2011 was an interesting year on a worldwide scale. Osama Bin Laden was killed in a ballsy special forces operation; the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup; Dallas, TX didn't see rain and had temperatures in the triple digits for like a thousand straight days; the crazy weather affected us here in the northeast, which included one of the snowiest winters on record, several tornadoes, a hurricane, and what seemed like endless flooding everywhere. We even felt an earthquake in some locations up here. There was a wedding in England that for some reason millions of people gave a shit about. War operations were finally ended in Iraq and all U.S. troops were removed. I must have been pre-occupied for most of the year, since my entire memory of the year is basically made up in the few sentences above. Shit was wild!
I won't even get into my own personal yearly review, because it will just shock and depress most people. What I will do; however, is make some bold, and not-so-bold, predictions for the upcoming year. I know you could probably google "2012 predictions" and come up with a million different articles or whatever, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to entertain both of my faithful readers with my own version. (It's kind of funny, this site breaks down where people log in from to read my blog, and there are actually people in different countries who, probably by accident, clicked on my page. Some of the countries include, (seriously): Latvia, The Netherlands, Turkey, Malaysia, and India. There have been 24 hits from Russia and 14 from Germany...so thanks to all my international "fans."
Anyways, on to my predictions!
The world will NOT end. Fuck you ancient Mayans! What do you guys know? Who do you think you are, anyways?
The year will have 366 days in it.
My ex-wives will have a no-holds bar, steel cage, pay-per-view battle to the death, ending in what will be forever known as "The Rumble of Vinnie's Bungles."
Peyton Manning will sign with the Colts, be traded to the Washington Redskins for draft picks, and the Colts will draft Andrew Luck.
Brett Favre will subsequently come out of retirement and play for the Colts when Luck suffers a career-ending, karma-pleasing leg injury.
My buddies B-Ride, Merph, Nails, and Slatz will all either get married or engaged, forever ending our hardcore shenanigans and forcing us to resort to "married shenanigans." It will be the equivalent of watching The Hangover on it's network television debut as opposed to watching the unrated version on blue ray.
My brother Joey and my divorced buddy Eazy will subsequently bust their balls, causing undo strain on each relationship and possibly ending at least one marriage.
The Honey Badgers fantasy football team will win the Dynasty '12 league and the second annual Lord Haggard's Cup.
Dick Clark will finally be dragged away from any and all television cameras. The American public will be told that he's been brought to a farm where there are giant fields of television cameras as far as the eye can see and microphones growing out of the ground. A farm where there are barn houses full of dressing rooms and makeup technicians who will spend hours making him look not a day over 97. He'll be happy there.
My girlfriend will punch me in the face. I've never been domestically abused before and I feel like I'm probably asking for it.
The U.S. will make progress towards using our own natural resources such as corn stalks to synthesize fuel and finally move us in a direction to depend less on foreign oil and use a cleaner burning, efficient energy source.
There will be hope to reverse the greenhouse effect, even though we'll still be spun stories of the doom and gloom of worst-case scenarios that we're always given, leading us to believe that the average daily temperature will be somewhere around 112 degrees by the year 2050 or something ridiculous like that. I understand the math behind projections, but I also believe that the human race is smart enough to avoid things getting so bad that we're incapable of fixing things.
AIDS will be completely cured in countries where God hasn't forgotten. Somewhere, Magic Johnson will giggle.
A celebrity or famous athlete will be assassinated by an obsessed fan. (We're due.) A movie will be in the works regarding the entire ordeal within weeks of it going down.
A major earthquake will hit California. (Again, we're due. Sorry California, just playing the odds.)
Jimmy Fallon will finally, mercifully, be cancelled and never be heard from again. There will be no farm for him to go to. In fact, if there's any justice at all, Jimmy Fallon will wake up every day like Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day. Each day will be the same. He'll be the producer of a live sketch comedy show where he'll be in charge of trying to keep the actors from laughing like complete idiot assholes during each and every skit. He'll find it kind of cutesy and amusing the first few times, or when something REALLY funny happens in the context of the skit and a little slip of a giggle is called for. He'll finally be driven insane when each of the actors laughs and/or forgets their line during every skit. He'll eventually lose his own ability to even crack a smile. His agent will try to find a serious movie role for him, but he'll be exposed for the talentless assclown that he is and will spend the rest of his soon to be short ass life immersed in a cloud of depression.
I will either file for, or come very close to filing for bankruptcy.
One of my close friends will accidentally knock somebody up and have to go through unwanted baby drama.
The United States will win the most medals in the summer Olympics in London.
A prominent professional athlete will declare that he is gay and will be thought of as a hero....except in the south.
