Spinning my 2025 crystal ball

The beauty of a New Year is that everyone gets to play Nostradamus and make their own predictions for the next year — no matter how crazy or off the wall. So, here’s my predictions for 2025. I can feel it, these are a winner.

—The flurry of stories about unidentified drones over New Jersey, New York and military bases across the US will turn out to be a classic case of corporate espionage. The drones have been reported for weeks to be 6 feet in diameter, operated in a coordinated manner, and avoid “traditional methods” of detection by helicopters and radio frequencies. A small farmer who’s had enough will take matters into his own hands. He’ll get tired of the talk about ET and space aliens and shoot down a fleet of the drones. He’ll take out his neighbors prize-winning roses too, but we’re talking national defense here. No charges will be made. A slew of law enforcement and military representatives will all get involved. We’ll find out that it’s really been a coordinated move by Walmart, Target, eBay, and Microsoft to wage war against Amazon. Oh, boy.

—The Philadelphia Eagles will meet the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl in February. They just played each other two weeks ago with the Eagles winning 27-13. It will be closer this time, but the Eagles will win again. A guy can dream, right?

—Popular gaming company, Rockstar Games, will release Grand Theft Auto VI in late 2025. In the game, you take on the role of a criminal character. You complete missions, steal cars, rob stores, evade the police, and generally cause chaos. A few weeks before this newest release, two teen fans will hack their way into the company network. They will steal the code to the game and go on a cross country bank robbery binge. It will be a case of life imitating art. Police will eventually catch the teens, but not before an OJ Simpson-like, white Bronco police chase. Before getting caught, the teens will release the game free to the world. Now how about that for a prediction!

—The 23rd FIFA World Cup will be hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. in 2026. We’re still a year away, but you’re going to start to hear more about the Cup in 2025. There’s going to be so much hype . . . you’re going to think the US invented soccer. (Sorry England.)

—Here’s a prediction, the stock market will go down, and get a load of this, it’s going to go up. Wow.

—Taylor Swift, her Eras Tour or No Eras Tour, will still be huge. Her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs Tight End Travis Kelcie will join his brother and retire at the end of this season. The two brothers will continue their popular podcast, but will broaden their reach into other areas. They will put out a movie, a cops buddy film along the lines of Mel Gibson’s Lethal Weapon. Of course, Jason will play the older, wiser, Danny Glover role. Travis will play the “kind of wild, kind of crazy” Martin Riggs role that Mel made famous. That’s not all. The two of them will partner with Taylor to buy a football team. They’ll try to buy the entire league. Why not, right? But will settle for the New York Jets and will surprise everyone by winning Super Bowl LX in 2026. Hello New York!

—Experts in Artificial Intelligence create a way for us to clone ourselves in 2025. They’re already making progress. In fact, this is Brian’s clone writing this post. How do I sound? Bet it sounds better than the original. What do you think?

—Crypto takes over the world. You’ll go to the grocery store and the cashier will ask: Cash, charge, or Crypto? (Let’s hope not.)

—The sitcom makes a huge return. Where have you gone Friends? Where have you gone Seinfeld? I predict that someone figures out a way to battle Reality TV and make TV interesting again. Perhaps a sitcom involving a celebrity like Beyonce or Jennifer Lopez? Or a comedian, maybe Eddie Murphy or Seinfeld will come out of retirement? Or the 2025 version of them?

—Think you’ve heard and seen everything from Wicked? Think again. Hollywood tries to bring another Broadway standard to the Big Screen. What’s old is new again.

What do you think of my predictions? What do you think happens?