Top 10 things you hear/say on a diet.

So the new year is past with all of it's requisite resolutions. yay. I was going to do top 10 resolutions for new years but everyone knows that losing weight is usually on the list and the rest of the resolutions you have just fall by the wayside and I wasn't in the mood. But having been on a few diets myself, I've come to realize that there are words and phrases that you become attuned to when you are on a diet that you don't really care about when you aren't.

As an added bonus, I will tell you my fool proof method for losing weight. It works every time I do it. Of course when I go on vacation or the holidays show up or something, I go off of my diet and then i gain my weight back. At current tally I am approximately 15 lbs overweight. I say approximately because I haven't weighed myself because I don't really want to know. I hope against hope that maybe I am losing weight just because of my overall healthy lifestyle of working in an office where I barely move to type on my keyboard and eating junk food as it makes itself available. The method is this: Diet and Exercise. I wish there was another way, but there isn't. Which sucks. All of the other 'easy' diets just want to take your money, not your fat. Here is what you do. You look up how many calories it takes to maintain your current weight. Then you eat less than those calories by a few hundred every day. Of course in order to do this, you have to chart your diet every stinking day. The good news is, once you have put yourself on this regimen for 3 days or so, it becomes pretty natural and you can do it as long as something doesn't disrupt your habits. Anyway, here are the things you will hear, once you go on your diet.


10. - I can only eat that much?! - This is not something you hear as much as it is what is going through your head for the first week or so. When you eat whatever you want, you tend to go just a little beyond what you are actually hungry for. This is the problem. When I was young, I would stop eating as soon as I wasn't hungry. But when I was young I was amused by many and myriad events in my life that would keep me much more interested than stupid food. Now however, I find that food is as interesting as nearly anything else in my life. So when I look at the portion of food that equals say 500 calories, I start taking very small bites and try to savor all 5 of them and dream of days when a plate of nachos was a warm up not a day.

9. - Oh, you don't need to go on a diet! - This is told to you by people that really don't want you to go on a diet for their own selfish reasons. They are afraid that you will be able to succeed where they have failed time and time again, and we all know that misery loves company and you successfully going on your diet means one less person at the Hagen Daz Pitty party.









8. - I'd better not - This forbearance is what you will say time and time again. Your friends will 'forget' that you are on a diet, or with full knowledge offer you things that will use all of your available calories for the day in two bites. So you say the above and watch as the object of your culinary affections retreats into the gaping maw of one of your other friends. Your friends do not realize just how difficult it is for you to say that so the next time you do, pat yourself on the back and say 'great job' from me to you.












7. - Filling - You actually notice foods that are supposed to be more filling. you realize that eating as many calories as you should be eating, you end up feeling pretty empty pretty soon. You want something that is good for you, but will stick to your ribs, and perhaps have a taste that is somewhat better than cardboard. In the end you will settle for the first 2 options. If it will get you through the day without feeling like you've traded in your stomach for a black hole you are all for it.






6. - Hmmmm..That's not bad. - My Lilly white butt. Everything you eat that says 'diet' will have a flavor of sorts that will imitate actual food. Almost by reflex when you taste these things you will say it. Everyone knows that there is only one thing you say when you really think something is tasty. it's MMMMMMMMMMM because your mouth is full of tasty food. mmmmmm...tasty.








5. - Fat/Sugar Free - You start picking through all of the food offerings in the 'diet' section of your grocery store and when you find one that says sugar free or fat free you cling to it like a life preserver off of the Titanic. Unfortunately about 2 weeks later as you find that you haven't lost so much as an ounce do you actually look at the label that has the ingredients/servings/calories etc. WAIT A MINUTE!!! you mean to tell me this has only 20 fewer calories than it's fat included counterpart?! how can this be?!? Sugar free is not much better? CRAP What is going on?!? Food companies know that dieters are nothing if not desperate, especially at first. So they package their food smaller and call it diet. Yes, of course there are exceptions and food that is actually much lower in calorie, but that is an exception not a rule.



4. - Always leave a little bit on your plate - Thanks mom. This and many other pithy little bon mots that cross your mothers lips about weight loss are crafted from years and years of guilt and betrayal brought on by that demon dieting. Your mother has fought this fight most of her natural life and would love it if you didn't have to fight the same way. So when she sees the signs of the path she has trodden i.e. the demanding you get your moneys worth at the all you can eat buffet by returning for a triumphant 5th time. She feels like doing the motherly thing and intervening. Or in the case of daughter in laws she possibly does it because she is feeling catty.









