One for the ages

(michael lutch)

museumofconceptualart.com/accomplished/

So, it's Jan. 7. The holiday party season is over, the champagne bottles are empty, and you finally have time to glance at that New Year's resolution list . . . and wonder "What am I doing with my life?" Well, for those who want to add insult to injury, we bring you our favorite Internet masochism tool: Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age.

"I started the project in 1995 and originally intended it as a book," says Earl Vickers, an audio engineer from Saratoga, Calif. (He also is the inventor of the Purr Detector, a collar that lights up whenever the cat purrs.)

The accomplishment generator couldn't be more straightforward. You type in your age, and up pops a list of, yes, things other people accomplished when they were your age. For example: At age 5: Yo-Yo Ma (below) started playing Bach's Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, Shirley Temple received an honorary Oscar, and Mozart began composing minuets.

At age 20: Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and started Microsoft, Jane Austen wrote "Pride and Prejudice," and Alexander Graham Bell taught a stray dog to say, "How are you, Grandmama?"

At age 30: Donald Trump persuaded bankers to lend him $80 million so he could buy the Commodore Hotel, Nat Turner led a slave rebellion, and physicist Armand H. L. Fizeau measured the speed of light.

Still, rather than making people feel bad about what they haven't done, Vickers says he aims to make readers feel "amused and inspired." And to that end, the site includes accomplishments of the elderly, too. Hey, Mary Baker Eddy founded the Christian Science Monitor at age 87. And Alice Pollock of Great Britain published her first book, "Portrait of My Victorian Youth," when she was 102. See? You have plenty of time to achieve greatness. You're doing just fine. Happy new year.