Predictions for 2012

1) A home beermaking machine--much more automated than current homebrewing apparatuses--will be brought to market next year and become the "must have" for the next holiday season.

2) The housing market nationally will improve steadily over the year, as the lack of building for the past five years will create a glut of demand.

3) Mitt Romney will seal up the GOP nomination by Super Tuesday, and go on to lose the general election to Obama. Conservatives will claim that a "true conservative" like Reagan would have won, and if only people had listened to them. Never mind that Reagan has been out of office for 22 years and dead for seven. Some conservatives--like Ted Nugent--will threaten to leave the country, as they can't live under socialism, but their promise will have been as empty as Alec Baldwin's back in 2004.

4) Dan Snyder will fire Mike Shanahan (Coach Number Ten?) because clearly the problem for the Redskins is a series of incompetent coaches rather than a truly awful owner who meddles and knows about as much about football as a cinderblock.

5) Occupy Wall Street will succeed in convincing the big financial firms to adopt more benevolent practices, paying their executives salaries in the low six figures, being more open about their dealings, and forgiving debts of Americans who can't find work. Ha ha ha! Just kidding!

6) The latest fashion trend for women will be some impractical type of overpriced clothing that will likely cause long term injuries to themselves and others. The latest fashion trend for men will be a new style of t-shirt.

7) Some new singing sensation will be so awful it will make today's tweens nostalgic for the musical stylings of Justin Bieber.

8) Hollywood will finally do a re-make of Smokey and the Bandit. It will be terrible.

9) Fidel Castro's corpse will finally be declared dead, allowing for Cuba to be opened up for American tourism and influence.

10) The world will not actually end in 2012 because the Mayans were a stone-age culture that had no special insight into telling the future of major cosmic events.