Aiming to be better next year

I’m doing everything I can to eat all of the junk food, swear at all of the people and spend all of the money. Yes, I’m getting in all of the stuff I’m resolving not to do once Saturday comes around.

Once 2011 rolls around, I want to spend less and save more. I want to eat less and work out more often. I want to be less spiteful and be more organized.

But most of all, I’d like to do more.

z I’d like to be more like Cory Booker, the energetic mayor of Newark, N.J. While some of New Jersey’s other elected officials were on vacation, Booker was pushing cars out of the snow. He was digging snow away from other cars that were stuck.

And he used citizen pleas on Twitter to act as an emergency dispatcher for snow crews, even as some complained and expected their mayor to be there to shovel their sidewalk. Just search Twitter for @corybooker; impressive stuff.

Most in the Twitterverse were comparing Booker’s use of Twitter to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who without the comparison to Booker would have looked pretty upstanding (updates on number of snowplows, stressing safe travel at night, requesting blood donors).

z I’d like to be more like Eli Manning — not because of how his New York Giants collapsed and blew a 31-10 fourth-quarter lead, but how he handled his postgame press conference.

He was the only one there — the Philadelphia Eagles, who scored 28 unanswered to win the game 38-31, must have been more popular. So he waited, and when one reporter finally showed up he started the press conference.

I just hope when I do good things, they don’t get misrepresented, as Manning did on ESPN’s “Come On, Man” segment, which calls people out for regrettable behavior (dropping an easy catch, etc.).

The ESPN analyst booms in the segment, “Eli, you won a Super Bowl. You don’t have to wait on the media. Come on, man.”

No, he didn’t have to wait; he could have looked at an empty room, shrugged and left. But he did wait, after one of the most frustrating defeats of his career.

If you don’t think that shows good character ... come on, man.

Is there anybody you’d like to be more like? Make sure you let them know, because that recognition might be the one thing that keeps them from quitting. I’ll try to be that recognizer more often too.

I just thought of another resolution — to not do predictable columns for nearby holidays. Let’s see how long it takes me to break that one.