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"Looking back at 2009, I realize that I really don't want to look back at 2009. It was a sucky year in many ways. My project at BHFT was stressful, and that probably contributed to, if not outright caused, the chronic pain problems that manifested mid-year and ongoing sleep issues. So, I'm not looking at Joyful Reminiscing. (Okay, on the plus side, I did release my first comic book and first book of collected advice columns, and Baby Hz grew into Toddler Hz, who likes visiting with her Uncle Evan. And snottygrrl moved back to Portland. It wasn't a thoroughly wretched year.) Instead of looking back, let's try something new! You know how newspapers like publishing \"The Top News Stories That You Didn't Read About\"* and \"Predictions for the Coming Year!\"**? I'm combining those two concepts into \" Evan's Predictions For The Top Five News Stories of 2010 That You Won't Read About!&trade; \" Here they are, in alphabetical order: 1. Canadian Chaos! The Canadian Civil War will end, splitting the country into five new ones: Nunavut, Quebec, Canada, New Canada, and The Other New Canada. Naturally, all Canadians will know the details of this nuanced political struggle, but if anyone in the US is aware of it, they'll think it has something to do with hockey. 2. Feral Robots! An accident at a secret military laboratory will release a swarm of small experimental robots into the wild (Long Beach, California). They will survive by roaming neighborhoods, scrounging through garbage cans for batteries and other power sources. The military will deny all responsibility, so things will just get worse until a volunteer organization starts trapping the robots and setting their self-replication switches to \"No\" before releasing them. 3. If You Can't Read This, Good! The Neo-Conservatives will identify the greatest threat to their success, and launch an aggressive \"Wipe Out Literacy\" campaign. It will be terrifically successful among those who succumbed to their \"Just Say No To Analytical Thinking\" program. 4. Monarchs of Death! Science goes Horribly Wrong again, and swarms of Africanized Butterflies will escape from a government research facility. They won't bite or sting, but they will spread across North America, fluttering in a very, very aggressive way. 5. We Go Ghost-Free! The Nobel Prize for Paranormal Science will be awarded to a team who definitively proves that ghosts, vampires, werewolves and zombies do not exist. Soon after, Summit Entertainment announces that they will suspend all production of subsequent \"Twilight\" movies, because \"There really isn't any point, then, is there?\" Let's review this list at the end of 2010 and we'll see whether any of these stories didn't make the news. Remember, you didn't read them here, first! * The Willamette Week does this, which is actually quite interesting. They list significant news stories that were either intentionally suppressed by corporate sponsors or stories that were eclipsed by some celebrity scandal. ** The National Enquirer does, but I've noticed that they never have a follow-up article at the end of the year that evaluates how accurate they were. Hmmm."
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