Four Island

Guys! It's me again! I know I haven't been posting too frequently lately---for that, I apologize. I'd cite reasons, but they're the sort of reasons that would require me to kill you if you learned of them. It's okay, just chill. Anyway, you know what time it is? That's right: it's time once again for my annual random predictions! I liked them so much in 2008 and 2010 (and besides, 2009's 2010 In Song was a disaster of sad proportions), so, you know, they've now become law. Bring on the predictions!

Actually, before we bring on the predictions, let's first take a short look at last year's predictions and see if any of them actually took place. You wouldn't expect it, but it actually looks like a few of them did, depending of how much of each prediction you take seriously. This year, my router did break (though it did not explode and Four Island certainly didn't have a popularity spike) and I did end up replacing it with my Time Capsule, though that didn't actually happen until April 24th. iOS 4.3 did in fact come out (kind of a no-brainer, really), but it didn't sport the fantastic features I hoped it would and it actually came out a month and a day later than I said it would. This one's pretty freaky: I predicted that the iPad 2 (which did not end up being named after a feminine hygiene product) would be announced on the day after it actually ended up being announced. So close! :P I also had IANA run out of IP address blocks a little later than they actually did: the event (and associated awesome ceremony) in fact occurred on February 3rd. Next, we skip forward a few months and we see that I in fact did get a MacBook Pro, just on the day after I predicted. So close, yet again! There was no kerosene on my server, though. Phew. July 29th in all probability did occur exactly how I predicted it. The best prediction, though, was the prediction for September 22nd, because that did in fact happen. I mean, not all of it. I never went to jail. No. That is not a thing that happen.

Okay, so, are you sick of me talking about the past yet? Good, because it's time for some random predictions! Let's get this train-wreck started!

January 2nd Microsoft announces that the name for the operating system codenamed "Windows 8" will be "Windows Flash." A new beta is released later that day that contains almost no similarities with the previous betas, does away with the Metro interface and actually replaces the entire Windows interface with a maximized Internet Explorer 6 window containing a Flash object. After the initial shock wears off, a police investigation is conducted and it is found that Steve Ballmer accidentally shot himself in the head during a meeting with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. Yes. That's exactly how it happened. In unrelated news, MSFT stock goes up 38% by the closing bell.

January 32nd Someone realizes with horror that we accidentally put the leap day in the wrong month.

February 18th Pillowcase Season 4 is finally released. The first comic consists of several thousand panels of Pillowcase telling Pepper off for buying a PC powered by Solaris. Smiley cheers. In unrelated news, optical media also spontaneously becomes relevant again.

February 27th Marina & the Diamonds' sophomore album, Electra Heart, is finally released to Starla's delight, as she was terrified that it would not come out in February and she would instead have to buy something Scottish. She is not heard from for the rest of the day.

February 28th Several Tumblr servers explode from the massive traffic of Marina & the Diamonds fans screaming about the new album.

March 13th RFC 6452 (HyperAd Transfer Protocol) is published as version 2.0 of HTTP. Proponents of the new standard praise it as "the perfect way to monetize what was previously a godless, communist platform by making advertising an integral part of the experience." It contains new request fields such as "UserDemographic" (possible values: male, female, teenager, robot, hittite, jesus christ, yeti...), "UserPervertedness" (more perverted users are more likely to receive porn instead of the requested webpage) and "LastPageVisitedOnAmazon." This information, which browsers will be required to procure from users before allowing them to browse as the specification requires web servers to deny requests from browsers not using the fields, will allow webmasters to include more appropriate (or less appropriate, you naughty) advertisements on their websites.

March 23th RFC 6453 is quickly published as HTTP v2.1 after critics of HATP claim that it is unconstitutional and likely to start syrup-flinging riots. The new standard, which is only required in the Wonderful Land Of America, adds a new request field: "DoNotAdvertiseRegistryCertificate." Users who do not wish to receive HATP-automated advertising or are tired of receiving porn at inopportune times can sign up for the Do Not Advertise Registry and receive an SSL certificate for the modest price of $200. Critics are okay with this.

