23. You will wander the fluorescent lit aisles of CVS at some ungodly hour and never find what you came in for. And you have to trudge to the registers to ask for help because only one person is working. And they will tell you the wrong number aisle to find your product. You will huff and puff and curse under your breath and walk very slowly and STILL miss said merchandise. It will be obscurely at the bottom of a display on an end cap and somehow not in stock.
Or if you’re in the city that I live in, the item you want is locked behind glass, and no matter how many times you push the press here for service button no one comes to open the locked cabinet.
you know damn well coke and pepsi are not the same thing this feels like a setup and i'm falling right in but idc coke is good pepsi is bad, coke zero is god's work, pepsi idk what their zero is even called but its yuck, coke hits you with the bite of a thousand snakes pepsi gently nudges you
one is great and the other feels like waiting in line for a show you don't even want to go to but you're going cuz your friend asked and you felt bad so you said fine but it sucks and the only thing that'd make it better is a fresh bottle of CZ
You fell for the setup, and your answer was gold. Based on your work for the dumb phone and this response you’ve been hired as Coke’s newest influencer. Congrats!
Coke is far superior for cleaning corrosion off of car batteries with a toothbrush.
23. Trump will have an important personal awakening, change his pronouns and fashion choices, then continue his campaign as "Donna." His base will be cool with it and still vote for him while continuing to deny rights to the transgender community.
I predict that in 2024 Amazon will begin charging at least $5 each to watch ALL Prime Videos, not just the ones you actually want to see. And Netflix will add 10 advertising interruptions to every film. And Youtube will add advertising to the beginning, middle, and end of every music track and stand up comic show. And I predict I will go back to reading books.
I took out a home equity loan, used the cash to short the U.S. stock market on margin, then took all that liquid capital and bet on numbers 2, 8, and 17, and now I'm the world's first trillionaire.
I used to have to say, "Sorry. We don't have Coke, only Pepsi" as a waitress at a Pizza Hut back in the eighties...in Arkansas...where Coke is a general term like pop or soda. Often my customers would look at me quizzically and say, "Ummmm...I want Dr. Pepper?"
Not to sound old but it was the summer of 1988, a job between my senior year of high school and first year of college. Memories include someone leaving me pennies in a pan as a tip and a creep offering me $20 to have sex. Sorry dude! Try the whores at Waffle House. (At least, that was the rumor about them )
I've never wanted to boop a snoot more in my life. Hi, Mortimer! 😍
1. You could start a call-in medium show circa 1987. I'm guessing the per minute call rate has gone up substantially since then.
2. 16 and 20 will have come to pass before I finish this sentence.
3. I predict I will log several hundred hours scrolling through Netflix titles looking for "something new." I also predict I will rewatch every season of New Girl, The Office, Community, Seinfeld, IT Crowd, Derek, Key & Peele, and MST3000 before the year is out.
4. My favorite MEME of 2023 was a Twitter grab boasting the paraphrased notion: "Will we ever get around to training an AI to pick trash out of the ocean? Or do all robots have to be screenwriters?"
5. How dare you?! Pepsi is decidedly sweeter, syrupier, with more tooth sweatering aftertaste. Coke has way more fizz making it impossible to chug successfully. - You're welcome!
I love number four! I think the answer is that all robots have to be screenwriters, and all screenwriters will soon head out to sea... to save humanity from itself, or at the very least, retrieve all those Fiji water bottles you get at meetings in lieu of, you know, payment.
First, thank you for making me chuckle. It takes quite a bit, but you had that something that did the trick. Secondly, I believe I can weave some predictions with questions in a chaotic mess that resembles my brain at 7:35am, so buckle up.
1. Coke and Pepsi are NOT the same. If they were, they wouldn't exist as Coke and Pepsi. None of it really matters to me; I've darted to the dark side of "zero sugar" beverages.
2. I predict that teachers like me will bitch and threaten to leave the profession after many years of service then return the next day after said intense bitching and do our jobs as we've always done. *Disclaimer: this will not be 100% compliance but close.