Someone in Montana will win a $200 million lottery and wind up blowing through most of the lump sum payout that he will surely take, gambling away the rest, killing his wife and marrying a woman 20 years younger than him because she "truly" loves him. He'll generally ruin his life and end up on one of those shows like 48 hour mysteries and leading people to believe that winning the lottery is a bad thing when clearly it's not.
My pro sports predictions using only my heart to choose: Super Bowl Champions, New England Patriots 37-San Fransisco 49ers 24; Stanley Cup Champions, Boston Bruins defeat Chicago Blackhawks 4 games to 1; Boston Celtics defeat Oklahoma City Thunder 4 games to 2; World Series Champions, Boston Red Sox defeat Washington Nationals 4 games to 3.
Now my slightly more realistic yet unequivocally biased predictions because I'm incapable of even intelligently picking against my teams in a forum such as this, as you'll see in a minute: Super Bowl Champions, New England Patriots 28-San Fransisco 49ers 27; Stanley Cup Champions, Boston Bruins defeat Chicago Blackhawks 4 games to 1; Miami Heat defeat Oklahoma City Thunder 4 games to 0; World Series Champions, Washington Nationals defeat Los Angeles Angels 4 games to 2.
Bill Simmons, who has been a columnist for ESPN.com for many years and now has his own website, http://www.grantland.com/; is known as the Boston Sports Guy. I've been reading him since I was a teenager and his columns are ALWAYS excellent. He's very funny and knows his sports, but he also sprinkles in some good stuff about movies and pop culture and other various things. He is obviously a big Boston sports fan, yet he writes for an obviously national sports conglomerate. His Boston bias comes out in his writing, and he doesn't try to hide it, but he is able to actually put his bias aside when writing about sports and express his feelings even about his beloved Boston teams, even if it honestly paints them in a truthfully honest picture, which is why he's paid 7 figures and I write on a free blog to my facebook friends. I'm not able to do it, for some reason. I can't even do it when I really try. Hey, at least I admit it and even had the wherewithal to make 1 outrageous sports prediction and then one slightly less off the charts, full blown biased bullshit prediction. I digress. I strongly recommend you check out Bill Simmons' columns, both his current stuff on Grantland.com, and also his archived columns. There are links to all of his columns on espn.com. He's got great sports stuff but also writes about movies, celebrities and his trips to Vegas with his buddies. Good stuff, very funny.
Mitt Romney will finally be elected President. Our country will continue to lack the leadership it's lacked since the Reagan administration. Our country will remain the greatest in the world in spite of our government and it's politicians, not because of them. The good, hardworking citizens and the individuals who comprise our military will be what make us great. The parents who provide for their children, the teachers and professors who educate our future generations will be what make us great. The firemen and women and police officers and national guard soldiers and coast guard soldiers who keep us safe will be what make us great. The 16 year old kids who bag our groceries and cook our Big Mac's instead of hanging out at the town common smoking cigarettes will be what makes us great. The kids who play sports and do well in school and make their parents proud so that it reminds people why they make themselves good role models and in turn will teach their kids to be good role models in the future will be what makes us great. The people who choose common sense over political correctness will be what makes us great. No doubt; however, come next Christmas season, idiots will stay say "Happy Holidays!" instead of "Merry Christmas!"
Oh well, 2012 is going to be great for Vinny Mac for a couple reasons. The first is that there's no way it could possibly be worse than 2011, at least in it's totality. The more tangible reasons that 2012 will be great for me? My kids will grow another year and I'll be able to experience another year of raising them and watching them grow and learn and having the privilege of helping to shape their lives and experience their continued individual personality traits that continue to come through in each of them. I get along with their mom, which, trust me, is way less stressful than the alternative. I'm starting a new job doing something I love. A guy who works for a publishing company somehow got his hands on my blog and wants me to turn my rants into a book. It smells like bullshit to me, and I doubt I'll have the time or energy to write anything more than the occasional blog entry, but maybe I can at least use it to lie and say I'm a famous writer, no? Lastly, I managed to trick a girl into thinking I'm pretty awesome and fall in love with me, (sucker), which is nice because I'm thinking I kinda dig her too. She's rich, so it's good timing for me financially. I'll basically be able to get as much money out of her as possible before she realizes what an asshole I am, haha! Oh, don't worry, my new publisher friend who I hired with her money assured me that he'd edit this entire last paragraph, so she'll never read any of this. He thought it might be a good idea to write my TRUE feelings from time to time in my blogs. He said something about how it will keep my head fresh or something. Whatever, what harm could it do, right?
Happy 2012 everyone! Especially my beautiful, intelligent, witty new girlfriend, who has an amazing sense of humor and gets me, which isn't an easy thing to do. I love you!
