Just read about 2012. Have you seen the film? It's based on the belief that the Mayans predicted that the end of the world would occur on December 21, 2012.

Now, I never took this belief seriously, because the Mayans didn't actually predict that (a bunch of fearmongers did), and I didn't think anyone else seriously thought the fearmongers were correct. Was I wrong! Because this film proved - I mean PROVED! - that the fearmongers' prediction was going to come true!

"Whenever you have a myth out there, first of all it's a starting point, which makes people [think] it is real," Emmerich says. "It was interesting for me when I did some sort of research. I read, like, ten books …or at least flipped through them …and I realized that every book about 2012 says something different. You have a lot of freedom there and it's just a fact that so many people are fascinated. I think I know where this fascination comes from: it's because it is such an exact date."

How did it prove this? By making $225 Million in one weekend! I mean, if so many people will watch this movie, then they must be willing to believe on some level that the ONLY reason a calendar ends is because the world ends. And if enough people believe something, then it's true.

Fact is, they were able to convince people that the world would end on 12/21/2012 even before the film came out using what the experts call "viral marketing":

"I think people are really, really worried about the world coming to an end," said David Morrison of Nasa. "Kids are contemplating suicide. Adults tell me they can't sleep and can't stop crying."

Indeed, Nasa got so many queries, they set up a specific site to deal with them.

And then the film made it look so realistic, what with all the special effects. (They couldn't make it look real unless it was or would some day be real.)

Then I looked over at the calendar on my wall. It ends December 31. There can only be one reason why the calendar makers didn't put more months in my 2009 calendar.

Oh... my... gawd...