Nostradamus, Jr.

I have some predictions for 2011.

There will be sunshine. I am confident of that fact. It will occur with regularity and everyday, for that matter. It will not be confined to the Eastern Seaboard of the United States nor Continental Europe. It will be sunny in Brazil, Singapore and especially China, because China has decided to buy the sun and in years to come lease sunlight back to the rest of the world, in some cases at a volume discount for places like Cancun but not places like Bangor, which can be cloudy at times.

There will be laughter. People from Maine to California, from Washington State to Florida will be laughing. But they will not be laughing in Alaska, however. Alaska will either be in "I told you so" or "Don't blame me" mode. Can you guess why?

There will be oohs and aahs. Folks will be oohing and aahing at the latest gizmo to come out of the tech sector. I should amend that by saying that they will be oohing and iiing mostly because everything that is cool has an "i" in front of it. You could say that the "i"s have it. i, for one, think so. That's w"i" i said it. See, even the word "said" has an "i" in it. I suppose its the "i" way, or as they say in Tel Aviv, the "i vay!"

There will be sports of all kinds. We will have baseball, tennis, football, basketball, hockey and even curling. Curling will happen, largely, out of the public eye (or, "i"...) despite its' immense popularity, but it will happen nevertheless. Especially in hair salons worldwide. There will be, I predict, a lot of curling in the hair salons of the world.

There will be graduations. From college, high school, middle school, elementary school, kindergarten, pre-school (or as we used to call it in my youth, "nursery school", which I think is a much sweeter term. Nursery school. Little kids, unspoiled by life. Let's bring back "nursery school" as a term...along with "gay" as an adverb. "I'm heterosexual and I feel gay!!" And, while I'm at it, the "Enola Gay" didn't turn out to be that...they should have called it the "Ebola Gay"...would have had a similar effect.)

Finally, but not insignificantly, there will be music. All kinds from rap to classical to jazz to country. There will, however, be no opera, because it is too expensive and no one really likes it. They pretend to like it because it confers upon the listener/fan a certain, je ne sais quoi (pronounced "zjhe neuh say kwah", French for , "What the...?") Opera is horrible. It is pretentious and very hard to listen to not to mention understand, unless you are German or Italian. They never put up English operas. They are probably even worse.

I must stipulate here that I know nothing at all about opera. I've been a few times, and to some good ones, in New York and Vienna for example, but I am one of the opera illiterati. I am just not that fond of it, even though I recognize its' rightful place in the history of music from the dawn of time. I wasn't even a fan of The Who's "Tommy." I liked (...like...) the Who, especially the song, "I Can't Explain", but I really didn't like "Tommy", except for "Pinball Wizard", but only The Who's version, not Elton John's, for whom I am happy at the birth of his son. Levon. Did he name him for Levon Helm, the drummer for The Band, or for his own song about Levon? Will we ever know? Will we...punk?!

So there you have it. The First List of Absolute Predictions (FLAP, as in "flap your gums...") from this small corner of the Blogosphere.

Send me yours and I will incorporate them in the list of corrections that I will have to publish this time next year when some, if not all, of the above don't come true.

God (G-D for my Jewish friends) help us and Happy New Year (for my non-Jewish friends...Jews celebrate the New year in September and say "Shana Tova" which actually means "Good New Year" not "Happy New Year", probably because Jews are never truly happy.)

NOTE: Did you notice that an exclamation point is an upside down "i"? Didn't think of that did ya? Conspiracy? Maybe. Who's to know.

Great. Something else to be afraid of in 2011.

Thanks a lot Apple!!