3. - Miracle - This little adjective is dangled in front of nearly any diet out there that claims to be so easy the pounds will 'melt away'. This word should be avoided along with words like Medical Breakthrough and The Secret someone doesn't want you to know. It's all the same. It's code for 'I think you are not only fat, but probably stupid. Please give me your money, and I'll give you hope for a little while' Hmmm...Trade money for hope. Why does that sound familiar?






2. - Decadent/Sinful - These are special words to dieters because they ONLY describe diet food. Usually dessert, but sometimes main courses if they include a creamed sauce or cheese. I've never seen the words Decadent or Sinful used in any dish that did not include chocolate (which by last canon is not yet a sin) unless it was diet and decidedly NEITHER decadent nor sinful. Once again those pesky marketers are telling you what you want to hear and hoping desperately that you buy at least their product if not their ideas. I don't believe you will be begging for absolution for that 2nd helping of vegetable ravioli you ate.




1. - I've gotten to where I don't even like sugar - Of course you don't. sheesh. I believe that this phrase is what inspired the immortal Bard to pen the phrase 'methinks thou doest protest too much'. Sure it's not really protesting, but the thought is the same. If we can't fool anyone else, at least we can fool ourselves. This oldy but goodie gets repeated when Dieters are feeling particularly self righteous about the fact that they lost 2 lbs (only 43 to go). They proclaim for all the world to hear that they have transcended the earthly lusts and pleasures of this mortal existence and traded them all for whole grain cookies that would make the very elect of God wretch in disgust.


I hope that if you aren't the weight you want to be that you are at least happy with the weight you are. Life is too short. See you in about 2 weeks give or take.

p.s. To all those folks on Weight Watchers. Yes, yes, yes, I know weight watchers is the only plan proven to work ASIDE FROM DIET AND EXERCISE. I also know that it's the same thing only you've traded in your calories for points. Whatever motivates you is great by me.

Top 10 methods of divining the future.

Bored bored bored, that's what I am... Bored. Christmas is over and what do I have to look forward too? Valentines day?! A sucker holiday at best, at worst a day of obligatory amore...the best kind. What to do when you are this bored? I know...

The future!!! Who doesn't love the future? Why? Because it might be better than what we've got now, yet it might be worse. Whatever it is, it will be different. We hope. Nobody ever pays a psychic to tell them that everything will be exactly the same 3 months from now. Yet here we are. 3 months ago the only thing different for me was that it was 2008 and Christmas hadn't happened yet. Now, I've got longer hair, and Christmas is over and that's about it. A psychic would NEVER have told me that. They would have told me about tall dark strangers, or money that would be coming my way or some near death experience I should try to avoid. Whatever it is, the Psychic will make the future sound very different than your now. I've tried my hand at future telling and for whatever reason I have am fairly adept at it, this leads me to believe that anyone can do it given a chance. Of course I'm sure I can't hold a candle to the pro's but I never ask for money so I got that going for me. Anyhoo, here are my top 10 methods of divining the future. See which one you like and give it a whirl. Or keep away from it at all costs because only the Devil would dare tempt you with visions of the future. Either way...

10. Ouja Board/Medium - a Medium is anything that helps the transmission of something else. In the case of Spiritualism, a Medium is someone that helps convey communication to those that have departed (like dead people, not people that have flown to Cleveland, though there is still some debate). If you don't have a Medium around, you could always use a Ouija board. The Ouija is actually two words put together. Oui which is french for yes (so THATS what it meant) and Ja which is a few germanic languages for yes. So if you are Swiss (They speak both French and German) it means yes yes. For everyone else it means Wee-Gee. Not to be confused with the Bee-Gee's who could not tell the future at all. This is obvious because they hitched their wagon to disco's star. When I was growing up, there was no single tool that was a hotline to Beelzebub like the Ouija board. My dad had some GREAT yarns he would spin about the dangers of contacting spirits with it. He mentioned 2 guys and a girl that went to a 'haunted' house with a ouija board. One of the guys ended up dead, the other went crazy and the girl became mute after the experience. I don't think the movies made a better story. By the by, if you want to watch a really crappy movie about the Ouija board, give Witchboard a whirl, it sucks. Here's how it works: First you get a few friends. hopefully boy girl pairings if you want to make out afterward or however your Ouija swings. Then you each put a hand on a triangular device called a planchette. If you saw one today you would call it a cursor because it is a triangle shaped platform that rests on 3 small posts and looks very much like the arrow on your computer screen. The planchette rests and points on a board with the alphabet, numbers, a yes and no, and then some other random spooky stuff to make sure you get in the 'spirit' of it all. Now that you are all touching the planchette, you ask a question. something creepy like 'is anyone out there?' at which point the planchette will mysteriously glide over and point to YES. It's a creepy fun carnival ride at that point. You just keep asking questions and the spirit or demon on the other side will keep answering them for you. Eventually you will start asking questions about the future, it's an inevitability. You MUST have 2 or more players to do this, and 4 is optimal. Neat thing is, since all of you are subconsciously pushing the planchette to the answers you all think are likely, you will get a kind of creepy feeling as it starts moving on it's own. In the movies, it WILL move on it's own.

