Wake the children and call the neighbors...

I have ordered an mp3 player. And it's about time. Sometimes walking those meter routes can get pretty boring.

What I am about to say I have no way to prove, so you may freely accuse me of blowing smoke. But more than 20 years ago, I predicted the mp3 player. I didn't have the details all exact, but I got pretty close. Some co-workers and I were sitting around after work one night, eating pizza, quaffing a few and watching MTV, when we began discussing CDs. That was early in the game, and I didn't know much about computers at the time, but I understood that the compact disc was just digitally stored data that could be read by a computer, if it had the correct programming. What I basically said was that someday there would be an erasable and re-writable chip that would be able to hold the data for dozens, maybe hundreds--of songs, or any other kind of data you might care to write on it. You would be able to load all your favorite albums on the chip and plug it into a player small enough to wear like a wrist watch. When you got tired of those songs, you could just plug it into your computer, erase the memory and reload it with more songs.

My occasional visions of the future back in the mid-80s seemed to be fairly accurate, and some of them were terrifying. I also predicted to some friends that there would be rebellion and open warfare within the United States no later than 2015. As time went by, I became convinced that I was just flat wrong about that one, but as more time has gone by, I am becoming convinced that I was right. I will not be surprised to see it happen.

You probably think it will be started as a rebellion against collectivism, or socialism, or communism, or whatever you want to call it. It won't. It will be much simpler, and it's going to have individualists and (some) collectivists fighting on the same side against a common enemy.

And this is why.

I really hope I'm wrong on this one.