THINGS I TOLD YOU SO, OR WOULD HAVE HAD I THOUGHT OF THEM

1.  Colossal chain book retailer Barnes & Noble has announced it will close about twenty stores every year for the next decade. Duh. No one saw this coming? I’ve written about this a lot. So has everyone. We all know why bookstores are failing. They are simply brick and mortar warehouse shelves for books. They offer nothing more (expensive coffee, yes, but that’s about it) There are no cheaper shelves for books than online, so Amazon and the like are always going to undercut B&N and the others on price until they decide to change.

But maybe, you say, the slow demise (for that’s what this really is) of B & N will give indies and smaller chains like Powell’s or Books-a-Million a better chance to grab market share. Nope. They don’t do anything more than shelve books either.  I look bookstore browsing. I love online pricing. Give me something that mergers the two OR give me something else besides a building full of books that makes me want to spend more with you.

2.  (Circa 2004) The legendary British Sci-Fi show “Doctor Who” will make a triumphant return to television, giving nerds a reason to live again. Okay, I didn’t actually “predict” that one, but I always kind of hoped for it. Nearly eight years into it’s revived run, ratings are better than ever.

THE INTERACTIVE PORTION OF THE BLOG. WHICH ONE WAS I RIGHT ABOUT?

3.  The Ravens win the Superbowl!

4. The 49ers win the Superbowl!

Yes, by the time this blog comes out, the Superbowl is over and the winner is known, but the “I told you so” part is that now, perhaps only a few days after the game, NO ONE, except maybe the players and two or three family members, can actually remember who won. It’s just a game, folks.

5. Not much will happen with gun control. There’s been a lot of talk, hasn’t there? Has anything really happened? Will anything really happen? Nope.

6. I live in the Midwestern US. It’s February. IT GOT UP TO SIXTY-FIVE DEGREES last week. There was a thunderstorm DURING a snow storm. A few days ago there were tornadoes in winter time. People are starting to realize, hey, maybe there is something to this climate change thing.

7.  I’d like to think that during those turbulent, awful days of the Civil War when Lincoln agonized over how to abolish slavery and reunify the country, I would have been able to encourage Lincoln to press on so that, one day, Daniel Day Lewis would win a Screen Actors Guild Award for portraying him on film.

8.  All the polls, the decisive defeat in the presidential election, report after report, have done nothing to convince Republicans that they, as a collective, have lost whatever touch they had once with the day-to-day reality of most Americans.  In the interest of bipartisanship, Democrats have utterly failed to put the needs of the public above the needs of getting re-elected.

9.  One or more Kardashians will break up with whomever she happens to be with today, er, yesterday, er, never mind. He’s gone already.

10.  While it was perhaps unpleasant to hear, it was nonetheless honest. Those pants do, in fact, make you look fat.