Blast From The Past (part two of a series)

(originally posted to MySpace 1/10/08 and appearing in the January 2008 issue of Changing the Times)

Predictions For The Future!

Breaking out my clear polyurethane fortune-telling ball obtained from a mystic gift shop outside Barstow, I'm making a few bold predictions for the coming years:

2008 (September 1st) Schedule for Britney Spears' next five emotional breakdowns released by her press agent

2009 Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan are revealed to be advance agents for an alien invasion. The United Nations agrees nearly unanimously to end all human conflict and honestly work to resolve religious, economic, and ethnic conflict throughout the world so that humanity can stand as one in preparation for the onslaught. France, however, uses its permanent veto power to stop the whole operation, because that's what France does. The rest of the world cooperates anyway, and tells France to surrender once the aliens arrive, because that's what France does.

2010 George W. Bush Presidential Library opens amid much fanfare. Visitors are disappointed to find out that every document in the library--even the menu for the inaugural banquet--has been completely redacted for national security reasons.

2017 Las Vegas finally changes its official slogan from 'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas' to 'Enjoy your hooker!'

2020 Joint US/European mission to the Moon reestablishes a human presence on Earth's nearest neighbor. Last 'Moon Landing Was Faked' skeptic brained with a Moon rock by 90-year-old Buzz Aldrin, who then promptly signs up to lead the next mission

2023 After spending his entire professional life denying conclusive evidence of global warming, former Vice-President Dick Cheney dies of a heart attack while vacationing at a popular beach resort on the shores of Antarctica.

2029 (July 20th) On the 60th anniversary of the first Moon landing, a lunar colony will be established near the Moon's south pole, where the probability of finding ice in permanently dark lunar craters and obtaining solar energy from permanently lit mountaintops is greatest.

2029 (September 1st) The first Wal-Mart on the Moon opens in time for Labor Day sales!

2032 Former Vice-President Al Gore dies. Internet goes offline for 24 hours in commemoration.

2036 (May 20th) The last known US World War II veteran, a Marine who fought at Iwo Jima, Saipan, and Okinawa, passes away quietly in his sleep. His life is commemorated during a state funeral.

2036 (May 23rd) through 2045 (August 15) Television and Web outlets are flooded with documentaries commemorating the 'Greatest Generation'--some of them repeated from 30 or 40 years earlier. Some of these documentaries are very insightful and provide first-hand accounts from both Allied and Axis veterans, or fair and objective analysis by professional historians; anything involving the Holocaust is treated with the utmost of respect and tact. But 90% of these are simply attempts by media figures (most of whom have never served in any war, much less WWII) to cash in on an historical event. The use of virtual reality allows viewers to perceive events with never-before realism. By the end of this period, every man, woman, and child in America will feel as though they've fought World War II personally and will want the whole thing over with.

2038 First landing on Mars

2041 First Mars base established

2043 Former President Bill Clinton passes away at the age of 97, becoming both the oldest former President and the President to live the longest after his term in office. The USS Bill Clinton is launched later that year. Appropriately enough, the Clinton is a submarine...

2044 First strip mall on Mars. Wal-Mart looking to buy out the property.

2050 As the number of elderly people with sagging butt implants, wrinkled and distorted tattoos, and stretched-out piercings in the nation's nursing homes and hospices increases dramatically, hospital gowns that close completely in the back will finally be introduced.

2063 Archives finally released relating to Kennedy assassination, Watergate scandal, and Roswell incident. As suspected all along, Bigfoot did it.

2064 Aliens abort their plans for invasion after they receive transmissions of reality programming and political campaign spots from Earth and conclude that no intelligent life exists on the planet.

2076 The US Tricentennial is celebrated. Puerto Rico still undecided on statehood although much of northern Mexico and the Canadian Maritimes have been annexed.

2084 The World Cup is held in Baghdad and the United States wins soccer's biggest prize for the first time. Soccer experts predict the rise of the sport in the United States within the next decade (as they have for the past 120 years)

2092 After the last open space not consisting of a golf course is finally paved over for freeway expansion in Orange County, California, the board of supervisors finally agree to discuss possible light rail construction.

2099 The usual apocalyptic cults that surround the turn of a century or millenium pop up. However the availability online of all the books and predictions written a century ago by the same groups completely destroys their credibility. Still, some hardliners insist that these documents are simply fabrications designed by the Forces of Evil and Darkness^TM to confound them in their efforts.

January 1, 2100 The last of the hardliners finally realizes that the calendar is just an arbitrary thing set up by human beings and that God isn't operating according to anyone's agenda but His own.