New Year predictions. You hate them. They’re either far too earnest (My divining skills say it’s splitsville for Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale!), or too Joel Steiny (There’ll be a Mac app that clips your toenails for you! Because the future is very silly indeed!). You need better prognosticating for the New Year. Well, fear not, for I am here, and I am devoid of both phony psychic ability and middle-aged wacky guy humor. Here are ten extremely safe and inevitable choices for things that will occur in 2010.
1. You will hit your head on something you did not anticipate hitting your head on.
A shelf. An overhang. The bottom of a table when you go underneath to retrieve a stray crumb. One of those things will bash you right on the noggin, and it will hurt. This year, there was a concrete overhang in the Trader Joe’s parking lot that I missed by a hair. I swear it would have decapitated me. And this year, it will. My head is a marked man.
2. Project Runway will be good again.
They’re going back to New York. And there won’t be any annoying legal mess hanging over the proceedings. They’ll have better contestants, more interesting challenges, and Tim Gunn’s cold sore won’t be as noticeable. Bank it.
3. There will be a web innovation that everyone writes about that you won’t use until 2011 at the earliest.
All you heard about this year was Twitter this and Twitter that. Reports in March had Twitter at 14 million users, which has surely increased since then. But not by THAT much. Chances are, YOU didn’t use Twitter this year, and you’ll eventually find it to be useful far after the media has stopped blathering over it. This year, they’re gonna drool over Google Wave, and you’re not gonna know what the hell they’re talking about until you try it for yourself sometime five years from now.
4. Fewer cool people will die.
It was an AWESOME year for death. Michael Jackson. Patrick Swayze. David Carradine. So many cool people kicked the bucket this year, the law of averages says that there’s no way 2009 can be topped for the death market.
5. The US government isn’t going to come and take you away.
Keep the government out of our schools! Keep the government out of our health care! Keep the government out of our uteruses! Every year, liberals and conservatives alike fret that one side will wield enough power to have the government break down your doors, wearing Hazmat suits and brandishing Uzis, forcing you to pray or stop praying against your will. Relax. They aren’t coming for you. I swear. They just want your money.
6. The price of ice cream will continue to rise.
Six bucks for a tub of Edy’s? That’s insanity. Every week, I have to roll the dice and hope it’s 2 for 1 week at the supermarket. BUT IT NEVER IS ANYMORE. You watch. Ice cream will hit $7 a tub, and then we will be at WAR, whether we like it or not.
7. You will have less fear of the unknown if you continue to drink.
Any number of horrible things could happen in 2010: terrorist attacks, personal trauma, economic collapse, the renewal of “Gossip Girl.” But there’s nothing to fear as long as you have a tumbler of sweet, sweet scotch by your side. Oh, scotch. You make everything all right.
8. Cast members from “Jersey Shore” will be on the cover of US for 30 straight weeks.
You can see the tide turning already. Soon, it will be YOU hoping to punch Snooki in the face.
9. Tiger Woods will return to golf in April but win no majors.
But he’ll have any number of overly tanned event planners who don’t photograph terribly well there to comfort him at the club later that night.
10. You will forget something important.
Wait, where are your keys? GAHHHHHHHHH YOU LEFT THEM AT THE RESTAURANT! NOOOOO!!!
