Welcome to 2008

Hello, and welcome to 2008. I'm very glad you could join us, I know it hasn't been easy and unless you are one of those babies featured in Baby Genius' (and the sequel that begged the question, "wait, what? Someone watched the first Baby Genius movie?") it's been a long road to get here.

This is the one time of year where we sort of stop and reflect over the past year, then look forward and wonder what the new year will have in store for us. This is of course right after you find yourself peer pressured to shot gun your beer, and slightly before you vomit in that cute girls purse.

And no, let me be the first to say 2008 will not include getting her number.

So what will happen in 2008? You and I may be new here to this year, but fiction has been taking their audiences here for decades.

The Manchurian Candidate, a film released in 2004 warns us that a manipulative mother and some shadowy corporation might attempt to get said mother's son elected as Vice President. There's this whole other thing, kind of important I suppose, about Denzel Washington being a brain washed assassin, but really the only thing I can focus on is why the Vice President? I mean sure as VP you can go around shooting friends in the face and have no one so much as bat an eye, but still, why not aim for say... the guy who runs the whole country? The Manchurian Candidate proves once and for all that big, hulking corporations can't get anything done, had anyone bothered to read that memo Stienberg from the Evil Schemes and Planning Department (ESPD) sent out they would've known President is the most powerful position... president.

There's also Isaac Asimov's 1955 story entitled Franchise, where elections in the United States are a thing of the past. Instead a computer goes over data on everyone in the country to select the most suitable person to be President, and they are 'elected.' Now, I don't want to spook you here but Mr. Asimov's story takes a scary turn in accuracy when the entire country is plunged into anarchy when no President is chosen after months and months of running the computer. The problem, the search for the president is stopped every few minutes by Microsoft Window's Vista User Account Controls.

Feel free to quote this insane prediction to friends, just don't mention you heard it from me.

What else can we expect from 2008? The 1987 book Intervention by Julian May tells us June 20th, 2008 humans have their first contact with aliens. Mark that on your calender now, the last thing you want is to confuse an alien with a telemarketer and prematurely hang up, thus causing humanity to never know whether we are alone in the universe or not.

This will also be the year the Soviet Union returns according to two sources, a 1996 novel (The Next War) and a 2001 video game (Ghost Recon).

And don’t forget one more date to mark in your calender, March 28^th the UN bans Hand Guns (Francis Anderson’s 1992 novel, Future Undetermined).

So 2008 is predicted to be quite the year, full of commies, aliens, US election scandals and you’ll have to face it all without your trusty handgun.

Good luck out there.

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