{"id":2405,"date":"2010-11-06T11:10:44","date_gmt":"2010-11-06T16:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/?p=2405"},"modified":"2010-11-08T11:05:39","modified_gmt":"2010-11-08T16:05:39","slug":"the-future-exactly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/11\/the-future-exactly\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future, Exactly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2010 Ben S. Pollock.<\/small><\/p>\n

“Today is your birthday.”<\/p>\n

(This is the special section of the Daily Newspaper Horoscope. You remember newspapers — impartial facts, reasoned commentary, comics for the kiddies, and a Zodiac that isn’t truth, comment or let’s face it healthy for children. Now more than ever, Newspapers Are the Future, especially this objective fortunetelling everyone will pay 4 to 12 bits<\/a> for.<\/p>\n

(Here is my try at my own horoscope. I am consulting neither stars nor astrologers to or for the stars.)<\/p>\n

You — that’s me — will have a very good year. The stars and planets, the moons and comets, dropped by my astrology studio last week. We talked. Not just about you, of course, but about all of my paying clients and my syndicated column. The celestial orbs loan me a Romper Room “Magic Mirror”<\/a> to see all of those readers and give me the ability to coalesce millions of different fates into about 63 words per zodiac sign. It gets so complicated so fast I don’t know how Nostradamus did it. Computers help so much. Oh, where was I? I have to stare at my crystal ball until I self-hypnotize and remember. Ah, yes, this is one of the 365 days a year when 1\/365th of you are born.<\/p>\n

Your birthday, your year, you Nov. 6 birthday children of the universe. Let’s get to it; the meter is running. You’re a Scorpio so the first thing that means is that winter<\/em> comes up fast. Did you think I was going to talk about your literal or figurative stinger? Haven’t you noticed that the other 11 sets of babies have pretty much the same stinger issues?<\/p>\n

Let’s predict winter. It will be a down time. What, you want good news? People look to the daily sooth for some glimmer of predicting if they should bring lunch from home rather than risk getting their car slammed while rushing out from work for fried chicken.<\/p>\n

Things will seem bleak this winter because of the dead plants and the lack of people sunning around the pool. Come winter, we seers like to say, “Watch your step.” Not for ice. Pranksters may be trying to trip you.<\/p>\n

Things will look up in the spring.<\/em> You look down and see flower buds poking back at you, well they are looking up, aren’t they? That’s where the sun is, if you’d move over and quit blocking the rays for the little guys.<\/p>\n

Health: If you go to the doctor for a winter virus and he finds something else worse, well, what did you expect? Non of us is getting younger, are we? If you’re worried about business, well, you have no time to looking at flowers; weren’t Christmas sales terrible, only slight better than 2009’s?<\/p>\n

Summer:<\/em> This is the time of year when astrologers warn, “Pay no attention to astronomers, they’re the real crackpots!” No, we say that year ’round.<\/p>\n

Before it gets too hot, resume that fitness and diet plan you tried for two weeks in January. Suffer now so you can eat like the rich while traveling. It looks like you have a trip planned for May. Start planning, but make no reservations until late March. Trust me; six-eight weeks out sees the best fares. Expect long lines, everywhere.<\/p>\n

Fall:<\/em> Fall in, fall back, fall down. Everything human begins in the fall. It’s tied with harvest, they say. Don’t think so. Crops ripen at all different times. Apples now, yes, but peaches were two months ago and berries four months back. “Winter” wheat? Not on this side of the equator.<\/p>\n

Speaking of harvest: whatever it was that you sowed in the spring, look out, that’s probably what’s squishy and easily bruised now. Refrigerate it.<\/p>\n

Before you know it, you’ll be back here with me, your most accurate astrologer. That’s my prediction. Take notes over the next months. I want a full report before we look up to the stars for 2012, I really can’t tell you about yourself without your help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2010 Ben S. Pollock. “Today is your birthday.” (This is the special section of the Daily Newspaper Horoscope. You remember newspapers — impartial facts, reasoned commentary, comics for the kiddies, and a Zodiac that isn’t truth, comment or let’s face it healthy for children. Now more than ever, Newspapers Are the Future, especially this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-spin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2395,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/11\/heeeeeres-bedtime\/","url_meta":{"origin":2405,"position":0},"title":"Heeeeere’s Bedtime","author":"Ben S. 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But when I worked there, my college newspaper, The Stanford Daily, had a noisy Teletype for AP and UPI stories, complete with increasing numbers of bells to rate degrees\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1247,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2009\/05\/weve-met-the-enemy-so-what\/","url_meta":{"origin":2405,"position":4},"title":"We’ve Met the Enemy. So What?","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2009 Ben S. Pollock The Internet is not killing the newspaper. The economy is. 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