9. Crystal Ball - Crystallomancy is among my earliest memories of anything supernatural or other worldly. I remember it was Donald Duck in a turban hat that was making zapping gestures towards a crystal ball. The idea is that you gaze into the ball and you will see the future. People that do this are many times called seers by definition. So the Seer looks into the ball you ask the Seer a question. The Seer mysteriously repeats your question and gazes with a dead fish kind of look into the crystal ball. Then in a voice that will be a little different from their 'hello how are you' voice, the Seer will tell you the future concerning your question. There are actually books on how to do this. How many pages could you really fill on the fine art of staring dumbly into a glass ball? Apparently if you can make it through one of these books, you are qualified to charge money for the ability. This is one method that you will rarely see anywhere but the movies, or for a nominal fee to prove to the spirits you have no ties to mammon.

8. Tea Leaves - Tasseography is an interesting one. it ranks among many methods of fortune telling that involves the random placement of items after using or consuming something else. Killing a cow or goat and reading the markings left by the entrails is popular in some countries. Of course it is all the same thing so we'll stick with the tea. Reading Tea leaves is usually done by the wacky aunt or grandma in the family and will do it suddenly and without provocation. It's a real favorite among the quilting bee crowd. It requires that you drink tea that is unbagged or strained so the tea leaves are still floating around your cup like little bits of swiss chard. Once you have chug-a-lugged your tea whats left should be shaken out onto your saucer. The reader then looks at the shapes the leaves create and lets their mind wanter to the events the tea leaves portend. Once you have a few things in mind that seem to vaguely resemble the tea chunks, you start going on about future loves and future disappointments etc. This method is typically done by women for women. You don't see anyone trying to read the beer foam.

7. History Channel - These guys are the guiltiest culprits, and they do it for more money than all the other methods combined. Any given week the history channel will ply you with horrific visions of a future destruction of the earth or a continent or a people by way of one or another tragedy. Why do they show these shows so often? because they put butts in the seats. No two ways about it, people love hearing about future tragic events. If you are up late one night and wander into the History Channels sinister web of divination through science you will leave shaking and praying for sleep or death, but usually sleep.





6. Astrology - the actual practice is Astromancy when you are dealing with the future. The idea is this 'So in the heavens, So on the earth' So by looking up in the sky and by certain points you should be able to divine the future based on the positioning of various celestial bodies. This practice appears to take the most work and practice in order to perfect. You may have to actually throw some science in there just to make it look good. There are many different versions of astrology so we will stick with the Western model because I am most familiar with that. Each month of the year is roughly controlled by a specific sign of the Zodiac. These signs and their relative position to the earth when you were born allows the educated (?) to create a horoscope. This horoscope will tell you what your life will be like based on what the stars will look like in the future. We know what one will be so we will know what the other will be as well. Makes sense right? Astrology is probably the most widely followed form of fortune telling that we have. It's in the newspaper, it's all over the internet. You could buy those little star scrolls at the end cap of the grocery store. I'm a Cancer by the way. So according to my sign I am easily flattered. Man that is so true. I'm a believer now.

5. Runes/Bones/I-ching - A fun method of divination that requires throwing things in a random fashion. Runes are old Germanic symbols that have different meanings. They were originally etched on stones (24 of em) and there is no longer original significance to the symbols but they are derived from a combination of I-ching and Astrology. So basically it's funny characters on rocks that people forgot the meanings of. That leaves it wide open. I-Ching on the other hand has a WEALTH of information printed about it. It is not just based on the individual meanings of the various Hexagrams, but also has different methods of casting the same thing. basically there are 2 sets of 3 lines that make a total of 6 lines. 3 coins are flipped to indicate each line and then flipped again for the second set. Once you have that you have your answer. There are loads of websites and books devoted to this one. Bones on the other hand are chucked and whatever direction the bones point will indicate their disposition. same basic idea. they either fall up and down, left and right or diagonal. Each bone should be different and mean something different so you get some real flavor to your reading. All in all, these things are the same. Chuck some junk at random and then see where it falls. Maybe there is an art to reading cigarette butts. After all, life is very random, isn't it?

