It seems like just yesterday that the future was a place you wanted to be.  A marvelous tomorrow-land where all disease and inconvenience would be banished to museums and the third world. Yes, the tomorrow of our forefathers was a marvelous place, a perfect society were families would gather around the touch-screen and dig into nutrient hampers laden with Pseudo-Turkey®, AlmostCorn©, and Valeriatatos™. Mother and Father would look on with pride as Brother Billy and Sister Suzy chattered about all they were learning at Lazer Tag Academy. Suzy would ask for a new jet-pack, Billy would want gene splice so he could go out for the Rollerball team, and Father would say, “Well if you kids get good grades in telekinesis and electric guitar, there might be something under the Festivus Pole.” Then after supper, the future family would give Grampa and Gramma a call, just to see how they were doing in digital post-life. It was a hypothetical golden age.

Sadly, that gleaming future was based on ever escalating real estate values and free money. Now it turns out that our homes are worth slightly less than the copper wiring inside them, “free money” was just a playful euphemism for exploding balloon payments, and, worst of all, it’s cold outside and we’re running out of tires to burn. It seems that our todays have become somewhat dusky and our tomorrows are downright dark, uncertain, and zombie infested. Now I know what you’re thinking: “So long as I have jet packs and Lazer Tag based higher education I needn’t worry about a few shambling zombies.” Well I hate to break it to you, but there will be no jet packs, no handheld lasers (outside of supermarket checkout lines), and the zombies are going to be the fast, sneaky kind. It’s sad to say, but it now seems that we’ll be skipping down time’s winding way on a trail of broken glass, our eyes blinded by the shattered electricity of purposeless Detroit welding robots, and our ears crushed by the hypnotic obscenity of European club music.

So, how are you going to survive the coming dark days? Are you prepared to live in a world that is metaphorically cold and hard while actually being rather hot, dusty, and full of angry, overheated polar bears? If you are reading this blog, then the answer is a definitive “no.” Fortunately for you, cherished reader, I have some court mandated community service to discharge (as if it’s my fault those chimps can’t hold their liquor) and apparently public service announcements count. So in the interest of not picking up roadside litter, I have taken some of my valuable time to create this easy to use timeline cataloging a few psychohistorically determined future cataclysms and how to survive them. Enjoy, and stock up on canned goods and ammunition.

2012: Mark your apocalyptic day planners, because in 2012 the scat will really begin to hit the fan. Chelsea Clinton, in unconscious repudiation of her father, will marry a man who suffers from sterility and impotence. This will lead her to a fertility clinic were she will be impregnated with the seed of a down and out Kennedy by-blow. The unholy union of these two presidential lines will lead to a long-term spike in both the sex industry and starlet suicide. Coincidently, a gateway to hell will open in the Lincoln Tunnel.
What to do? Invest in water wings or risk drowning in a flood angel tears.

2020: Four years of peace and prosperity cause a complacent American public to elect Vin Diesel president of the United States. At first it is seen as triumph for bald America, then Diesel is sworn in and it becomes an embarrassment for bald America. The Diesel’s administration is marked by a series of potentially world ending events that only a cold-eyed cynic with a high capacity for violence and a secretly sentimental heart can stop.
What to do? This would be a good time to take a sabbatical in a country with no indoor plumbing; the Diesel likes his three-ply.

2032: Disney opens a gated community on the moon and the earth is blessed with a shortage of doughy white people. Reagan National Airport is converted into the Diesel Happy Time Reeducation and Weight Loss Center.
What To Do? Brush up on your slogan shouting; open a store specializing in football equipment and bondage tackle.

2046: The Philadelphia Eagles lead Berkley Cyclotrons 42-7 halfway through the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XXC. Sadly, the NFL folds before the game can be completed, the Lombardi trophy is sold for scrap, and the stadium is immediately converted into a venue for ThunderDome cage matches and electric kazoo orchestras.
What to do? Obtain the following: malt liquor, Oreo cookies, and a snuggie. Try not to cry

2059: Efforts to combat global warming result in a nuclear winter and the freezing of the Bearing Sea. Despite the warnings of Governor-for-life Palin, hordes of Mongolian horse warriors cross from Russia to Alaska uncontested and commence an invasion of the lower 48.
What to do? Stay on the east coast, it’s expected that the heartland will turn the lean, ravaging horde into a plump, disinterested mass.

2066: Receiving Me? becomes a popular and profitable website.  In an unrelated story, NYC commuters notice a frigid draft in the Lincoln Tunnel.
What to do? Get ahead of the curve and start telling your friends about the awesomeness that is Receiving Me?