A New Year’s Greeting: It’s On Their Lips

Well, another whole year has gone down the garbage disposal, and it’s time again to ask that musical question: “What are you doing New Year’s, New Year’s Eve?”

According to a survey for Korbel Champagne, almost one in three adults (31 percent) plans to guzzle a glass of bubbly when the clock strikes midnight - more than will be blowing a noisemaker (25 percent) or singing “Auld Lang Syne” (31 percent), but fewer than the number who will watch the ball drop in Times Square on television (53 percent) or kiss someone (73 percent).

Shockingly, the survey showed a full 91 percent of Americans as yet have no special plans for New Year’s Eve 1999. But we’ve got two years to figure out how to kiss the millennium goodbye.

Toast, master?

Do you have a way with words before taking that first sip of the sparkling stuff?

The winner of Champagne Mumm’s “Best Toast” contest will receive a cool $1,000, with another 10 second-place winners getting $100 each. Entries will be judged on originality, creativity, elegance of phrase, rhythm and rhyming, cadence and “appropriateness to champagne.”

Write your toast on a postcard along with your name, address, telephone number (optional) and age (adults only) and send to: “Write a Great Toast Contest,” Balzac Communications, 1200 Jefferson Street, Napa, CA 94559.

And if you’re not particularly quick on your feet, don’t worry - entries aren’t due until Jan. 15.

The diet is cast

Liquid refreshment aside, this is also the final official face-stuffing day before those diet-and-exercise resolutions start kicking in.

According to a National Cancer Institute survey, exercising more is the top resolution for 1998 (mentioned by two out of three people polled), followed by eating healthier (61 percent); reducing stress (58 percent); eating more fruits and vegetables (51 percent); eating less fat (49 percent) and losing weight (48 percent).

Can’t top this

Some year-end results from the pepperoni-in-cheek Domino’s Pizza Meter, based on an in-house poll of delivery people:

The top five phony names given when ordering: Marv Albert, Janet Reno, Hank Hill, Dr. Kevorkian and Frank Gifford.

More customers were listening to the Spice Girls than any other musical act when the pie arrived.

Orders were off 11 percent the evening of the ear-biting boxing match between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield. Hold the ground beef!

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

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