There's an end-of-the-year tradition that I'm hoping goes the way of the Edsel, the Apple Newton and the Atari Jaguar — the "end-of-the-year-montage-year-in-review-countdown."

I'm tired of it. (And I think I get bonus points for referencing the ill-fated Atari Jaguar.)

I don't know about you, but I don't live my life in a vacuum. My life isn't 29 installments of things that have happened to me year by year. Rather, it's one big linear hodgepodge.

I don't think in terms of, "I really loved my 25^th and 29^th installments of Christmas" or "That car I had at the end of my 16^th year on planet earth was really a dud."  They all blend together to create my life, and things that happen for me tomorrow are still very similar to things that are happening to me today.

The slate isn't completely washed clean at midnight.

The end-of-the-year countdown/montage is silly; it's an easy, lazy news story each year for media outlets — just grab the file footage, throw on a fancy 2010 graphic, and boom: instant story. I really don't see the allure.

Being a sports fan, I was watching ESPN's SportsCenter this morning. The program was running a "year-in-review" of the top plays and stories. It discussed the Yankees winning the World Series, the Blackhawks winning Lord Stanley's Cup and the Lakers winning, well …  the Lakers have won it so many times they should just call it the "Lakers' (and sometimes Celtics') Cup." The program also mentioned DeSean Jackson's recent walk-off punt return, Mark Buehrle's ridiculous through-the-legs put-out, Roy Halladay's perfect game and Armando Galarraga's near-perfect game (which I'm still sick about).

I'll have to admit, I had forgotten about most of those plays. But there was a disconnect for me when the program chronicled the New Orleans Saints winning the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is an event that's only about a month away, yet the program is bringing up last year's winners just because it happened when the year had a "10" at the end of it. Since August, there have been 32 teams vying for the Lombardi Trophy — and that competition is still going on.  It seems strange to highlight an event that happened in February — just because it happened in 2010 — when there were events happening in August that could displace the current champions.

Every time I watch one of those year-end events, I always have the same, thought-provoking, fascinating conversation … with myself.

"Oh! That happened this year?"

"Yeah. Remember?"

"Oh yeah! Years are long!"

"I know, right?"

News outlets aren't running things that happened in December in their montages. The goal is to strike up the preceding conversation — and it usually works.