A look back at my 2009 predictions.

As long-time readers of mine are aware, I’ve been releasing an annual list of predictions for the tech industry since 1923. At the end of each year, before I release my new predictions, I like to look back and see what I got wrong in the previous year, and, more importantly, what I got right. Mostly I get things right, though, because I’m awesome (and also drunk).

Here are the predictions I made for 2009:

1. Michael Arrington will look like an idiot – I Was Right!

The tech industries very own Icarus will, after a series of colossal displays of public stupidity, get burned like he never has before. And while his wings and his face melt away and he plummets toward the ocean, he’ll keep shouting that it was the other guy’s fault.

That’s right, dear readers: Arrington’s going down, and he won’t even understand why it happened.

Can you say JooJoo? Yes, I know that you can! Arrington screwed up just a tiny little bit by engaging in a complicated business deal without any contracts, which not only makes me right, it makes me wonder how he ever passed the bar exam.

2. Steve Ballmer will remain bald – I Was Right!

Despite having more money than God, the sycophantic, idiotic head of Microsoft will continue his long trend of not realizing he has enough money to buy hairplugs.

And 2009 ends with Steve Ballmer still not figuring out that he has enough money to stop himself from being bald. Also, he’s still as sweaty as my mother-in-law, who looks like a hairy gorilla (Hi Babs!). What a tool.

3. No one will give a crap about Palm – I Was Right!

Palm used to be a market leader, but those times are long gone. And while various little birdies tell me Palm’s got something up their sleeves that’s pretty cool, those birds are wrong and should go die in a coal mine, because Palm understands the world about as well as the wart I had removed from my left butt-cheek.

Aaaand, I’m right; the Palm Pre is, technically speaking, a nice device and it probably deserved to do significantly better in the marketplace, but I didn’t personally recommend it, so Palm remained a distant memory in the eyes of the world at large.

4. Steve Jobs will experience no health problems whatsoever – I Was Right!

Despite long-standing rumors that my close, personal friend Steve Jobs is once again sick, and that he may even be so sick that he actually needs to take time away from working in order to rest, I can say with absolute certainty that that’s all crap; Steve’s fine, and he’ll end the year as he started it, in full control of Apple and every part of his body.

Right again! Don’t quibble with me on this one, jackass, because even though, yes, he had some health problems technically, the last sentence of my prediction is true (unless you count his removed Liver, which I don’t, because shut up), because he is in control of Apple and his body.

5. Windows 7 will be released, reviled – I Was Right!

The next version of Windows will be released, and it will be as hated by everybody as its predecessor, Windows Vista was. Even I, the eternally fair-and-balanced Walt Mosspuppet, only technology journalist in the world, will give it a negative review (even though I’ll be very open-minded when I get to review it).

Holy crap, right? Now, sure, you might point to all of the positive press that Windows 7 has received, but there are people who disliked it, which validates my prediction. Also, I realize I gave it a good review initially, but if you’ll recall, I later recanted and said that it was a piece of crap, so that means I always gave it a bad review.

6. Safari will become most popular browser on the internet – I Was Right!

In the upcoming year, because of its tight bundling with iTunes and its frightfully amazing performance, Apple’s Safari Browser will overtake every other browser as the most widely used in the history of humanity.

Recent numbers show that Firefox was briefly more popular than everything, even Internet Explorer, but I’m going to count this as a win because it’s used by more people on a Mac, and Mac users are the only ones who count. PC users can fuck off.

7. Leo Laporte will kill Robert Scoble – I Was Wrong?

During a live recording of TWiT, the normally friendly Leo Laporte will be pushed past his breaking point by Robert Scoble and will, encouraged by 3,000 technically-adept but socially illiterate fans watching via BitGravity, choke him to death with one of the many USB cables he has laying around. He will then burn Robert Scoble’s corpse in the backyard of the TWiT cottage with the help of Patrick Norton and Kevin Rose.

Okay, this is the single prediction I got wrong. But an incontinent man can dream, can’t he? I feel like I should get partial credit for this prediction, though, considering the normally friendly Leo told Arrington to screw off (which, by the way, was one of my favorite moments of the year and made me wet myself with two different liquids).

8. John C. Dvorak will continue to be irrelevant, think he isn’t – I Was Right!

For some reason, press-monger John C. Dvorak thinks people give two small shits about what he thinks on any subject, and because his handsome head is firmly secured so far up his linkbaiting anus, his view will not change.

Bingo! Mr. C. Dvorak means nothing to nobody in the tech industry, and that trend has more than continued apace. And he still has no idea. John’s like the girl who puts on too much make up because she wants to look so very very pretty, but doesn’t realize she’s actually a Platypus.

9. No one will understand what cloud computing is – I Was Right!

Cloud computing represents the future of computing to that delightful segment of humanity that doesn’t understand the rest of humanity. While strides will be made in getting people to understand the importance of backing up remotely, the vast majority of everybody who hears the term ‘cloud computing’ will be so confused that they scratch a hole in their scalp the size of my testicles (which are swollen right now because of some surgery I just had, so they’re pretty big).

And the hits just keep on coming! About the closest you can come to making cloud computing make sense to a normal person is to say “it’s like web-mail,” but that’s it. Nobody understands cloud computing! Jesus.

On a related note, I’m pleased to report that my testicles went back to their normal size a couple months after my surgery. My wife was happy, or at least she would have been if she ever remembered I have a goddamn penis.

10. Google will release a new product that no one will understand – I Was Right!

Google, headed by that asshole Eric Schmidt (stop betraying Apple, Eric!) will release a new product that is technically incredibly sophisticated, as their products usually are, one that will offer the promise of the future of online communications. However, due to the fact that Google has a staff made up of 80,000 programmers and no marketers, they will do their typically piss-poor job explaining the product, and no one will understand what the crap it is or why they should use it.

Google Wave.

Final Score: 9/10!

Did any other tech industry wank come this close in their predictions?

No they didn’t, shut up.