On the last day of 2010 I resolve to gain focus.

I know, I know. How in the world do I expect to be focused when I have a 16-month-old bouncing off the walls, you might ask.

I am not sure, but if this column is any evidence, focus is sorely needed.

My original intention was to write about the American education system and how even the brightest students of U.S. schools fall woefully behind students from a long list of foreign countries. A new ranking shows that even the most privileged students in America do poorly compared to their peers around the globe.

I was looking for this compelling story on The Atlantic magazine website (www.theatlantic.com/magazine/) when I got distracted by the story, “Roger Ebert declares first ever oscar-worthy YouTube video.”

New York City filmmaker Jamie Stewart e-mailed a video of the New York City 2010 blizzard to the Chicago Sun-Times film critic. After watching the 3 minute and 35 second video, Ebert declared on his blog (blogs.suntimes.com/ebert.html) that Stuart deserves to win the Academy Award for best live-action short subject.

“Any professional will tell you the talent exhibited here is extraordinary,” Ebert said.

I watched the video. Stuart might not want to order his tux just yet, in my opinion.

After that brief intermission, I went back to my research on the U.S. education system.

Somehow on my way back to The Atlantic, I ended up looking at just a small sample of some of the ugliest holiday sweaters I have ever seen.

Readers of the New York Times online edition submitted examples of extreme holiday sweaters (www.nytimes.com).

Who knew there was a website devoted to such atrocious Christmas apparel (myuglychristmassweater.com/). Perusing the garishly decorated sweaters was just a slight diversion from my task, I promise.

And yet, as soon as I caught my breath from laughing so hard, I found a myriad of stories about the last roll of Kodachrome film to processed in the world.

After 75 years, the last roll of film was processed by Dwayne’s Photo, the last processor in the world to develop the film.

Famed National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry revealed on the National Public Radio website (www.npr.org) some of the images from the last roll of the Kodak ever produced.

On my way back to The Atlantic website, I had to take a quick look at my Facebook account, which led me to another site that is selling something called the ecomposter (www.ecomposter.net).

Evidently some of my friends spent two hours putting together this device that looks a little like the Death Star from the first Star Wars movie (or was it the fourth?) Made of all recycled materials this tumbler-like composter is supposedly cutting edge technology in the composting world.

Looking at the orb on wheels on the screen, I finally decided to get back to the American education system when I stumbled upon this headline: “Growing up digital — wired for distraction.”

With Facebook, YouTube, text messaging and the Internet, some researchers believes students are becoming wired for distraction. Even with all of the information that is available at their fingertips, U.S. students slowly fall behind the world in math skills.

Distracted? How in the world could that happen these days?

I don’t know, but I guess I will get to that in 2011.

Ben Hillyer is the web editor of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3540 or by e-mail at ben.hillyer@natchezdemocrat.com.