New Years Dreams.

Whelp, a new year is upon us. Well done, welcome to the future. Should be a good year too, I'm looking forward to a few things:

1) US Presidential Elections. Politics gets a reputation for being stuffy and boring, but as the US tumbles towards economic oblivion, basically every politician has gone their own special flavour of mental. Between the sexual harassment revelations, the homophobic sentiments, the complete misunderstanding of economics and John Huntsman's little candidate that couldn't, the Republican party are a cavalcade of laughs from start to finish. Throw in Barack's floundering popularity and his weird attempts to get the red states on side and you enter the realms of full blown political surrealism. Jokes aside, if the wrong dude (yes dude, Bachmann won't get in) wins the top spot, we could see some pretty messed up shit happening in the states and globally, but frankly it's all far too funny for me to be legitimately worried.

2) The End Of The World. Just kidding, the world isn't ending, but honestly, I can't wait for the mythical date to come. My prediction? No-one will learn anything from this, cranks will continue to be cranks and believe any stupid shit they like and I'll remain as, if not more, smugly superior than I am already.

3) The collapse of the music industry. Now, this is a big call, but the timing and spirit of the times seems perfect for this to happen. My prediction is that a number of bands, following in the lead of the Djent movement but from lots of different types of music, electronic, folk, rock, pop... basically any subgroup of "popular" you can imagine, will begin to self-produce and distribute their music and merchandise via the tubes, sidestepping the industry bigwigs. Technology and online self promotion, coupled with real world touring and merch sales will prove more lucrative than traditional methods of distribution and more bands will follow their leads until the "industry" as it exists now will collapse. This will be a slow process that will require a fair bit of sacrifice and self belief from some dedicated bands or individuals, but it's definitely within reach, now more than ever.

4) The Avengers movie. I haven't seen Edward Norton's Hulk, but I've heard good things about it. Add in the excellent Iron Man movies, the silly but still fun Thor and the surprisingly brilliant Captain America and the ingredients seem good enough individually. Cap' in particular was more than just a superhero movie but a legitimately well written and made piece of cinema, with Chris Evans' performance worth note. It would have been easy to make Cap' a dislikeably preachy Lawful-Good type, but between the writing and Evans' performance, he is instead made into a principled and complex character who, having seen and experienced the disgusting and cowardly actions of those with strength or power abusing those without, internalises those lessons and tries to make the world a better place when he is gifted with his abilities. Granted, the action scenes are gonna rule, but what I'm really looking forward to is the character interaction, particularly between Tony Stark and Thor and/or Steve Rogers.
Stark is an arrogant, largely self serving jackass whose vast intelligence lets him back up his huge ego. Indeed, when you think about it, after escaping from capture (this is the film Stark, by the way), there was no reason for him to make a new Iron Man suit. He just did it to prove he could and to lord it over anyone that couldn't. Steve Rogers is a humble, selfless hero who dislikes bullies and thugs, although lamentably his intelligence is that of an average guy from the 50's. As such, it makes sense for the Stark character to poke and prod Rogers, just to be a dick. Will make for excellent viewing. The similarly meatheaded Thor will probably receive the same treatment. Can't wait.

Other than those, standard dreams and hopes: lose some weight, have fun, maybe meet a pleasant lady, who knows. I'm still not a hopeless drug addict yet, so it's looking good.