My fantasies varied wildly. Sucking down a bottle of grain alcohol in Times Square? Kissing my wife at a black tie affair (in celebration of my first internet-spawned million, no doubt)? Fighting World War III in a foreign land against Nostradamus' Third Anti-Christ?

Well, turns out I'll just be doing the oh-so-superior stay-at-home-with-a-close-friend thing, which by now is almost as passé as venturing out among the freaks who feel it necessary to mark the occasion in A Big Way. In other words, so much for the first two-thousand Gregorian years. Next, please.

Actually, that's where my mind has been lately. On whatever's coming next. And while I have no designs on being the next Jeane Dixon (shocking revelation-- Monica services gay divorcé Newt in '00!), I do have an idea of what I'm looking forward to seeing this coming year. Some items are based in fact, others in wishful thinking-- all would thrill me to no end. In no particular order:

1. The Decline Of Power Pop. Hey, I've got nothing against a catchy melody over simple chords, but this worship at the altar of pop-rock must be stopped, and soon. Nirvana's paradigm-shifting "Nevermind" is now almost TEN YEARS OLD (how does that grab you?), and if I end up downwind of another snappy-yet-crunchy single emanating from MTV's Buzz Bin, I fear I'll be forced to pull an Elvis Presley on my JVC 12" color TV. Blink 182, Goo Goo Dolls, Green Day and-- for God's sake-- Kid Rock, please meet Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and Soul Coughing. (I know Kid Rock isn't exactly power pop, but can't he just go away anyway?)

2. The Sopranos' 2nd Season. It's not TV, it's HBO. And in this case, it's not even HBO-- it's a full-length-movie-quality examination of the human condition through the eyes of a conflicted New Jersey mobster/family man every Sunday night at 9:00 PM starting on January 16. To say it's the best show on TV belittles its genius by even comparing it to sitcom tripe like "Two Guys, a Girl, a Horse and a Massage Parlor," or whatever it's called. Who knows, my TV might yet survive this year intact.

3. Election 2000. Just for the comedy of it all. During debates I often find myself saying aloud what the candidates are really thinking (such is my omniscience). McCain to Bush after being challenged on how campaign-finance reform will hurt the GOP: "Suck my dick, frat boy!" Bush's response: "I know just how to ease that pain of yours, old John," and out comes W's monogrammed debate flask (hence The Smirk). Personally I think it's only a matter of time before someone rips Al Gore's plastic head off and reveals him for what he really is-- Ashe, the defective android from the original Alien.

4. The Third Anti-Christ. I mean, let's get it on already. If Saddam, Khadhafi and Bin Laden aren't ready for prime time, then let's find the guy who is. Pat Buchanan? Rupert Murdoch? Yanni? Whoever he is, he's running late, isn't he?

5. The Boston Red Sox Finally Breaking the Curse of the Bambino and Winning the World Series.
Oops-- for a second I thought I was writing the Things That Will Never Happen No Matter What Year It Is column. My bad.

6. The Beginning of Construction on the 101/405 Interchange Expansion. Wouldn't you like to meet the civic engineer who designed the one-lane hairpin-curve connector from the 101 West to the 405 South and punch him in the teeth until he had none left? A Ferrari would have to slow down to 15 mph to make that turn, and this Rhodes Scholar looked at it and said, "Yeah, that oughta hold up for at least fifty years." He's probably working over at JPL now, holding down the button that sent those Mars landers to Tattouine.

7. The Stock Market Correction. It has to happen sooner or later. Having just recently entered the brave new world of Positive Cash Flow, I'd be honored if it was sooner. The market could dip just enough-- say, 5000 points-- for me to get in at more of a ground floor with all of this internet stuff, and soon thereafter I'd actually have enough money to go shopping online, therefore contributing to the Great Bull Market of 2001. Now that's what I call trickle-down.

8. The End of Y2K Hysteria. For countless reasons, but one comes prominently to mind: I want to know what the militias bunkered away in Idaho and the like will be doing with the 20,000 cans of Dinty Moore Beef Stew they stashed away for the Day of the Black Helicopters That Never Came? I'm picturing a gathering in a large field. A bonfire. A gigantic black vat of stew. Several large dead animals roasting on individual spits. Burly, mustached white men in form-fitting (physique be damned) camouflage t-shirts, using star-spangled bandanas to wipe tears from their comrade's eyes (they never got to use that formidable stash of weaponry, you see). With any luck, the computer consultants who fleeced the world of billions making sure we were all "Y2K compliant" would be in the stew as well.

9. Writing More Columns Like This. If you haven't figured it out by now, this bit was my a little homework assign-ment I gave myself. By the end of this paragraph it will be about 5,500 total characters, thirty to a line-- just over the length of Mike Downey's Page 2 column in the Sunday Los Angeles Times (although, given my John McCain moment above, it's probably better suited for the L.A. alternative press). I plan on doing more of these in the coming year, and perhaps even submitting some in the future.

But before that happens, I've got a close friend to see and a New Year's Eve to blow off. See you on the other side-- mentally, I'm already there.