I'd like to...

1. Completely cut Splenda out of my diet. I only have maybe two or three packets a week, on average, but I know I'm consuming something toxic. I've heard embalming fluid comparisons. Why not just avoid altogether?

2. Live within walking distance to work. This will probably never happen. At least as long as I teach at UMD, where the only residential area within walking distance involves hoofing down a main road that lacks sidewalks.

3. Believe that the writers of the West Wing based, as they're now claiming, the Jimmy Smits "Matt Santos" character on Barack Obama.

4. See Detroit's mayoral scandal be resolved with something approaching justice.

5. Have a firmer understanding of why in the world Madonna had The Stooges play two of her hits (bizarre video here) in her stead at her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I've seen some surreal stuff but this makes that Elvis-Richard Nixon meeting look like a Normal Rockwell print.