Spit-Shining the Crystal Ball

My brother’s been making a habit (three more years and it’ll be a tradition!) of posting a list of New Year’s Predictions. What the heck, I feel like taking a stab at it too. Granted, these are a lot more random and sarcastic than his, but hey, I don’t follow the news as much as he does.

1) Britney Spears, in an effort to follow in the footsteps of her own idol, will join a weird and obscure religion, rename herself Hepzibah, and give birth to a child named Po-Mo. At least two news agencies will consider this an important story.

2) The 2006 elections will be largely inconclusive, yet both sides will declare victory and a mandate, and will on the whole make the American public wish we could just vote the whole lot off the island.

3) A great many Richard Pryor fans will vote “None Of The Above”, both in honor of the late comedian and out of sincere desire to see the offices vacant.

4) Tom and Katie will break up at the last minute due to a growing suspicion on her part that Tom is a very disturbed individual. His attempts to get her back will confirm those suspicions.

5) The Reverend Jesse James –I mean Jackson will try to intervene in the aforementioned. If not, he will find some other burning issue that is completely none of his business to get involved in.

6) Michael Jackson will either be deported by whatever Arabian country he has gone to, or made a high government official.

7) UN peacekeeping forces will attempt to fight their way out of a wet paper bag and fail. Kofi Annan will blame this failure on George Bush.

8) Cindy Sheehan will finally admit that her son’s death was not George Bush’s fault and attempt to give up the life of a political icon/football. Neither the Democratic party or the liberal media will allow her to.

9) OJ Simpson will finally produce the real killer – Jessica Simpson. She will confess before realizing what anyone is talking about.

10) My niece Angela will return from her mission, get married, and be expecting her first child before the end of the year.

11) Thom will set a new personal record for the consumption of Fuji apples. He will even set up an Apple Meter on his weblog page…

12) I will start and finish at least one story.

13) SE Idaho will receive precipitation on a scale not seen since the Great Flood. Local news will still proclaim that the drought is not over yet.

14) New Orleans will be fully repaired and restored just in time for another hurricane to turn it back into The City Literally Beneath The Sea. The government will still insist on rebuilding.

15) Gas prices will spike when the members of a junior riding club in Texas all demand new ponies at the same time. SUV drivers will set fire to hybrids in protest.

16) I will still be getting marketing research calls about Union Jack’s eight to ten months from now.

17) Also, Pitney Bowes will still be trying to sell me a postage meter.

18) I will move to Boise and get a job at Albertsons, thus proving the Theory of Strattonic Gravitation. Absolutely no one will have any idea what my job is, least of all me.

19) Movie-goers across the nation will call for a boycott of the Walt Disney Corporation after being exposed to one abysmal remake too many. Mickey Mouse will be burned in effigy, and Michael Eisner will be forced to flee to Michael’s Jackson’s compound in the Middle East for his own safety.

20) The world will end, but most of America will be too busy discussing last week’s Apprentice to notice.