"Rapture?! I hardly know her!": 5 of history's greatest failed predictions

So now all that bullshit Rapture hoopla is far behind us, it's time to revel in a little schadenfreude. While we laugh at those on their hands and knees with a dustpan trying to sweep up the remains of their lives like a shattered vase after doling out their life savings over (DUN DUN!) Judgment Day, let us remember the ghosts of failed predictions past. After all, Harold "Nostra-dumbass" Camping ain't the only one to send a bunch of people into a blind frenzy over nonsensical sizzling without steak. Here are five 

1) The New Millennium

NINETY-SEVEN! NINETY-EIGHT! NINETY-NINE! ... FUUUUCK! The rollover that had the planet shaking! How would the computers comprehend the double zero? Well, as you may remember, we as a planet spent $300 billion in preparing for Y2K. When the clock struck midnight, however, the "bug" was revealed as a big MacGuffin to keep apocalyptic fear alive, and everyone got drunk just the same. I'll certainly be dead by 2100, but hopefully this story lives on to ease the people when Steve Jobs, from the iRonLung 10G tells the world they're fucked.

2) Do you believe in miracles?

When people think of the Cold War conflict, they think of the space race or the nuclear arms race. I think of Kurt Russell. In 1980, Russell led the United States Olympic Hockey team to an absolutely impossible victory over Gunnar Stahl and the Soviet squad. (Or something like that.) Pundits and sports nerds alike had all their eggs in the Soviet basket (but that was cool because, like, everyone had equal ownership of all the eggs); but Team America came out ready to take down a giant while the whole world watched, doubting the underdogs. And then blammo, they gave unto us the Miracle on Ice. USA! USA! USA!

3) Ken Olsen hates the future

In 1977, this guy said: "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." Clearly, the co-founder of Digital Equipment Corporation had never heard of hardcore pornography, identity theft or Rick Rolling. I'm not condoning any of those things, but still -- I'd have seen it coming. Not only does every individual now require a computer in their home, but they need them in their phones, cars, and relationships, too. Honestly, I wish this guy was right.

4) Get the news before it doesn't happen!

DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN! I know, I couldn't believe it, either. On Novermber 3, 1948, the Chicago Tribune, in an effort to get the news out first, announced Republican Thomas E. Dewey as the presidential victor over Harry S. Truman. But there was a problem. Truman beat Dewey in an upset. The then-publishers of the Tribune released a corrected edition of the paper with the less famous headline, "OUR BAD, BRO!" later that day. Imagine someone got the Miracle game wrong? Kurt Russell would've been piiiisssed.

5) LOST couldn't find logical end

This show sucked, BTW. Everyone and their grandma had their own dumbass ideas about how this drivel would wrap. Polar bears, smoke monsters, time travel, how will it all come together! Well, of course, it didn't come together. The grand plan or reason was never revealed, probably because the writers dug themselves too big of a hole to reach any logical conclusion. The best part is that all the sniffling fans had to pretend they liked it when they realized they wasted hundreds of hours watching and decoding shit that was never real for a 2-hour clip show finale. So much for your space time vacuums.

There you have it. A short list of some other things people got wrong. Shit happens. Or rather, shit is happening, and there isn't any possible way for you, me, or anyone else farting their way through life to determine how, when or why it falls in our laps. But we can take it as it comes. (None of this applies to Miss Cleo. She's sharp as hell.)