The year to come

With 2005 winding down to a close, we need to start thinking about the year to come. What will 2006 hold for us? Will it be better than 2005? Worse?\nI don't like to brag, but I'm a fair hand with a crystal ball. If you don't like spoilers, stop reading now. But if you're like me, and aren't above a little peek at what's around the corner, here's a bit of what to expect:\n• Following the recent rapprochement between Oprah Winfrey and David Letterman (The Associated Press, Thursday), celebrations carry on into 2006. In February, Oprah will decide to officially commemorate the event by shipping thousands of new cars to her loyal viewers. Letterman will follow suit, shipping tens of canned hams to his own.\n• Jan. 3: First Impressions of Earth, the next album by garage rockers The Strokes, hits stores. Fan speculation as to whether the band can live up to its 2001 debut, Is This It, is finally resolved. \nJan. 4: Enthusiasm wanes as fans discover software on the Sony-produced CDs burns your house down if it suspects you might be thinking about copying music.\n• In line with the resolution approved by IU-Bloomington's faculty (Chronicle of Higher Education, Friday), the IU trustees prepare a midterm review of President Adam Herbert, prompting Herbert to finally sit down to read all the stuff on the syllabus and look up when the trustees hold office hours.\n• Media-stoked fears of a possible avian flu epidemic lead to a mad rush for Roche Products' flu-prevention drug Tamiflu. Demand reaches its zenith when members of the long-active Sri Lankan terrorist group, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (aka The "Tamil Tigers"), issue a public plea for folks to learn how to use a damned phonebook. And quit leaving messages on their machines.\n• In April, Dunn Meadow plays host to IUB's first annual Renaissance Fair (Indiana Daily Student, Friday). Finally, I get to wear pantaloons and eat a leg of mutton in class without you people looking at me funny.\n• The recent punch-up between members of rap-metal band 311 and former Creed frontman Scott Stapp (AP, Friday) triggers a complex system of secret alliances, dragging Nickelback, Hoobastank, Staind, Third Eye Blind, The Bloodhound Gang, P.O.D., Insane Clown Posse, Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst into the conflict. The unprecedented carnage quickly leads all sides to take cover in 8-foot-deep trenches and prepare for a war of attrition. Peace resumes when music lovers, seizing their opportunity, have the trenches filled in.\n• Campaign fever returns as America gears up for the November 2006 midterm elections. Pollsters, columnists, television pundits and political scientists launch into the full spirit of things, making deep, profound predictions about the elections' impact. In a new record best, these predictions hold mostly true all the way into the third week of January 2007. Meanwhile, the rest of America's citizens ignore the whole thing -- busy as they are with their new cars and canned hams.\nSo, there you have it: 2006. Guaranteed 100 percent accurate or my name isn't Nostradamus D. Kreskin. Which it, of course, totally is.