"They were conducting a surprise killing attack on everybody."

So, it's a new year. 2008. Two years from 2010 (the year, not the movie) and we are no closer to robotic slaves, Matrix-like brain interfaces, or immortality through through some scientific means. I was brought up to believe the future would be one thing, and one thing only: Great. It wasn't my parents that put this thought into my head, it was the television shows I watched, the books I read, the highway billboards I drove past. The media, in general is responsible for this belief in the future.

To be fair to the future, robotic slaves and flying cars might be just around the corner. Or, as is the case with many discoveries, these things already exist, I just don't know about them yet. It could even be that they are really common, and I'm so completely out of the loop that I didn't realize my maid has shiny-metal robotic arms it uses to squeeze my morning glass of OJ. Could be...

I predict this year will be more of the same, and not in a bad way. There will be wars, famine, and pestilence. There will be previously undreamt-of scientific discoveries, more Wii games released, and the invention of inflatable planets we will all begin to live on with our robotic assistants and robotic taxi-drivers.

What I'm really trying to say is, I want a robot already.

(that's me on the left)

It also turns out that Colorado is in for a bad year, what with painted goons conducting an attack. And not just any attack, mind you. A killing attack. Via Coasttocoastam.com:

"After the 9-11 Tragedy, approximately 2002, I had an incredibly frightening dream. ... I was in my home with other people, it was night and dark outside, our lights were on in the house. I heard repetitive explosion like noises outside in the distance. I looked out the window to the west and could see fire and smoke in the sky coming from Boulder. The noise and fires continued and were quickly coming our way, some just at end of my block. We shut the lights off and I heard a voice in my head say "beware of the shadows, be careful of the shadows." I saw the grass moving outside and houses being set on fire, in the darkness soldiers were moving with weapons and grenades, war paint, or dark camouflage paint on their faces, others wore gas masks. They were conducting a surprise killing attack on everybody. I was terrified and thought of hiding in the attic, but knew I would be burned. I thought further of crawling into the grass to hide, but I had seen them shine lights on the grass and destroy anyone found. I knew it was the end for us. I heard them say they were the "peacekeepers.""
--Kathy

The line I can't get over is, "They were conducting a surprise killing attack on everybody." It's just so silly. This highlights my potential big problem with 2008; fear. This quote from the poor poster "Kathy" is a great view into the mass-consciousness in America. Her writing style attempts convery scientific detachment, but it's really a scene from any number of B action movies playing out in her imagination, superimposed over the ideological topography of an idealized American take-over scenario metaphysical-jumble-terror-reexamination-plughead Robot! The subject is contextualized into a mode that includes narrativity as a reality. Therefore, the premise of cultural nihilism suggests that the law is part of the collapse of consciousness, but only if David Hasselhoff is a robot; otherwise, narrativity is capable of significance of Kathy's insane ramblings... like mine. Ugh.

Pyscho-babble will be on the rise.

It was 8 years ago I was in Key West celebrating New Years with fellow globe-trotting chum Jon. We slept on a Grayhound bus two nights in a row and rode for 50 hours to get there. When we arrived, we had no place to stay, so we slept on the beach, hoping the cops wouldn't arrest us, which was possible (and likely). When the conch shell dropped from the roof of "Joe's" at the stroke of midnight, the streets exploded into a massive city-wide party of epic proportions that lasted well into the night.

When some people we met dropped us off near the Grayhound station the night before we left, we still had no place to stay, so we slept in what we thought was a ditch. Late that night, a truck came roaring the down the 2-track lane we were sleeping and missed running us over by about 10 feet. We found a white chair in the woods and set it in front of us, hoping any other truckers, out tearing up the 2-track at 3 in the morning, would see it and swerve to miss it. Why we didn't just move out of the road, is still a mystery. Come to think of it, it was probably because we had another 50 hour Grayhound bus ride in front of us and we were hoping for the quick, merciful release that being crushed under a truck would bring.