4. Palmistry - Chiromancy is just what it seems like. Look at the lines in the hand and it tells a story that has an ending. This one goes back to Hindu Astrology and has some very promising books lending near credence to this 'art'. Each of the lines made by the constant flexing of the fingers and thumb on the hand tell a different aspect of your life. Life line is usually as far as people go in their knowledge of this arcane practice. But there are actually 7 lines. Life, head, heart, girdle, sun, mercury and FATE. This kind of thing is very similar to Face reading or even Phrenology (bumps on your head). The best thing about palmistry is if a cute girl wanted to read your palm in high school, suddenly you became a willing skeptic hoping she could convince you as she held your hand.






3. Magic 8 ball - Do not doubt the power of the Magic 8 Ball. It's dark purple fluid all but obfuscating the light purple letters from appearing. While not a certain science it was certainly as accurate as any of the other methods and only cost about 8 bucks. The Magic 8 ball looses some of it's punch if you shake it up too much and there are too many bubbles inside the magic fluid. So like many things, shake it gently for best results. 20 different results on the magic 8 ball were MORE than enough to tell your future both immediate and long turn. the Magic 8 ball had ties to mystic sources as referenced by 'my sources say no' but it was not always tuned into these sources as you would receive 'reply hazy, try again' and sometimes the 8 ball would know better than to tell you because of the harm it might cause with 'Better not tell you now' oh the wisdom of this large plastic globe. the best thing about the Magic 8 ball was you quickly learned that you need to ask 'positive' questions. like 'Will I win the Lottery' because 10 of the 20 answers were yes with 5 being no and 5 being maybe. I always wondered if there was grapejuice in there or what. ... DO NOT DOUBT THE 8 BALL!!!

2. Tarot - This method I have the most experience with. I was told by a religious leader in my youth that fortune telling cards were 'tools of the devil' I prefer to call them bits of color on cardboard. It's where I realized that the magic is in the teller not in the cards. With great trepidation and some attraction to the mystery, I procured my first Tarot Deck when I was a lad of 17 and Disneyland. I told my first fortunes at school to RAVE reviews. Sure I know what they mean and how they fit, but the truth is, it's how you work them together that makes them convincing. Lets see, first there are the major arcana, these are the big shot cards that you see in the movies. cards like The Tower, and the Lovers and Death that all have big significance and can't be downplayed in the least. These cards when they show up usually are accompanied by some kind of dramatic music or at least a thunder clap. The minor arcana on the other hand are just 4 suits of cards of 14 cards each. the 4 suits were Swords, Wands, Pentacles, and Cups. If you use very little imagination those suits will turn into Spades, Clubs, Diamonds and Hearts quite easily. They are fun to look at and quite fun to tell fortunes with. The person who is getting the fortune told should shuffle until the cards feel 'comfortable' after which the reader will lay them out one by one in one of many different positions depending on the question and the reader. Then you tell the fortune. If your doing it right both you and they are amazed.

1. Casting Tin - I saved this one for last because it's obscure but still my favorite. When I was a kid I desperately wanted to believe in fortune telling and luck and anything else mystical. When I spent one Christmas in Finland with my mom's family they had a very peculiar new years tradition that involved melting tin on the sauna rocks and then dropping the molten tin into a bucket of water. These days the metal is lead. I'm sure because it melts at a lower temperature and is cheaper. You purchased tin shaped in horse shoes, or lucky stars or any number of other lucky shapes. Each person got a blob of melted tin that could look like anything. If it was smooth and ripply it meant there was money in your future that year, if there were pits in it I think it meant work. If it was just a bunch of random chunks it was BAD luck, so you wanted to make sure and pour the molten tin all at once, don't dribble it in. I remember the first tin blob I got looked like a horse, but the beauty was, it looked like anything you wanted it to. Like all fortune telling, it really depends on the person getting their fortunes told. If they want to believe, they will see the alignment of what was said or shown to what happens in their daily lives. I wish I would have kept some of those tin casts, but they have long since disappeared and if they were really made of lead, maybe it's just as well I'm dumb enough without help.

