The Next Million Years

by Kyle Smith

"There's no reason to suppose that the next million years will witness any less change than the first million. If anything, as proved by the accelerating rates of change during the last couple of centuries and especially the last few decades, the future will be far stranger and more devious than the past. If the gulf of time and difference between us and our remote ancestors seems impossible to comprehend, then imagine the chasm dividing us from our descendants . . ." - Damien Broderick, editor of the new book, "Year Million: Science at the Far Edge of Knowledge"

In the year one million:

* Chinese Democracy will be released.

* The time will be ripe for Eliot Spitzer's big comeback.

* Street-savvy advertisers and marketers will hotly pursue the elusive and much buzzed-about "Hallmark Channel Demo."

* The price of gasoline will finally catch up to the price of Evian.

* The let's-be-nice-to-Iran policies of the infamous Obama Administration (2009-2010) will pay big dividends when residents of the nine U.S. states not still experiencing unsafe levels of radioactivity are allowed to leave their homes and attend services at their local mosques, subject to discretion of neighborhood mullah boards.

* Cubs fans will be confident that this is their year.

* People will stop saying "Sex in the City" when they mean "Sex and the City."

* No one will quite be able to figure out how Metro and AM New York stay in business.

* US Weekly will break the story that late-20th century movie star Tom Cruise secretly led a scandalous life of wanton homogeneity.

* In a Quiznos in Ponca City, Oklahoma, two women will have the final conversation about how bad Andie MacDowell was in "Four Weddings and a Funeral."

* The average human life span will be over 200 years, most of which will be spent flipping through TV channels.

* Alien beings from the Andromeda Galaxy will send their first-ever message to Earth, requesting more episodes of "Saved by the Bell."

* The last group of holdouts will decide to stop pretending they like jazz.

* Hollywood will release a couple more flops about the Iraq War.

* Downtown hipsters will go crazy for the frankfurter-based cocktail, the Weenietini.

* The total number of late-night topical comedy shows will surpass the number of TV watchers.

* Near-instantaneous transportation via jetpack will be an everyday occurrence, but only in sci-fi movies. In reality, everyone will be stuck in traffic.

* The moon will open for business as tourist attraction, billing itself as the new "Sin City" where visitors are allowed to consume alcohol and trans fats, jog without wearing helmets and disparage one another's religious beliefs.

* Denny's will be exactly the same as it is now.

* In the 'hood, the hot catchphrase putdown will be, "Must you wax so foppish, Sirrah?"

* Humans will be able to breathe even polluted air or underwater through advanced filter-protected gills built in to the sides of their faces. Except hockey fans, who will continue to breathe through their mouths.

* Manhattan rents will reach an average of $80,000 per square foot, or three Euros.

* The NBA will bar players from declaring eligibility for the draft before they have completed third grade.

* An international panel of renowned geologists, mathematicians and physicists will issue a long-awaited report conclusively proving that Bon Jovi sucks.

* Making use of exciting new technological advances, scientists with backgrounds in cryonics will figure out new ways to charge dumb people vast sums of money to stick their dead bodies in freezers.

* MSNBC will air one last tribute to Tim Russert.

* After a key planning commission agrees on a proposal, final approval will be granted (pending community protests, local business litigation and resolution of issues involving disbursement of funds from federal, state and municipal agencies) to begin a commitment to proceed with the completion stages of an agreement in principle to build the Second Avenue Subway.

To which I'll add, Hillary Rodham Clinton... the Rodham always comes back after she runs for office...will be no closer to paying back the millions owed to vendors than she is today.