Do not eat this blog.

2010 was supposed to be the year the future came after the future was postponed in 2000. Flying cars, giant atomic robots, cities on the Moon, all these and more I expected to see by now. Gleaming cities devoid of poverty would dot the planet, with currency and government made obsolete by a bright new future of peace and prosperity.
Instead, we got the iPad. And Jersey Shore. In fact, the only mildly futuristic thing that happened was when BBC America started showing Star Trek: The Next Generation re-runs.

    So on the whole, 2010 was a disappointment. Let’s just look at how disappointing it was. Here are all the events that made 2010 what it was, coupled with whatever jokes I could steal from Dave Barry:

January
The year started off on a high-note with the completion of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. It was then closed for repairs.

Mother Nature realized that she had missed out on a major opportunity to start the year off on a disaster, and she felt so bad about letting us down like that she decided to destroy Haiti with a 7.0 magnitude earthquake later that week.

Meanwhile, the infamous health care bill was being debated in Congress, despite the fact that no one was entirely sure what they were debating, owing to the fact that each copy of the bill contained three deciduous forests worth of paper and several thousands gallons of ink. One copy of the bill was accidentally dropped on the House floor and the impact caused it to collapse into a black hole, which sucked in two congressmen and a CSPAN cameraman before another copy of the bill blocked it up.

February
February was a great month in the sporting world. The Winter Olympics began in Vancouver, boasting more lumberjacks in the opening ceremony than any previous ceremony.

The Saints won the Super Bowl, and in the ensuing celebration New Orleans suffered more damage than in Hurricane Katrina and the Civil War combined.
Mother Nature, still trying to make up for the disappointment early in the year, destroyed Chile with a magnitude 8.8 earthquake.

Meanwhile, the House was split as to how to remove the black hole on the House floor. The Democrats were in favor of contacting Stephen Hawking, while the Republicans were filibustering, arguing that it would be more cost effective just to leave it there and to hope it goes away.

March
On advice from Stephen Hawking, Congress passed the healthcare bill, and the black hole on the House floor evaporated.  Joe Biden was so ecstatic that he let loose an F-bomb while on microphone, thereby validating its use by children across the country. (“But teacher, I heard the Vice President say it!”)

Meanwhile, a South Korean Navy ship exploded and sank off the coast of North Korea. North Korean officials claimed, “It was like that when we found it.”

Greece borrowed €17 billion from the International Monetary Fund, purportedly to stabilize its economy. Exactly what happened to that money was unclear.

April
April started off on a bad note with the entire nation of Poland being killed in an enormous plane crash. The impact from the collision set off a volcano in Iceland named “Eyjafjallajökull” (Icelandic for “unpronounceable”), grounding all flights across Europe.

This was all soon forgotten, however, when the BP-Halliburton-Transocean-Pizza Hut oil well blew up and began leaking oil at a rate of several thousand barrels a day, or almost enough to power a Hummer for a few hours. The Louisiana economy, still recovering from January’s Super Bowl win, was devastated.

In Arizona, a new law was passed allowing anyone to deport anyone else for any reason. Shortly afterward, its statehood was revoked owing to the fact that the entire population had been obligated to leave the country.

President Obama outlined his bold new vision to kill NASA by 2030, sparking outrage amongst former astronauts and UFO conspiracy theorists.

May
Greece’s credit rating was downgraded to “junk” by Standard and Poor’s after S&P found out that it had spent its €17 billion on beer for itself and its buddy, Malta. The IMF and the Eurozone agreed to a further €45-billion bailout, and to audition Greece for A&E’s hit reality show “Intervention”.

Meanwhile, in spite of strong condemnation by Congress, the oil well continued to leak. Literally hundreds of high-ranking government officials flew down to the Gulf and stared concernedly at the waters, but to no avail.

Those few scientists not working hard at staring concernedly at the leak announced that they had created the first fully synthetic genome, creating, in effect, artificial life. This enormous achievement captured the whole world’s imagination for almost two hours until the new Jersey Shore episode came on later that night.

June
The world eagerly tuned in to see the World Cup in South Africa after Jersey Shore ended, but all they heard was Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Televisions across Europe broadcasted the sounds of vuvuzelas, and the sheer prevalence of the noise caused over 130 buildings to suffer catastrophic structural failures from mechanical resonance.

For once the United States did well in the World Cup, and it was expected, yet again, to be the Cup that turned Americans on to soccer. And again, it didn’t.

Meanwhile, the Transocean-BP-Halliburton-Chucky Cheese’s well continued to leak.
Greece was horrified to discover itself on Intervention in June, and its citizens rioted in the streets, demanding that they be let alone to live their lives in squalor and poverty, but eventually allowed itself to be put into rehab.

July
The gulf region celebrated as the Halliburton-Transocean-BP-Burger King leak was finally stopped by a huge cap on the top of the well. As the oil stopped flowing, the world breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that in spite of corporate incompetence and indecision, at least we can get a leak plugged.