3. I predict Travis Kelce will put a ring on it. (IF he takes her name, they'd both be T. Swift...)
4. I predict I still will not want to do math-y things. (I teach English!)
5. How does an "experienced" teacher quit her job and still get her salary?
6. Is 50 still the new 30? (I have physical symptoms as evidence against the popular theory...)
7. I predict readers are rolling their eyes about now at my stupid list.
8. I predict I don't give a shit if they are.
9. Some parents will increase their efforts to challenge/ban/ruin books in schools thinking that if certain topics aren't available, then those topics do not exist and will NEVER be seen or heard by young adults. What about bus rides to and from school where "kids" hear and talk about things probably worse than the books that parents want off the shelves? Uh huh. Exactly.
10. Last, but not least - what happened to the Golden Rule? Wouldn't it solve many problems?
LIke David Letterman, I'll leave it at a great number, ten.
Great predictions, Nina! You get an A+. I’m especially interested in the Travis Kelce prediction. On the one hand, no need to get new monogrammed towels because the initials remain the same. On the other hand, this news will break the internet.
On a serious note, thank you for being a teacher and for putting up with too much bullshit and too little pay.
5. A. Same school district: Long term disability or family leave. B. Different school district - switch districts to one with supportive administration and PTO. Yeah, that’s a hard one! Thank you for what you do and won’t do; you are the future.
Good question! I've heard several people who work for streamers talk about the problem of "churn and return." Basically, people sign up for the low-low intro rate, watch everything they want to watch, then cancel before the rate adjusts.
I can confidently predict I shall not got to Ikea to buy dishtowels or anything else. Guaranteed. I, however, will eat more chocolate than is good for me...
20 blew my tomato and cheese loving mind for its sheer truthiness.
23: Meteorologists will get even worse at this jobs, much to the chagrin of working people everywhere who are only ever expected to get better or, at worst, stay just as bad at their jobs as they were before.
PEPSI AND COKE ARE NOT THE SAME YOU PSYCHOPATHS; COKE HAS A POISONOUS AFTERTASTE WHILE PEPSI, CONVERSELY, DOES NOT.
Maybe it would be a three-flame comment if I took the time to proofread 🤦🏼♀️
I am curious what your thoughts on Coke vs. Pepsi are (or did already tell us by saying that you always agree to take a Pepsi when you ask for Coke and they don’t have it?)
I don't have strong soda views. I order Coke, but mostly because that's the generic term for me. But if they have Pepsi, I'm fine with that. Also, we're talking diet coke or coke zero because I can't do the real stuff anymore.
I am sorry you like double-poison (Coke for starters and then the nasty fake sugar that makes it diet or zero). Mostly because I selfishly want you around to keep entertaining me and the other Snormies.
Oh oh! I read your book about ride services. I loved everything about it except for its length (😳). Too short!
If it helps, I go through long periods where I don't drink any soda. But if I do drink soda, it's the fake shit for sure. As for general longevity, I think I have a few more decades. Thanks for reading the book. I promise the next one will be longer. If you're so inclined, please feel free to leave a very short review.
25. Not Safe For Work will be green-lighted, after someone pitches it as Boogies Nights in the 21st Century. Marky Mark will briefly consider playing Marky Estrin, but throws a left uppercut to the idiot who asks him.
Michael, I'd really like to do a Coke and Pepsi taste test. Also, lots of other taste tests. Can I commit to hosting a taste test this year?
Also, despite the fact that printers always jam and I'm always frustrated and incapable of fixing them, one of my dream jobs has always been working in a print shot.
23. You will wander the fluorescent lit aisles of CVS at some ungodly hour and never find what you came in for. And you have to trudge to the registers to ask for help because only one person is working. And they will tell you the wrong number aisle to find your product. You will huff and puff and curse under your breath and walk very slowly and STILL miss said merchandise. It will be obscurely at the bottom of a display on an end cap and somehow not in stock.
This one is a total winner! 👏👏👏
Or if you’re in the city that I live in, the item you want is locked behind glass, and no matter how many times you push the press here for service button no one comes to open the locked cabinet.