April 15th After a debilitating manufacturing error is finally resolved (a factory in Kentucky exploded), the iPad 3 is finally released. It is almost identical to the iPad 2, except for the fact that it is red.

April 16th The iPad 3 tops the sales record set by the iPhone 4S.

May 2nd The Australian hook turn is introduced in New York City. Pretty much everyone immediately dies.

May 17th Four Island Layout v7 is released. It includes several never-before-seen features such as "Free Aneurisms!", "Absolutely No Content!" and "Slightly Worse CSS Jitter!" Starla responds to the immense (read: -5 people) negative reaction by hastily implementing another theme switcher. The layouts are mislabeled. No one notices.

June 7th The second comic from Pillowcase Season 4 is released. It consists of half a panel of Pillowcase eating a rabid dog.

June 17th Starla fails to receive birthday gifts from any of her New York friends because most of them are dead, and the ones who are not suddenly realized that they never existed in the first place. Starla writes a scathing article on Four Island about how pilgrimage is dying out and how we all need to adopt flopsybunnies in order to keep the Four Island economy alive. She then eats a bucket of ice cream with a shovel.

July 38th Someone realizes that we accidentally added a leap week to July for some god forsaken reason.

August 9th Drifty submits a quote to the Four Island Quotes DB. Tumblr immediately afterward announces a record uptime of one full day and a long-awaited full recovery from the Marina & the Diamonds debacle in February.

August 25th Rebecca Black takes over a small island off the coast of Greenland known as "Continental North America" and in her Almighty Fridayness, enforces Opposite Day. New Yorkers start making left turns from the right lane only, and for a few short minutes, the world makes perfect sense.

September 14th Microsoft releases Windows Flash. A shipping error results in the two or three people who preordered the software actually getting strippers in the mail rather than the bloody operating system. When interviewed, users admitted they were, in the end, happier to have the strippers than they would be with Windows Flash.

September 22nd Starla does not release Four Island 4. No. Why the heck would she do that. Are you insane? Do you need some help? Come on, let's go up these stairs now. One... two... three... four...

October 13th The iPhone 5 is released, after another production delay (someone snuck into the main factory and ate all the Twinkies). It contains a 74-day battery life due to its revolutionary new usage of Hammerspace. Because of the longer battery life, Apple also added 4G LTE support to the iPhone 5 which, if enabled, reduces the phone's battery life back down to 24 hours.

November 6th Lawrence E. Page somehow wins the popular vote despite not actually announcing his candidacy for the presidency. Enlivened by his surprise win, however, he makes many speeches and vows to rid the world of Yahoo!'s tyranny. He also vows to revoke the March 23rd revision to the HyperAd Transfer Protocol, because Google, and therefore the world, runs on ads.

November 26th An unofficial prequel to Twilight, "Freaking Daylight" is released, causing a major uproar amongst Stephanie Meyer fans because Edward's name is misspelled in different, creative ways on every page. Drifty, meanwhile, goes into hiding. Total coincidence. I mean, those two things have almost nothing to do with each other. Almost. Well...

November 30th Apathetic Ink's first app is finally released on the App Store. Within 30 seconds, it does so fantastically that the Apathetic Ink staff all get inflated egos, and the head programmer goes back in time and writes this post.

December 9th A Four Island Holiday Layout is released (read: forced upon users by the removal of the theme switcher) which covers Four Island in scarves. The font has been replaced with a scarf, and most links require you to go to Amazon and purchase a scarf before you can click them.

December 21st The world fails to come to an end, and Starla laughs a lot. She ends up going to the hospital with a broken laugh box.

Wow, that ended up being a lot better than I had hoped. Probably my best predictions yet, if I do say so myself! And I do say so myself! Woo-hoo! Can't wait to see how many of these don't come true, and, well, it'll be amusing to see how many of them do, coincidentally, end up coming true! I mean, December 21st, come on guys. The Mayans thought people were made out of corn. Whatever... Well, here's to the end of a year that didn't really go so well for me, and I'll see you tomorrow for the freaking annual goals post! Starla out!