The Fun Desk | That’s right. We hope you’re good and rested because we’re in for the long haul now. No more holidays, lots of grey skies, traveling restrictions up the kazoo (literally) and an overwhelming influx of thoroughly cavity-searched out-of-towners named Hans (ich bin eine oooh). Enjoy New Years Day to the fullest, dudes and dudettes, as it only leads to madness. Here are  the very first five things on our agenda…

POLAR BEAR SWIM

The Vancouver Polar Bear Swim Club is one of the largest and oldest Polar Bear Clubs in the world. If you can believe it, this year’s swim is the 90th! That’s almost a century’s worth of crazy, hungover people have taking the dink-shrinking plunge – so join in! The Swim goes down New Years Day in English Bay. Costumes and the Peter Pantages Memorial 100 yard swim race are the highlights, not to mention the general insanity. Rumor has it that a few swigs from the scotch bottle beforehand can help boost courage (not that we encourage that sort of thing).
Jan 1 | 2:30 pm | The icy shores of English Bay | FREE

LACE ‘EM UP

Grab your skates (or rent them once you’re there) and hit Robson Square for a lap or two around the ice rink. There might be one or two other people out there thinking that New Years Day would be a lovely day for a twirl on the ice – so plan ahead – bring your thermal mug and nice thick gloves.
Robson Square | 9 am -9 pm | skating FREE (rentals $3)

TUBE

Maybe today is just one of those days when it would be better if you didn’t try to do anything. Stay in bed, re-hydrate turn on the teli. There are a few options to keep you entertained today. There is some kind of Tom Hanks love fest going on the History Channel – Apollo 13 starts at 12pm and is followed by a 3pm showing of The Da Vinci Code. Or maybe you’re not feeling so quasi-cerebral and you just want to watch things blow up. Cool. There’s a tag team of excitement on Channel 32, beginning with a Lethal Weapon marathon (Lethal Weapon I starts at 8:30am) that runs right into the afternoon and could only be followed by a Die Hard Marathon (which will carry you all the way past midnight, should you care to engross yourself that long). I think Anna Karenina (the 1997 version) is also on, and if you really suck hard enough you can catch (at 4:30pm on channel 39) 50 First Dates, starring Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler. God help you.

FLICKS

If Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis aren’t going to do it for you, you might want to venture out to theatre. Invictus is playing at Fifth Avenue (we’re giving away more passes this week) and good old Pulp Fiction is playing at the Rio in the evening. Oh, and Avatar is playing, like, everywhere. Plus warm buttered popcorn in the teeth is awesome.

HANGOVER BRUNCH

If, in your haste to pull together the perfect New Years Eve, you overlooked the equally important task of securing plenty of bacon to help you make it through the next day – you’ll be wanting to find your way to a restaurant for a New Years Day brunch. Line-ups will be long, service may be slow – but starting 2010 at one of Vancouver’s better restaurants sets a good tone for the coming year. And don’t forget to support your local spots. A few we’re considering: Medina, Crave, DB Bistro, Elixir, Market, Yew, Abigail’s Party, or La Brasserie…

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PS. And don’t forget…whatever it is that your tortured imagination conjured up for a jolly sordid time the night before, it’s not your fault. Bygones, bubba. This year is yours. 🙂