Yup! Like precious Tide Pods.
you know damn well coke and pepsi are not the same thing this feels like a setup and i'm falling right in but idc coke is good pepsi is bad, coke zero is god's work, pepsi idk what their zero is even called but its yuck, coke hits you with the bite of a thousand snakes pepsi gently nudges you
one is great and the other feels like waiting in line for a show you don't even want to go to but you're going cuz your friend asked and you felt bad so you said fine but it sucks and the only thing that'd make it better is a fresh bottle of CZ
You fell for the setup, and your answer was gold. Based on your work for the dumb phone and this response you’ve been hired as Coke’s newest influencer. Congrats!
23. Someone will say, It's not the heat, it's the humidity, and inwardly you'll agree but you won't admit it
And yes, @Alex, yes! Coke & Pepsi are close like Marlboro Lights and Newports and I've loved them all at various times.
Number 23 is chef's kiss👏👏👏
Coke is far superior for cleaning corrosion off of car batteries with a toothbrush.
23. Trump will have an important personal awakening, change his pronouns and fashion choices, then continue his campaign as "Donna." His base will be cool with it and still vote for him while continuing to deny rights to the transgender community.
This one gets an A for specificity. I think you really nailed it.
I predict that in 2024 Amazon will begin charging at least $5 each to watch ALL Prime Videos, not just the ones you actually want to see. And Netflix will add 10 advertising interruptions to every film. And Youtube will add advertising to the beginning, middle, and end of every music track and stand up comic show. And I predict I will go back to reading books.
I like your last prediction about the books. Seems like a happy outcome to me.
I took out a home equity loan, used the cash to short the U.S. stock market on margin, then took all that liquid capital and bet on numbers 2, 8, and 17, and now I'm the world's first trillionaire.
Thanks, Michael!
Congrats! Please buy all of the world’s billionaires and send them to Mars.
I used to have to say, "Sorry. We don't have Coke, only Pepsi" as a waitress at a Pizza Hut back in the eighties...in Arkansas...where Coke is a general term like pop or soda. Often my customers would look at me quizzically and say, "Ummmm...I want Dr. Pepper?"
Honestly you had me at waitress at Pizza Hut. Not to sound old, but I miss the days of dine-in pizza huts.
Not to sound old but it was the summer of 1988, a job between my senior year of high school and first year of college. Memories include someone leaving me pennies in a pan as a tip and a creep offering me $20 to have sex. Sorry dude! Try the whores at Waffle House. (At least, that was the rumor about them )
I've never wanted to boop a snoot more in my life. Hi, Mortimer! 😍
1. You could start a call-in medium show circa 1987. I'm guessing the per minute call rate has gone up substantially since then.
2. 16 and 20 will have come to pass before I finish this sentence.
3. I predict I will log several hundred hours scrolling through Netflix titles looking for "something new." I also predict I will rewatch every season of New Girl, The Office, Community, Seinfeld, IT Crowd, Derek, Key & Peele, and MST3000 before the year is out.
4. My favorite MEME of 2023 was a Twitter grab boasting the paraphrased notion: "Will we ever get around to training an AI to pick trash out of the ocean? Or do all robots have to be screenwriters?"
5. How dare you?! Pepsi is decidedly sweeter, syrupier, with more tooth sweatering aftertaste. Coke has way more fizz making it impossible to chug successfully. - You're welcome!
I love number four! I think the answer is that all robots have to be screenwriters, and all screenwriters will soon head out to sea... to save humanity from itself, or at the very least, retrieve all those Fiji water bottles you get at meetings in lieu of, you know, payment.
First, thank you for making me chuckle. It takes quite a bit, but you had that something that did the trick. Secondly, I believe I can weave some predictions with questions in a chaotic mess that resembles my brain at 7:35am, so buckle up.
1. Coke and Pepsi are NOT the same. If they were, they wouldn't exist as Coke and Pepsi. None of it really matters to me; I've darted to the dark side of "zero sugar" beverages.
2. I predict that teachers like me will bitch and threaten to leave the profession after many years of service then return the next day after said intense bitching and do our jobs as we've always done. *Disclaimer: this will not be 100% compliance but close.
