BunkBlog

Last year, I made a set of predictions for 2010. Let’s see how badly I did this year.

1. I assumed tablet PCs would remain a niche nobody had heard of. Assuming you count the iPad as a tablet PC (I don’t), this is obviously false. Less obviously, everyone has at this point at least considered a tablet PC. I’m counting this as a miss, but with the caveat that tablet PCs are probably never going to catch on – what we’ll have are tablet devices (which are not PCs).
2. President Obama has, if anything, grown even larger horns in the eyes of the right-wing media and punditocracy. Considering that he’s also become something of a punching bag on the left for not actually having a spine or delivering on many of his promises (States Secrets, Gitmo, whatever), it’s almost painful to watch. Definitely got this one, although it was kind of a no-brainer.
3. I heard the GOP did ok in the midterms, so I suppose this one is a hit as well. Again, not really a tough call – the non-Presidential party almost always gains midterm seats.
4. The economy is improving, by some measures, but most people will still look at their bank accounts and pay stubs and have a hard time believing it. I missed this one, and it makes me very sad.
5. Yeah, still no crypto that anyone uses, and boy are the leaks popping up everywhere!
6. The ebook readers continue the trend of walled gardens – stupid move, in my opinion, but a hit for my prediction ability!
7. Sarah Palin is the worst game of whakamole ever. Please someone make her go away.
8. TSA flight restrictions pissed people off and made headlines, but somehow the airlines look to actually be profitable this year. Miss, but barely (In May, the IATA predicted losing billions).
9. The weather was indeed remarkable, and the denialists continued to pretend that there was nothing wrong anywhere ever. Another sad hit.
10. Another year without any substantive disagreements between my lovely bride and myself. Yay!

My hit rate this year was less than impressive. I got 7 of 10, slightly worse than last year (and it’s 8/10 if you don’t consider an ipad a PC – neener).  Somehow, we’ve made it over one decade into the 21st century, and we haven’t seen flying cars, jetpacks, or even aquatic aliens on Jovian moons.  *sigh*

One year ago, I made a series of 10 predictions for the new year.  Let’s see how I did.

1. The right wing noise machine did find new and interesting ways to make themselves look silly while calling the new president a socialist, a communist, a nazi, and a racist – all at the same time. If President Obama were on fire, the GOP would call fire departments a socialist plot, as John Scalzi wrote this week.
2. Windows 7 did not save the computer industry.
3. Netbooks were a bit easier to find than I feared, so there’s one point against me. To be fair, the good netbooks were harder to get hold of, so maybe half a point.
4. Yep, suck.
5. No single sign-on system of any note, although Facebook is getting a lot of headway into “sign in with Facebook” on various sites.  Maybe we’ll count this as half and half.
6. No crypto.
7. DTV changeover was, although delayed yet again until June of 2009, not a crazy display of incompetence and weeping and gnashing of teeth. Got this one wrong.
8. Politicians continued to line their pockets by picking ours, and gave as much largesse to their corporate overlords as possible. Sadly, I got this one right.
9. Weather was much remarked upon. Denialists continued to deny reality. Climatologists turned out to sometimes be jerks, but that overshadowed that the science continues to be reinforced with evidence.
10. Kit dropped me from her “LJ Friends” list after 9 years (no idea why), so I have no idea how amusing she is.

Let’s see, that gives me 6 of 10 completely right, 2 partly right, one completely wrong, and one I can no longer assess, so I can’t use it for any statistics. We’ll call it 7-2 or 78% accurate. I’m sure that beats all the “psychics” out there.  Now, what shall I predict for 2010? Stay tuned.

Apparently, it is now time for people on my reading list (RSS aggregator, LJ Friends, whatever you want to be called) to make predictions for 2009, and review their past prognosticative abilities. I’ll play along, but I’m taking all sucker bets, so as to get a hit rate much higher than Sylvia Browne ever will.

1. The WorldNutDaily and other extreme-rightwing nutjobs will continue to berate President Obama throughout the year, calling into question his patriotism, his citizenry, and perhaps even his sexual orientation, just in hopes that something will cause people to care about the right-wing again.
2. Windows 7 won’t be the savior of all things computing in 2009.
3. Netbooks will remain nearly impossible to find in retail channels anywhere with a population less than 5 million (like, say, where I live now).
4. The economy will continue to suck.
5. There still won’t be a single-sign-on system that anyone uses. Sorry, OpenSocial and Facebook API.
6. There still won’t be a crypto system that anyone uses.  Sorry, PGP.
7. The Digital TV changeover will be a complete goat-fuck.
8. Our elected representatives will continue to play reverse Robin Hood, taking as much money from the middle class as they can and giving it to the corporate overlords Eisenhower warned us about.
9. Weather will continue to be remarkable, which will cause climatologists to point out they predicted just such a thing. Denialists will claim that anything other than blistering heat in Alaska and seventy hurricanes reaching into Iowa is proof there is no such thing as global warming.
10. Kit will continue to amuse and enlighten us all with her LE posts.

From the AltFriday5:

1. What’s in your medicine cabinet? Toothpaste, pepto

2. What’s in your wallet? A tiny amount of cash, ATM card, Driver’s license, 3×5 cards

3. What’s in your bag/briefcase/backpack/purse? The only bag I have is my gear bag, which I only take on trips, so it’s got a video camera, spare batteries, spare tape, digital camera, and epi-pen for the boy.

4. What’s in your glove box? Maintenance records, insurance card, auto documents

5. What’s in your imagination? Can’t wait for work to be over, weekend to start, Kat to arrive, Boy to carve clay at the Chicken Farm, party on Sunday…yeah, active imagination today.

Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following (real places, names, things).
You CAN’T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

What is your name? Gary

4 letter word: grab

Vehicle: Geo

TV Show: Grey’s Anatomy

City: George, WA

Boy’s Name: Greg

Girl’s Name: Gabrielle

Alcoholic drink: Gin & Tonic

Occupation: Garbage Collector

Something you wear: gabardine

Celebrity: George Clooney

Food: Green beans

Something found in a bathroom: Gross things

Reason for being late: Gin & Tonic

Cartoon Character: George of the Jungle

Something You Shout: GAH!

I suppose I should have read the books or even have heard of them, but what the heck, I’ll play along.

Since I got 25 of 25 correct, that means that less than 2% of respondents did the same.  Ouch.

The idea here is to post the first sentence (or part of it if it’s freakin’ long) of the first post of each month from 2006.  I went the extra step to link to the post, in case you want to understand why I would say some of these things.  So, here ya go:

January: I’ve added the new and improved WordPress 2.0 software to the site.

February: Someone (phbt!) recently pointed out that it has been more than two weeks since I posted…

March: Based on reviews from Kitiara and others, I think I’ll pass on Ultraviolet.

April: The BBC has a list of 10 stories that could be pranks but aren’t.

May: To announce that there must be no criticism of the president…

June: We have (as of this writing) eight total movies playing in the city of San Angelo.

July: …Kyle XY and the dearly-missed Fox show John Doe…

August: …I now have full wine racks…

September: Friday, we had planned to go to the Kiddie Park and Witte Museum.

October: My friend Dora hosted a party at her house last night, and I catered it.

November: …Flying Spaghetti Monster references…

December: I seem to have a few new readers.

The Rules: Go to the this site and check out the songs from the year in which you turned 18. Bold the songs you like. Strike the songs you don’t. Leave the ones you’re indifferent to alone.

1. What A Wonderful World – Louis Armstrong
2. It Takes Two – Rob Base & E-Z Rock
3. Da Butt – EU
4. Hot Hot Hot – Buster Poindexter
5. I’ll Always Love You – Taylor Dayne
6. Man In The Mirror – Michael Jackson
7. Sweet Child Of Mine – Guns N Roses
8. Red Red Wine – UB40
9. Just Got Paid – Johnny Kemp
10. Don’t Worry, Be Happy – Bobby McFerrin
11. Pour Some Sugar On Me – Def Leppard
12. Every Rose Has Its Thorn – Poison
13. Welcome To The Jungle – Guns N Roses
14. Paradise – Sade
15. The Flame – Cheap Trick
16. 1 2 3 – Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine
17. Kokomo – Beach Boys
18. Need You Tonight – INXS
19. Pump Up The Volume – M/A/R/R/S
20. Roll With It – Steve Winwood
21. Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird (Medley) – Will To Power
22. Power Of Love – Laura Branigan
23. Push It – Salt N Pepa
24. One More Try – George Michael
25. Can’t Stay Away From You – Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine
26. Wild, Wild West – Kool Moe Dee
27. One Moment In Time – Whitney Houston
28. Hot Hot Hot!!! – The Cure
29. The Promise – When In Rome
30. The Way You Make Me Feel – Micheal Jackson
31. Chains Of Love – Erasure
32. What’s On Your Mind (Pure Energy) – Information Society
33. Honestly – Stryper
34. Don’t Be Cruel – Bobby Brown
35. Bad Medicine – Bon Jovi
36. Strangelove – Depeche Mode
37. Nothin’ But A Good Time – Poison
38. Angel – Aerosmith
39. Candle In The Wind – Elton John
40. Forever Young – Alphaville
41. Pink Cadillac – Natalie Cole
42. Always On My Mind – Pet Shop Boys
43. Tall Cool One – Robert Plant
44. Forever Young – Rod Stewart
45. Beds Are Burning – Midnight Oil
46. Tomorrow People – Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers
47. I Know You’re Out There Somewhere – Moody Blues
48. Just Like Heaven – The Cure
49. Wild Wild West – The Escape Club
50. In God’s Country – U2
51. So Emotional – Whitney Houston
52. Girls Ain’t Nothin’ But Trouble – DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
53. Wishing Well – Terence Trent D”Arby
54. It’s Money That Matters – Randy Newman
55. Under The Milky Way – The Church
56. Like The Weather – 10,000 Maniacs
57. Tell It To My Heart – Taylor Dayne
58. Kiss Me Deadly – Lita Ford
59. Never Gonna Give You Up – Rick Astley
60. It’s The End Of The World As We Know It – R.E.M.
61. Parents Just Don’t Understand – DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
62. Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark – Robert Cray Band
63. Never Can Say Goodbye – Communards
64. What’s The Matter Here? – 10,000 Maniacs
65. Groovy Kind Of Love – Phil Collins
66. Fat – Weird Al Yankovic
67. Piano In The Dark – Brenda Russell
68. Monkey – George Michael
69. Rocket 2 U – Jets
70. Tell That Girl To Shut Up – Transvision Vamp
71. I Found Someone – Cher
72. Spotlight – Madonna
73. Englishman In New York – Sting
74. When Will I Be Famous? – Bros
75. Hazy Shade of Winter – the Bangles

