-One of the consequences of turning thirty is that the drunken holidays I used to adore I now dread with a passion. On Halloween this year, my costume-clad buddies and I stood around at a party thinking to ourselves, “Are we really doing this right now? Really?” A few weeks later, I bypassed Thanksgiving Eve altogether, opting instead to experience a Thanksgiving dinner where I’m not so hungover that cranberry sauce reminds me of vodka cranberry and makes me puke. But New Year’s Eve, the granddaddy of them all, is quickly approaching, and the hype is unavoidable. As the ‘00s come to a close, I’d like to take a painful look back at my New Year’s experiences. This is my Decade in Review.

-To ring in the year 2000, my buddies and I took a road trip to Montreal. We were only twenty, but the drinking age in Quebec is eighteen. Sure it snowed like a bastard and the French-Canadian chicks didn’t particularly care for us, but once I had my first legal sip from an overpriced, watered-down New Year’s Eve open bar, I knew it would be the best millennium ever.

-In 2001, I spent December 30th in the hospital with appendicitis. The surgeon advised me to take it easy, so instead of going to a frenetic Manhattan nightclub on New Year’s Eve, I went to a raging house party instead. I didn’t drink, but my fresh scar and prescription painkillers made me the most popular guy there.

-I spent New Year’s Eve 2002 in the bathroom of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas puking my guts out while my roommate Brian held my hair back. I don’t even have long hair; that’s just how much I was puking.