3. I predict Travis Kelce will put a ring on it. (IF he takes her name, they'd both be T. Swift...)
4. I predict I still will not want to do math-y things. (I teach English!)
5. How does an "experienced" teacher quit her job and still get her salary?
6. Is 50 still the new 30? (I have physical symptoms as evidence against the popular theory...)
7. I predict readers are rolling their eyes about now at my stupid list.
8. I predict I don't give a shit if they are.
9. Some parents will increase their efforts to challenge/ban/ruin books in schools thinking that if certain topics aren't available, then those topics do not exist and will NEVER be seen or heard by young adults. What about bus rides to and from school where "kids" hear and talk about things probably worse than the books that parents want off the shelves? Uh huh. Exactly.
10. Last, but not least - what happened to the Golden Rule? Wouldn't it solve many problems?
LIke David Letterman, I'll leave it at a great number, ten.
Have a fantastic, fabulous, ferocious day!
Great predictions, Nina! You get an A+. I’m especially interested in the Travis Kelce prediction. On the one hand, no need to get new monogrammed towels because the initials remain the same. On the other hand, this news will break the internet.
On a serious note, thank you for being a teacher and for putting up with too much bullshit and too little pay.
5. A. Same school district: Long term disability or family leave. B. Different school district - switch districts to one with supportive administration and PTO. Yeah, that’s a hard one! Thank you for what you do and won’t do; you are the future.
Im on the edge of my seat to hear about prediction 23.
There are some good answers in the comments.
How about an AE to replace CEOs?
Anybody Else!
AEs are widely available!
I vote for Michael Estrin!
I know those who cancel their cable service are called, “cord-cutters” - what do you call those who cancel streaming services? “stream-inhibitors?”
Good question! I've heard several people who work for streamers talk about the problem of "churn and return." Basically, people sign up for the low-low intro rate, watch everything they want to watch, then cancel before the rate adjusts.
I can confidently predict I shall not got to Ikea to buy dishtowels or anything else. Guaranteed. I, however, will eat more chocolate than is good for me...
I love this, Michael! I just wish my wife would say, "let's go get chocolate" instead of "let's go to Ikea."
I'll have a word...
20 blew my tomato and cheese loving mind for its sheer truthiness.
23: Meteorologists will get even worse at this jobs, much to the chagrin of working people everywhere who are only ever expected to get better or, at worst, stay just as bad at their jobs as they were before.
PEPSI AND COKE ARE NOT THE SAME YOU PSYCHOPATHS; COKE HAS A POISONOUS AFTERTASTE WHILE PEPSI, CONVERSELY, DOES NOT.
NostradAMY has spoken.
Damn, this comment is 🔥🔥🔥 right down to co-opting the Nostradamus brand and making it your own.
Maybe it would be a three-flame comment if I took the time to proofread 🤦🏼♀️
I am curious what your thoughts on Coke vs. Pepsi are (or did already tell us by saying that you always agree to take a Pepsi when you ask for Coke and they don’t have it?)
I don't have strong soda views. I order Coke, but mostly because that's the generic term for me. But if they have Pepsi, I'm fine with that. Also, we're talking diet coke or coke zero because I can't do the real stuff anymore.
I am sorry you like double-poison (Coke for starters and then the nasty fake sugar that makes it diet or zero). Mostly because I selfishly want you around to keep entertaining me and the other Snormies.
Oh oh! I read your book about ride services. I loved everything about it except for its length (😳). Too short!
If it helps, I go through long periods where I don't drink any soda. But if I do drink soda, it's the fake shit for sure. As for general longevity, I think I have a few more decades. Thanks for reading the book. I promise the next one will be longer. If you're so inclined, please feel free to leave a very short review.
25. Not Safe For Work will be green-lighted, after someone pitches it as Boogies Nights in the 21st Century. Marky Mark will briefly consider playing Marky Estrin, but throws a left uppercut to the idiot who asks him.
I love this prediction!
Make it so!
Michael, I'd really like to do a Coke and Pepsi taste test. Also, lots of other taste tests. Can I commit to hosting a taste test this year?
Also, despite the fact that printers always jam and I'm always frustrated and incapable of fixing them, one of my dream jobs has always been working in a print shot.
I kinda wanna do a taste test too! I need to know. Also, my nightmare would be working in a print shop. i hate printers. hate 'em.
shop not shot