAUSE: Because Donald Trump, that’s why! Were the pollsters completely and utterly WRONG in their predictions for the U.S. election? Hold on, let’s see what the Magic 8-ball has to say: “Signs point to yes.” And the survey says that’s close enough for us.

OUT: Terror attacks

IN: Snack attacks

BECAUSE: Even hardened news junkies have lost their appetite for terror. We’d rather die a slow death from eating an unhealthy diet. That’s the beauty of democracy. Give us liberty, with an extra helping of gravy.

Happy New Year!

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca