New Year, Old Tricks

2005 has been a real pain in the back, which is fitting because I've spent the last few hours of the year with a pulled back, hardly able to move. I had to break plans twice. But that's alright because I hate New Year's Eve and would rather spend it like any other night than to make something special of it.

And while everyone else is getting teary-eyed and looking back at this crummy year, I'd rather look forward and tell you what's coming in the year ahead. No surprises, that's my motto after all. So here it is, a look forward at 2006: the year that's becoming.

In the entertainment arena, box office sales continue to plummet while movies keep getting better. That is, until movie executives hire Joan Collins, Jonathan Winters, and WP Kinsella to write the ultimate romantic baseball comedy "A Fly Ball to my Heart." Heavy contenders for the leading role are Alan Thicke and Robert Wagner (not to be confused with Richard Wagner). As a response, film executives from competing studios greenlight a remake of "Bull Durham."

Regarding music in 2006, the internet trend that saw bands like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah producing and distributing their own music does not stop. More bands get in on the act and independent lables see sales comparably higher than in the recent past. Other music trends that don't stop: more and better Sufjan Stevens albums; fresh as hell jives from Ashlee Simpson; and a Disney tunes cover album from the Pop Project.

The political arena heats up as Congress continues to row over the Patriot Act, the NSA spying scandal, declining support for the president and the war, and mid-term elections. Things really go crazy, though, after it is disclosed that a prominent Democratic senator (who is rumored to be considering a presidential bid) has been selling arms to FARC. Of primary interest, however, will be the president's ranching accident. While entertaining British PM Tony Blair and Yassir Arafat (so not dead), President Bush falls off a horse into a thicket of brambles. He comes out of it with a sprained shoulder and several scratches from the brambles. Otherwise, he is fine.

As for my personal life - I adopt a small band of Cossack children, train them in martial arts, and take them back to the Russian steppes to exact revenge on the Siberian grizzly that ate their parents. There's no explanation as to why I do this. I guess I'm just bored.