A TOAST AND HELLO TO 2023. GOODBYE 2022!

We are three weeks already into 2023, can you believe it?  I wanted to get some things off the old chest with a quick recap of the eventful year 2022.

 

On your marks, get set, slap! 

2022 began with a resounding slap.

Except you were living under a rock, you’d recall that Chris Rock made a joke on stage at the Oscars. It was about the shaved head of Jada Pinkett Smith — who has alopecia.  Smith slapped Rock for the jab at his wife. The infamous smack sparked public outrage — but Rock remained noticeably and inexplicably quiet.

 

Has anyone ever threatened to slap you into next week? Don’t always consider it a bluff as they could carry out this threat. 

 

What people didn’t realize was that Will Smith👋 tore open a portal in time and flung Rock into the future with that smack. The slap sent Rock’s essence into 2023 where he’s still kind of processing what happened. 

 

“I had like a whole show I wrote before this weekend. I’m still kinda processing what happened. So at some point, I’ll talk about that s–.” - Chris Rock. 

 

I’m so glad we all got to meet Rock and his essence again in 2023.

 

 

Kanye West—also known as “Ye” had an interesting Year. See what I did there? Ye and YEar? You probably couldn’t care. Anyway, his village people found his remote control. Ye spouted anti-Semitic comments and conspiracy theories, criticized Black Lives Matter, ended business and personal relationships and was blocked on social media platforms. He faced widespread backlash and disavowal by industry peers.

 

Before Adidas cut ties with West, Forbes estimated he’s worth around $2 billion. West got the voodoo arrow from his village people and lost the Adidas deal. It’s now estimated that he is worth “only” $400 million.

 

 

A “cousin” of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 known as “Kraken” showed up in 2022. We were already stressed out and fatigued by his other relatives in the ever-growing variant soup. When Kraken was told we had no seat left at the dining table for him, he told us not to worry because he brought his own stool. Originating in Scandinavian folklore, the kraken is usually depicted as an aggressive cephalopod-like creature. It feeds on unlucky prey and is capable of destroying entire ships and dragging sailors to their doom. The Kraken is perhaps the largest monster ever imagined by mankind. 

 

The variant has quickly risen to dominance. Experts say it is more contagious than many of its predecessors. 

 

Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland on 8 September. Legend has it that the Queen was 4.6 billion years old making her the oldest human and longest-ever reigning monarch. In a solemn, esoteric and mystical operation, known as London Bridge, the Queen was succeeded by her eldest son, King Charles III. A change of system administrator but same operating system. 

 

 

On 15 November 2022, the world surpassed 8 billion people. Here’s a fun fact: more boys than girls are born worldwide (for every 100 girls born, there are nearly 106 boys), but women live longer than men almost everywhere in the world.  Make of that what you will. 

 

The wind of ownership shifted at Twittersphere as Elon Musk took over the reins and also became the main character on Twitter. There’s a school of thought that opines this could be the beginning of new beginnings. Another school of thought claims this is the beginning of the end of Twitter. My take is that you shine your eyes with the way Musk is changing things.  

 

Russia invaded Ukraine in a "special military operation". The initial US assessment from before the invasion anticipated that the Ukrainian capital would be overrun within one to four days of a Russian attack. Unknown to the Russians and Americans, Ukrainians are like garri or eba. They swell as you pound or shell them. Swelling like eba as the volume of water increases, the absorption power of the Ukrainians came as a surprise. Ukrainians have a high starch component when placed in hot water. And so they rose or swelled to the occasion.