The holidays are over, and Santa has left the mall. Y2K came and went with hardly any problems if you aren’t counting the people whose checkbooks were not Y2K compliant or the people who tried to save money by having their gravestones pre-made with the 19__.

I guess most people wouldn’t really consider the last one a PROBLEM, however.

Now is the time of the year when people take time out to look deep inside themselves and make resolutions they have no intention of keeping, at least for more than two weeks.

I felt the need to make my own resolution now that it is 2000. Note that I did not say “a new millennium.” That debate is about as thought provoking as the “Who’s-the Mary-and-Who’s-the-Rhoda” debate from “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.”

I didn’t want to make a resolution that I KNEW I would not be able to keep, just for the sake of making a resolution. For example, I wouldn’t want to resolve to have all my bills sent BEFORE the actual due date because, let’s face it, that’s just not going to happen. And why pretend it might?

I decided to make a resolution to make myself feel smarter.

Don’t misunderstand; I am not resolving to make actually MAKE myself smarter, just to FEEL smarter. Actually becoming smarter would involve a lot of reading and studying and actually learning, and who has time for that?

To help me out in my resolution I will turn to a trend that has surfaced in the past six months. The new big thing on television is trivia game shows, and I have realized that watching some of these shows, can lead a person to feel smarter.

For a while our only choice was Alex Trebek and “Jeopardy!” Viewers had been forced to sit there feeling like morons while some person with a freakish amount of useless knowledge in his or her head, rambles on about medieval French monks.

Now we have choices, choices that will leave us feeling intelligent and clever.

Our first choice came at the end of last summer in the form of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”

This game is great for the wannabe geniuses out there because the show manages to have contestants who are, in all respects, book smart but tend to be lacking in the “common-sense-everyone-should-know-this” smarts.

When someone sits in front of the television and watches a person arrange cities in India from east to west in 3.78 seconds and uses a lifeline to call a friend because he doesn’t know what comes after “duck, duck…” in the title of a children’s game, there is no better feeling.

This show is an excellent way of making us feel smarter without gaining any actual knowledge.

Another game show that popped up last November is one I will be using to help fulfill my resolution : “webRIOT” on MTV.

This show is great because it combines television and the Internet so we can actually play along with the show and know just how smart we are in comparison to the contestants on TV.

The questions on the show tend to be fairly easy and definitely will make anyone who knows something about music feel pretty darn good about themselves. Most of the time the questions tend to be common sense if you have ever watched MTV for even 20 minutes.

Now be careful. There are games that are in sync with the television, but there are also just online games. The online only games tend to be much harder than the television show. If you are not careful, one online version of the game can quickly undo what 10 good rounds of the on-air/online did for how smart you think you are. You don’t want to take backward steps — think forward!

Not only does “webRIOT” let us play along at home, but we can win prizes too. People who, even by my standards, know way too much about music are rewarded with prizes for high scores.

However, that is not the only way to get a prize. Contestants can also be chosen randomly just for playing. I have played along with the show a couple of times and was actually rewarded with a $25 gift certificate to CDNOW.

It’s true that I was picked randomly to get a prize, but winning a prize, no matter why, guarantees that person will feel smarter. And no new knowledge will be gained in the process! Isn’t that great?

This is where I feel I will make the most progress on my resolution. I have been told that if there is any amount of useless knowledge in my head, it is about music.

“Who remade the song “Every Breath You Take,” by The Police into a tribute to the late Notorious B.I.G.?

“Was it: A. Madonna, B. Puff Daddy, C. Weird Al or D. Britney Spears?”

I’m beginning to feel much smarter already.

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Jenny Joanning is a junior in journalism and mass communications from Norwalk.