Patton Oswalt's "In 2008"

Patton Oswalt

via: Get Your Free Cone

DEATH WATCH: Sean Connery, Ann Coulter (coke o.d.), and either a Beatle, Rolling Stone or Ramone.

The ever-increasing search for extrasolar planets will confirm a distant, habitable twin of Earth.

The YouTube revolution will double back in itself: one of the presidential candidates will do something outrageously embarrassing, and be caught on camera phone. It will be the kind of thing that, just last year, would end a candidacy. However, this candidate, who will have enough twenty year-olds on their staff, will immediately make a hilarious parody video of themselves doing the career-ending thing, and will turn it to their advantage. The White House will be won on a parody video.

One of the following big-budget "event" movies: IRON MAN, THE DARK KNIGHT, STAR TREK or THE WOLFMAN, will be weirdly "non-event". In other words, it will have hidden depths, be challenging and disturbing while still be entertaining, and get nominated for a shit-load of Oscars. Remember, SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is a slasher flick, and JAWS is a monster movie. But they smuggled depth and poetry in under their entertaining candy shells.

One of the nukes or chemical weapons that were carted off before the Iraq War by "persons unknown" will make itself known.

The next great comedian will spend much of 2008 struggling at open mikes, and being hated by established comedians.

An underground, on-line only cannibal restaurant will be discovered.

The Writer's Strike will end...badly.

There will be a massive urban ecological disaster in a major Chinese city.

Harlan Ellison will publish a short story without fanfare which will lead to him being sued for inspiring a murder/suicide pact.

The best album of 2008 will be a country album.

Addendum: It will be Toby Keith. I'm not kidding.

Toby Keith's last album, while not an outright apology, acknowledged that the locker room, jock mentality that got us into the Iraq War did heavy psychological damage on the heartland folks he supposedly speaks for. Plus, he tours a lot with the USO, so he's seeing the effects of his rah-rah bullshit.

I think he's due for a major breakdown, but in a good way. Just like the way John Cougar Mellencamp, who's seen his fair share of the idealistic exploited by the cynical, has become angrier and more radical than a thousand hardcore bands. Toby Keith is going to turn on his fans -- at least, the stupid ones -- and the Bush administration. It'll be the final, most vicious kiss-off to the Bush presidency.*

from mary k
*i'd heard, though, from someone who worked on a movie with him for awhile, that he was a democrat. that he really was a democrat. and had some really great forward-thinking views on things. i guess he sure could, but just doesn't sing about them, cuz none of his listeners would buy???
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