It occurred to me in a sudden flash of genius that I am an idiot.  I managed to paint myself into a corner.  I talked a big game about writing an amazing manifesto to bring in the new year and after a lot of brainstorming, I came up empty.  Turns out, I don’t have enough material to write a whole manifesto.  I used most of my material in the pre-manifesto manifesto piece.

So I would like to take this blank space which I could not begin to fill with my original plan and use it to declare my dependence on you, the reader.  Without you reading these thoughts of great whimsy, I would have nothing.  A series of random written pieces that would reach no one and would seem very odd if found unpublished and kept to myself.  These pieces are not pages from a journal or diary meant to be for self-reflection and thought.  They are meant, hopefully once in a while, to be enjoyed.  They are meant to entertain.  If I am saying anything, it is that I depend on you to read these because if they are not read, they don’t exist.  That was the deepest thought I had this year, by the way.

And if you are really bummed that my original manifesto plan crashed and burned, leaving me with but a brief thank you to give out, I have the following words.  These are ideas I wrote hoping to create my original piece…

Manifesto Destiny

1. I believe people who ruin movies and TV shows with spoilers after not giving people an appropriate time frame for others to see them are a menace to society and should be sent to the Phantom Zone.
   I didn’t want to know what happened to one of the main characters in Stand By Me, but some guy on a podcast ruined it for me.  Just because I saw it in its entirety for the first time in 2019, doesn’t mean I should have to deal with this reprehensible behavior.
   In another situation, I started Star Trek: Voyager in 2019 and while watching a YouTube video about Avengers: Endgame, one of the jerks brought up the last episode of Voyager and started showing a video clip of the opening scene.  You are supposed to say “spoiler alert”. That is the rule of society. Spoiler alerts are what separates us from animals.
   And stop talking about The Mandalorian.
2. I believe the children are our future.  So did Whitney Houston. That is where I got the idea.  But it’s okay that I used her idea. In her song, she used the melody to Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind”.  And nobody seems to care about that.  So teach those children well and whatever else she said.
3. It’s time to take control of the technological age before things get out of hand.  Have you guys seen Terminator, Terminator 2, War Games, The Matrix, and You’ve Got Mail?  If I understand things correctly, these are documentaries and they are shedding light on the real issues of artificial intelligence trying to destroy us all.  Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan taught me that.  But also, I didn’t realize that the ex-governor of California was a robot underneath.  I feel like maybe he shouldn’t have been allowed to run for office.  I guess it’s too late now.  Don’t ask me any technical questions about this situation or how to resolve it.  I defer to Elon Musk.  Regarding everything.
4. We need to bring back support and new games for the Sega Dreamcast.
5. All documentation of the Twilight series including books, merchandise, DVDs, Blu-Ray copies, and digital copies shall be erased.  Potentially we will erase it from the minds of all humans if we can find a non-invasive strategy to do so.
6. Use, distribution of/or possession of glitter will be punishable by death.
7. Facebook will make reparations of $1,000 for every piece of information it gives to third parties.
8. We will hold special hearings with specific people who have caused a lot of problems for the rest of us (hear me out).  They will be asked certain questions and they can choose to answer honestly or not (hear me out).  A tribunal will decide if the person is to be released (hear me out) or if found guilty, they will be forced to choose imprisonment or exile.  I promise you, nothing can go wrong with this plan.  It is full-proof.  I mean, you saw The Dark Knight Rises didn’t you?  They did almost the same exact thing until that bat guy showed up and ruined everything.