Dave's Top 10 Events of 2009!!!

Whew! The last 12 months have flown by like a nap on the couch. Time itself seems to have entered the left lane on the Space/Time Highway and made a daring pass of both the "Present" and the "Future." This means that next year, contrary to all popular calendars, will be 2056. I'm joking, you say? Au contrair! It has come to my attention this year that time no longer follows its normal course. The whole 1 solar year equals 365 days is a thing of the past. Speaking form personal experience, it seems to me that this last year, 2009, passed in what seems like....oh, I don't know....267 days, or something. Time is getting faster, and there's no doubting it. And it's been getting faster for a long time. Take a look at this graph:

As you can see by the undefined axes, time has been increasing exponentially for several years now. Thanks to this handy-dandy loophole I've discovered in the space-time continuum, instead of laboring away at a job until I'm 65, I can look forward to retiring in...oh, roughly 7 weeks from now (if I'm reading the graph correctly). Nevertheless, despite the fact that Father Time has pushed Fast Forward on his DVR of Life, we can still look back and enjoy the past in all of its splendor. And that is exactly what this past is about. Below you shall find the Top 10 Events from 2009 according to Dave Getz. What you shall discover upon completion of reading this list is that Dave is extremely ignorant about which events in 2009 were actually important to the world as a whole, and which events simply were helpful to the Green Bay Packers's Super Bowl hopes. Not to fear, though; my staff is standing by as I write this offering me helpful tips. Thus, let's get right into it with:

• #10- Swine Flu. This event has been very tragic, and was/is the cause of a widespread increase in health care knowledge and vaccinations. We can only hope things get better in 2010.
• #9- Brett Favre return to play for the Vikings. This international event caused a ruckus not only in the NFC North, but also across the world. People in Uzbekistan are still talking about it. At least I think they are. I don't speak their language.
• #8- The Winter Olympics in Vancouver are a hit! What a better place for the world's greatest winter athletes to gather than Vancouver, British Columbia. With.....oops, my staff has just informed me that this event has not yet taken place. My apologies. Let's forget this happened and move on to....
• #7- The Cafeteria at Illinois Wesleyan ran out of "Special K" cereal for 8 weeks! This catastrophe was catastrophic at a global level, causing much tension to exist in cities rhyming with "Xloomington." We can only hope things get better in 2010.
• #6- Facebook and Google come dangerously close to taking over the world. If the United States were a monopoly board, Facebook and Google would be the "Boardwalk" and "Park Place." Plus, Facebook and Google, playing the Monopoly game of Life, would have boughten their own spaces and laden them with 6 dozen houses and 8 dozen motels each, thus requiring, if you should unluckily land on one of their spaces, to pay them....hmmm, let me do the math.....8 bajillion dollars**. How is this possible? Because in the last year (2009), practically every American older than 4 has willingly handed these two corporations (if that's what they're called) enough of their personal information to allow one of the 2 aforementioned corporations, unbeknownst to the unlucky information-giver, to purchase the entire country of Greece using their MasterCard. Yes, this is a problem. And I would address the issue, but I first must check my Facebook Page to see if any of my "friends" have written on my "wall."
• #5- President Obama becomes the first African-American president of the United States. With this historic election......Oops, my staff has just informed me that this event did not take place in 2009. My apologies. Let's skip to....
• #4- Duke did NOT win the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. Ha ha!
• #3- President Obama gets a dog! And he names it "Bo." We can only hope things get better in 2010.
• #2- The United States acquires a large amount of land known as the "Louisiana Purch...." Oops.....my apologies again. My staff says that I'm hopeless. However, I know that I am correct in stating that the biggest, most outstanding, most world-impacting event of 2009 was....
• #1- The U.S. Economic Crisis. Don't ask me what caused it, but I know that this is not a good thing. However, we can all take comfort in the classic pre-Depression-era words of George Bailey (from It's a Wonderful Life), as spoken on the tragic Bank-run on Black Tuesday: "You're money's not here. It's in Joe's house!" There. Doesn't that make you feel better? Me neither. We can only hope things get better in 2010. After all, at the current rate, it should be 2011 in about...oh, 2 weeks.

*- Dutch for "Avast! You dare to question my competence, you blockheaded Bracegridle from Barbuckle!"

**- plus tax