Okay, fuck 2003. It's done. I've been adding a little hootch to my Theraflu all morning, and I'd like a socially acceptable excuse. Can we just close down Manhattan's offices, get someone to invent a cure for this flu that's riding my ass, and start the New Year's Eve festivities now?

Here's an email originating from the offices of a magazine that will go unnamed, proof that everyone else is equally antsy:

Since 2003 is "So Totally Over," and because I want to scoop the recently even-more-coopted Daily Candy, herewith, a Hot New Trend alert. 2004 is going to be all about fake fruit, vegetable, and animal matter that can be thrown against desks, sidewalks, tourists, Black Hawks, etc., which then squish into a glorious fake explosion of goo, only to revert to their original form. It is the new Stress Ball/Trucker Hat/Paris Hilton.

You may scoff, but this Fake Exploding Fruit is hot off the streets of Hong Kong, and mark my words, soon the young hipsters will be hurling FEF while chain-smoking outside Schillers. Tomatoes, unidentifiable citrus fruit, eggs, and rats (which I realize is not fruit, but what Hong Kong street vendors provide, we must take) are some of the options now available. Soon the kids will be trolling Pearl River for the like. So, take that Daily Candy — the first new trend of 2004 is hereby proclaimed.*

*Disclaimer: this e-mail is the result of someone forced to work during the post/pre-holiday, while tumbleweeds blow through my office. Sorry.

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