If you haven’t seen the Counterfeit Mini Flash game, you need to go over there now. Great stress reliever.

I seem to have a few new readers. I’d like to direct you to this post for something fun.

You just have to love the Warning Label Generator. Caution!

Supposedly if you’ve seen over 70 of the films on this list (either in the theater or on video) you have no life. Mark and count the movies you’ve seen. Put your score in the header and repost.
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Which of these have you done? Add up the dollar amounts and repost in your own journal…

Smoked pot — $10
Did acid — $5
Ever had sex at church — $25
Woke up in the morning and did not know the person who was next to you — $40
Had sex with someone on MySpace — $25
Had sex for money — $100
Ever had sex with the a Puerto Rican — $20
Vandalized something — $20
Had sex on your parents’ bed — $10
Beat up someone — $20
Been jumped — $10
Crossed dressed — $10
Given money to stripper — $25
Been in love with a stripper — $20
Kissed some one who’s name you didn’t know — $0.10
Hit on some one of the same sex while at work — $15
Ever drive drunk — $20
Ever got drunk at work, or went to work while still drunk — $50
Used toys while having sex — $30
Got drunk, passed and don’t remember the night before — $20
Went skinny dipping — $5
Had sex in a pool — $20
Kissed someone of the same sex — $10
Had sex with someone of the same sex — $20
Cheated on your significant other — $10
Masturbated — $10
Cheated on your significant other with their relative or close friend — $20
Done oral — $5
Got oral — $5
Done / got oral in a car while it was moving — $25
Stole something — $10
Had sex with someone in jail — $25
Made a nasty home video — $15
Had a threesome — $50
Had sex in the wild — $20
Been in the same room while someone was having sex — $25
Stole something worth over more than a hundred dollars — $20
Had sex with someone 10 years older — $20
Had sex with someone under 21 and you are over 27 — $25
Been in love with two people or more at the same time — $50
Said you love someone but didn’t mean it — $25
Went streaking — $5
Went streaking in broad daylight — $15
Been arrested — $5
Spent time in jail — $15
Peed in the pool — $0.50
Played spin the bottle — $5
Done something you regret — $20
Had sex with your best friend — $20
Had sex with someone you work with at work — $25
Had anal sex — $80
Lied to your mate — $5
Lied to your mate about the sex being good — $25DONT FORGET TO REPOST WITH YOUR DOLLAR AMOUNT

$290.50

Check off the stupid things you have done. DO NOT include explanations!
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Which Lovely Doctor Who Companion Are You Ashamed To Admit Your Crush On?

Looks as though you’ve got your heart set on the second Romana, as played by Lalla Ward! This tempting Time Lady conceals her inhuman cleverness behind a disarmingly enthusiastic and girlish demeanor. She’s an eclectic blonde who loves to travel and enjoy herself, and if you gaze too long into those summer-sky eyes, she’ll have you wrapped around her finger. Not that you’ll mind.
Take this quiz!

Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Yeah, I can go along with that. I remember the Baker years.

Make your own, be a lemming!

Yes, I do have too much time on my hands. Why do you ask?