Happy Catholic New Year's Eve!

"Save us Jesus!"

As Girls Gone Wild has probably taught you, Mardi Gras is quite the celebration. For those who don't know the religious significance let me lay it out for you to play it out. Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday in normal people talk) is the culmination of Carnival and the last day before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. For Catholics this means one last day to eat meat and do other really crazy stuff before making the traditional sacrifices of Lent (anyone want to hit the holy water one last time?). In fact "Carnival" has been translated from a Latin phrase meaning "the removal of meat", as opposed to the Brazilian translation "the removal of clothes".

During Lent, Catholics give up meat on Fridays (no pepperoni on that Jumbo slice) and also give up any number of sinful activities they deem achievable or appropriate. Apparently college coeds give up flashing their breasts and therefore do it as much as possible on Mardi Gras. Anyway it's very similar to New Year's Eve, you get really drunk and do as much bad stuff as possible, then you try to give it all up. Lenten sacrifices are the soul's equivalent of New Year's resolutions.

That's one benefit of being Catholic. You get two chances at resolutions. "Well I gave up worshiping false idols for the New Year, but it was so hard. I mean...well...I just love Clay Aiken and I can't help it. I guess I'll try again for Lent and this time I only have to do it for 40 days; just in time for Clay's Easter spectacular!"

What's my Lenten sacrifice you ask? This year I'm giving up building robots that may or may not rebel against the humans who created them. I hope the guy from Terminator does the same thing. Here's some other famous people and their sacrifices:

John McCain: campaign finance reform

Hilary Clinton: scowling

Barack Obama: cocai...ummm smoking (j/k!)

Kobe Bryant: passing

Britney: insanity

Eli Manning: juice boxes (is he not 12?)

Bill Belichick: sleeves, oh wait, he's got that covered

Pope Benedict: creeping people out

Tom Brady: super models...psych!