Hope you all have a fortunate new year with many good things happening to you. I think you probably deserve it.

Top 10 ways the earth will end

Well, it's getting closer, 2012. Yep, December 21, 2012 to be exact. The time of the solstice alignment as well as the alignment of the milky way with the center of our sun and vice versa. Everyone knows that when you align a lot of things something terrible will happen. Remember what happened when you built that long line of dominoes that you aligned perfectly in your kitchen? That's right some bone-head, maybe even you, tumbled a domino and watched them all fall like countries in Asia to communism. Well, since we don't have the millinium or Y2K (what a BUST) to worry about any more we have to have something that will prick our collective conscience and keep us fearing things that we can't control. Since the economy is WELL within our ability to fix, we really need something else to look forward to with dread and fear. Thank goodness the world will end so we can worry about that. Now it's no mystery that the world will end. Even more specifically, Human existence will probably not outlast the earth although we have the best chance what with our limited reasoning ability and all. The other constant we have is that it will happen in the future. So as long as it doesn't happen today, there is something to talk about. There isn't much difference between the humans on earth being wiped out and the earth itself drawing to a fitful close so this will cover a little of both. Just in case you've run out of appocolyptic ice breakers. Here are my top 10 ways the earth will end.

10. Giant Meteor - Yup, a big rock from the sky comes hurtling towards the earth at terrific speeds. They say one about a mile around is enough to turn the whole planet into a giant dust bowl. For a long time they thought that a giant meteor is what caused the ice age that killed the dinosaurs. Some still do. The giant cloud of dust and debris that is supposed to get kicked up will cover the whole earth in a cloud and not allow the sun to get in and therefore it will kill all the vegetation and make a new ice age right away. We'll be giving our eye teeth for some good old fashioned global warming at that point.




9. Flu - No this won't kill the earth, but it could kill the humans on it. Every year we get a bunch of new strains of bird flu. Why bird do you ask? because it passes from birds to other animals and eventually to us. Every year we get our flu shots to keep us from getting sick. Now those of you that think you can get the flu from those shots are just as stupid as the ones that think that just because you got the shots means you can't get the flu. Flu vaccines take the form of several of the most probable strains of flu, take the dead cells of flu and give them to you. your white blood cells take a picture of these dead cells and say 'hmmm, next time i see these gang bangers in my town, I'll take em out like Clint Eastwood on Geritol' and that's what happens. Of course the problem comes when the flu that comes to town is the one that the scientists didn't pick. It's a real crap shoot. The good news is, the more shots you get the more flu's you are learning to defend yourself from so go ahead and get your shots.

8. Super Volcano - They had to call it a SUPER volcano because we have all seen a few volcanoes in our life time and quite frankly they aren't THAT big a deal. sure they spew some ash around and yeah they make rumbling sounds and belch out all manner of noxious gasses, big deal, so did my dad. So we all agree to stay away from what's left of Mt. St. Hellens and we'll all be safe. What's that?! a SUPER volcano? Son of a...I don't know WHAT we would do in the face of a SUPER volcano. I assume that SUPER is to volcano as SUPER is to man. So a SUPER volcano would have extra heat vision and could fly but was really mean and wanted to kill everyone. They say that the Yellowstone National park is the home of a giant caldera which is an underground bowl of water. This water sits atop a particularly thin piece of the earths crust and provides the perfect gateway for the earth to pop off with a HUGE eruption. They say that within 3 months the whole of life on earth is gone. Of course that won't touch the government officials that are hidden away in their tax payer funded emergency bunker with enough provisions to keep them alive for several years under ground. With nobody to tax or to piss off wouldn't they just cease to exist?

7. Nuclear Holocaust - MAD or Mutually assured destruction. That's the idea that was keeping us safe for 20 years or so after a couple of the big countries of the world got nuclear war heads. The concept played out like this; since both countries had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the earth several times over, nobody would be fool enough to use them because then the whole world would be destroyed and NOBODY would be dumb enough to commit suicide. Surely you would have to be an absolute flaming idiot to think about suicide on that scale. Imagine. committing suicide in such a way as to take as many people with you as you possibly could. Preposterous! Never happen. Not in a million years. Of course the only thing more outlandish than that is the idea that if we all took down our nuclear warheads then we would all be happy and peaceful together. The truth is, nuclear weapons only guarantees one thing. if you beat a country down enough that has nuclear weapons they will use them. I'm pretty sure we are capable of wiping ourselves out on this scale, but I think we are also capable of a really good snack food that isn't fattening and we havne't seen that happen yet either.