80,000 documents relating to the Iraq war were leaked later that week by Wikileaks, the number one name in classified document leaking.

Meanwhile, LeBron James announced his intention, in a one-hour television special/ego trip, to play for the Miami Heat. Cleveland’s economy immediately collapsed, and the city’s official motto, “At least we’re not Detroit”, was changed to “Basketball is a stupid sport, anyway.”

August
A huge mine collapse in Chile likely caused by an exploding creeper trapped 33 miners over 64 blocks beneath the surface. They managed to escape to an underground shelter, but the collapse left them all with only 2HP and the shelter only had five pieces of grilled pork. Efforts to send food down to the miners began immediately but were interrupted by periodic zombie and skeleton attacks.

Elena Kagan was finally appointed to the Supreme Court, to great derision amongst Democrats (who believed her to be too conservative) and Republicans (who believed her to be too liberal). She showed her true colors this year, when voting on the extremely controversial Ransom v. FIA Card Services, where Kagan found that an individual declaring bankruptcy could not count expenses for a car he had paid off in his “applicable monthly expenses.” You make the decision.

    The World Health Organization announced that they can see for miles and miles that the H1N1 epidemic was over, and that the kids are all right, and so was my generation. Eminance Front. Pinball Wizard.

September
The nation began gearing up for election season in September, with the outlook for the Democrats looking about as good as Lindsey Lohan. Tea Partiers promised tax cuts, less spending, less healthcare bills, more guns, and more delicate tea pots, fine china, nice doilies, and crumpets. Delicious, delicious crumpets.

Christine O’Donnel denounced myths that she was a witch, claiming that her aversion to water was due to a skin condition, and really, what politician these days doesn’t have an army of flying monkeys?

Meanwhile, in Chile, attempts to dig out the miners stalled when the only diamond pickaxe in the country broke. Chile attempted to barter with Argentina for another one with a stack of 64 blocks of clay, but to no avail. Digging continued with an iron pickaxe until the workers hit a spider dungeon and spent nearly twelve days trying to break into the chests inside.

October
The Chilean miners were finally rescued when someone managed to contact a server administrator and just teleport them all out of the mine and onto the surface. This led to many allegations of abuse of administrator powers by outside sources, who were promptly banned.

Yemenite bomb plotters plotted to bomb airplanes in the United States by putting bombs in printer cartridges. Luckily, highly-trained TSA officials caught the bombs as the terrorists were going through security and they were apprehended and prevented from carrying out their heinous plot.

Oh wait, no, that didn’t happen. The bombs were cleared though security after bomb-sniffing dogs completely ignored them and the bombs were accidentally diffused by security without them even realizing they were bombs.
In response to the plot, the TSA banned printer cartridges from flights, forever preventing the widespread problem of people putting bombs in printer cartridges.

November
At CERN in Switzerland, antimatter was trapped and contained for the first time. Thirty-eight atoms of it, in fact. For a sixth of a second. This stupendous achievement was again overshadowed, this time by ABC’s new series Pretty Little Liars, a show about some people who do something and it’s entertaining, I guess.
North Korean officials, bored with the previous level of tension on the Korean peninsula, decide to shell Yeonpyeong Island. When South Korea demands an explanation, they explain that they were trying to shell a fly that was bugging them but they missed by a bit.

Wikileaks, your #1 source for leaks, released 250,000 diplomatic cables, revealing, amongst other things, that diplomatic cables are really boring to read. Julian Assage proves himself to be the most cunning and devious terrorist in history by turning himself in to officials upon request.

    To cap off the month, the nation went into mourning for a week after the death of the Official Greatest Person Ever, Leslie Nielson. Good luck, Leslie. We’re all counting on you.

December
The nation panicked over what to do about the expiring tax cuts. On the one hand, if Congress extended the tax cuts, they’d have no money. On the other hand, if the tax cuts weren’t extended, Congress would become unpopular. Congress voted to extend the tax cuts and deal with the repercussions later.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun was interrupted when a drug cartel skirmish erupted in the middle of the conference room. In the ensuing confusion, France surrendered to Great Britain, the Cayman Islands, and Singapore, Mexico accidental punched out Canada (but apologized profusely over margaritas later that day), and the Jamaican and Dutch representatives both were not found until the next day, both in a rather odd mood.

And to cap off the year, NASA made a momentous discovery- that of an entirely new form of life, based on arsenic. This could have enormous implications for the search for extraterrestrial life, and would have captured the imagination of the world had Glee not been on at the same time as the announcement.

    So there’s 2010. A year of disaster, of political stagnation, of momentous discovery obscured by television. Pretty much the same as every year, really. In history, 2010 will likely go down as “the year after 2009 and before 2011.”

Here’s to a hopefully more remarkable 2011.