Rahm Emanuel, Asian Carp and Taste of Chicago: My Predictions for 2011

We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Unless you're Prince Charles or Bob Stern.  I predict . . .

• Rahm Emanuel will be elected mayor and be nice to everyone for at least five minutes.  Then he'll get his hands on the city's budget projections for next year and in the middle of the night send bulldozers to rip "X"'s into Richard M. Daley's Central Station townhome.

• Lady Gaga will call a press conference to announce she's becoming a nun and entering a convent.  She will design her own habit, which will lead to her excommunication by Pope Benedict.

• Asian Carp will be found to have made their way not only into the Shedd Aquarium, but onto the projected constellations at the Adler Planetarium.  

• After finding that their new L cars with forward-facing benches still don't  provide the economies they require, the CTA will convert all rapid transit lines to overhead conveyors belts.  Commuters will place themselves in insulated body bags and hook themselves onto the conveyors to be carried to their stop, which they will stamp on their foreheads in a QR code.

• The Octomom, desperate to return to the spotlight, will give birth to a litter of adorable puppies.

• At an Apple WWDC in June at which Simon Baker is named President of Worldwide Development, Steve Jobs will unveil the iPath, a computer-on-a-chip that will be embedded directly into users' brains and deploy mental telepathy to create a global network.  Jobs immediately orders the removal of USB, Wi-FI, 3G and ethernet from all Apple legacy devices.  Complications ensue when the labs at Consumer Reports discover users have to hold both hands to their head at a precise 41.5 degree angle for the chip to be able to communicate.  14,000,000 people will be recalled so that their heads can be fitted with a special hat that resolves the problem.

• After losing most of its business to cheaper upstarts, Groupon will accept a buyout offer of $1.98 and three sheep from a farmer in Bulgaria.

• Unsuccessful in their attempts to obtain direct state subsidies to renovate Wrigley Field, the Ricketts family will have Michael Madigan pass legislation authorizing them to open three crack houses on Addison.

• Steve Bahlmer announces Microsoft will regain its former dominance with the release of Windows 7 for typewriters.

• Brad will order an angry Angie to "Get Help Now!"  She will then adopt three children with her analyst.  Jen will kidnap Brad in a failed attempt to get him to reveal how to choose better scripts. Shiloh will go to court to emancipate herself from everybody.

• Gigi Pritzker will announce an agreement with the city to build a movie studio in Millennium Park, but it will be OK because it will be for films for kids.

• After having been declared deteriorated beyond repair and overrun with squatters, Walter Jacobson will be demolished.

• John Boehner will weep.

• Mergers will result in just one U.S. airline, which still won't give up its unused gates at O'Hare.

• Taste of Chicago will be privatized.  Tickets will be $5,000.  There will be only four booths, but each will offer 7-course meals from a three-star restaurant, served by indentured taxpayers dressed as butlers.  Free to all will be Da Cleaner, a 300-foot-high inverted roller coaster that will collect loose change,  poorly secured jewelery and ATM PIN numbers from riders to ease the city's budget deficit.

• After a viral campaign on Facebook, Betty White will be named President of the United States for the month of March.

• Fire Department personnel will rescue an alderman stranded on an ice flow.

• Illinois Governor Pat Quinn will propose paying $12 billion in past-due bills with puka shells.

• Just before leaving office, Mayor Richard M. Daley will sign a thousand year lease with Morgan Stanley for the city's air.  Chicago residents will thereafter be able to breath only at metered street kiosks.

• A band of caribou will be taken into custody and charged with a conspiracy to shoot Sarah Palin.

• I'll keep on writing lame posts - just like this one.  Happy New Year!