The Bet is Over

The No More Snow in 2009 Bet is over and I was incorrect.

I've always said that you can make 100 insane predictions and if only one of them comes true, people will forget the failed ones and call you a oracle and buy any book you print.

Back in February of 2009, I predicted that Columbus, OH would not receive any more snow in 2009. This was mainly brought on by a couple of future casts that predicted six feet of snow two weeks out.

Though the end of February and then March we didn't get any snow. Towards the end of April we had some flurries, but nothing else. Summer came and then Fall. While other places around the states got early snow, Columbus remained shielded with a dome of positive thoughts and impossible odds.

Right at the end of November, I shared this bet with my local weatherman. He replied:


But then the weeks started to go by. The snow Jym predicted in the first week never materialized. And by the second week, the future cast looked clear. On Wednesday of this week, they predicted flurries for the weekend. Then by Thursday that was updated to snow. And more snow.

Last night as we drove back from Erik's house, the first hint of snow began to fall and those little tiny flakes crushed my Nostradamus aspirations. This morning there is a carpet of way more than 1/4" inch of snow on the ground and the bet is off.

Please check by again in the first week of January for my predictions of 2010. For those interested, here are the links to my predictions from 2007 and 2008:

2007 Predictions
2008 Predictions

HolyJuan’s 2007 Predictions

I hate people who make vague predictions. You’ll see them popping up over the next couple of days. “A major weather event will strike the East Coast causing death and destruction.” Or bland, technological predictions, “Vista will be as buggy as Windows 95/98/2000/ME/XP. People will still be using XP in 2010 rather then upgrading.”

The theory (mine at least) is to make very specific and outrageous predictions that will happen within a small time frame. Leave a little bit of wriggle room so that if things don’t come out exactly as predicted, you can still point to the parts of your guess that were dead on.

Though I don’t condone the use of it, you might want to throw in a dead ringer prediction that anyone could have guessed. I suggest adding a sprinkling of details that make your dead ringer stand out.

It’s also a good idea to predict things that are not going to happen.

HolyJuan’s 2007 Predictions

1. Harrison Ford will die on location in Java while filming the, now final, Indiana Jones film. The accident will be off set, but he will be in costume.

2. A rogue wave kills over 200 after it strikes a cruise liner this summer. This incident is made more painful when it is revealed the Captain called passengers on the deck to witness the wave as it traveled towards the ship.

3. Bird Flu will not have an effect on the world’s population… this year.

4. Scarlett Johansson will overdose on heroine. It will not kill her, but she will disappear from the public eye for the rest of the year.

5. Britney Spears will get back together with K-Fed over the children.

6. Britney Spears will dump K-Fed twenty days later when he reveals that he has gotten some other tramp knocked up.

7. Congress will introduce a bill requiring that all pornography on the internet will need to be re-located under new .sex website address. The only positive thing that will come out of this failed resolution is a better definition of pornography.

8. A World of Warcraft serial killer will emerge, not online, but in real life. As a Paladin, he will kill off 13 Hoard players. Many victims will not be found for days as they rarely come out of their rooms anyways.

$. The number nine will be struck from the world’s vocabulary and replaced with the dollar sign.

10. I will publish my first book, “The Tales of Allen Knob.” The 10 people that read it will suggest the other 6,525,170,254 people in the world stay as far away as possible from it.