6. God has finally had enough - Now some people would say that any of the other methods for ending humanity would also qualify for this. In this specific instance, I'm addressing all of the worlds different religions. You see, that's one of the ingredients of a successful religion is an end game. It's the end of the earth that is one of the big benefits of choosing the 'right' religion and win God's favor when he decides to really shake up this snow globe. Those that are correct will usually either be protected, or have a way out as God rains down judgements on the rest of those people and Democrats that have bahaved wrongly in his sight. This is the one end of earth scenario that has most religious folk of any stripe looking forward to 2012 because they all assume they are right. How will it end when God put's his foot down? Depends on your religion. Here's a hint, if the earth is ending in a way you didn't expect, then you bet on the wrong horse, or horsemen as the case may be.

5. Ice age - We've seen so many different reasons that the earth will plunge into another ice age that is seems pretty inevitable. Our species has actually survived a prior ice age or 2, but the REAL ice age will kill us. If we only would have listened to Ed Begley Junior we could have avoided it. Actually I give kudos to Ed. He's one of the few Hollywood folks that actually puts his money where his mouth is. solar panels, electric car, you name it. if it's giving him a smaller carbon foot print, he's doing it. Now what about the rest of youse ham fisted glamouristas of hollywood boulevard? Yeah, that's what I thought. Anyway, there are lots of ways the Ice age could happen. one is blocking the sun, but the other is from the oceanic currents shifting. The oceans are like a big swamp cooler moving cold water down and warm water up to the poles keeping the whole earth nice and temperate. Unfotunately that current is powered by salt water. if there isn't enough salt in the water, the current stops moving the water around on the earth and THAT's what makes up a good old fashioned ICE AGE. Since the polar caps are made up of fresh water, and that fresh water is melting into the oceans at an alarming rate, it's an eventuality that an ice age will happen and kill us all. Well ok, we probably won't be wiped out, but I'll bet the price of hand warmers jumps dramatically!

4. Solar Flares - Really really big solar flares. The kind that will jump off the sun and wipe out little itty bitty earth. That's what they say anyway. The sun has been having some weird behaviors as of late and that is manifest in sun spots and solar flares. We are bombarded with these particles all the time, but they are increasing in intensity. Some scientists believe that the sun will just whip out a big old solar flare and crisp us all in a heart beat. I don't want to die burning alive, it sounds uncomfortable.












3. Aliens - I've always believed that if there were such a thing as aliens they wouldn't be here to give us grand technologies that will make our lives easier, but rather they would be here to make sure we taste good in their pet food and that our water is still relatively clean before that come back to take over. Don't let any movies about our military strength in the face of aliens fool you. If they can get to here from even the closest galaxy, they have WAY better technology than we do. Of course we probably have better TV, so maybe they will keep us alive. Then again, Simon Cowell might have been mistaken as a hostile act upon the universe and we were wiped out for the good of all existence. Maybe we can give them Clay Aiken as a peace offering. He's one of them?! wow...I guess it all makes sense.

2. Black hole - Remember that giant super collider that shut itself off a few months ago? It was supposed to make black holes that we could study. Kind of like an ant farm of extreme gravity. of course these black holes were so small that nothing would happen as a result of making them except for watching a whole lot of money and a whole lot of energy get burned up in a relatively short period of time. But in that time, scientists believe that they can figure out how the universe started. I was wondering how that all happened. Well, like any good science, it will go horribly wrong ala Godzilla and the black hole will feed on it's surroundings and suck us all up until we are all sitting in it's black hole tummy and wondering what in the world were we thinking?








1. Cosmic shock wave - My favorite one and my true hope for the end of days. The idea is that all around us there are stars and galaxies exploding into existence. Well that energy has to go somewhere! and it does. in an ever expanding arc around the fledgling galaxy a shock wave full of the power of several suns will hit the earth and literally vaporize us. POOF. The nice thing is that we can all go together. Nobody has to miss anyone and nobody has to be left to read all those books with a pair of broken glasses. It might be fun to have about a week's notice as we witness Pluto (the asteroid) get demolished from seemingly nothing. Then we could have news coverage as each following planet breaks apart into chaos as the wave closes in on us. Those crazy people with the signs that say 'the end is near' will finally be right, but they won't have a lot of time to say I told you so.

I figure that by 2012 I will probably have run out of lists anyway.

Thanks for reading!