Apocalypse Soon

December 21, 2012, is gonna be worse than your worst bad-hair day. The Earth will be engulfed by a ginormous solar flare, which will reverse the planet's poles, causing tidal waves, earthquakes, erupting volcanoes, and a massive conflagration atop Donald Trump's noggin. Should you get past the pole switcheroo and the Donald's follicle fire, there's a brown dwarf star called "planet X" that'll careen into our big blue marble and turn it into something that looks like a Dunkin Donuts bear claw. A really big one.

Why is this going to happen? It all has to do with the end of the Mayan calendar. Never mind that there are no more Mayans. Their calendar predicts great cataclysm on the 2012 winter solstice. Something about planets aligning.

Professors of Mayan culture scoff that it's all hooey, that the Mayan calendar doesn't predict the apocalypse. Silly professors! They'll be singing a different tune when they're forced to eat their Birkenstocks ’cause all the Trader Joes are closed for Doomsday.

Enter Scottsdale's 2012 Survival Conference, hosted by the Web site 2012supplies.com, where you'll be schooled in the art of surviving catastrophe by Prescott author Cody Lundin. Lundin will teach you the joys of rat meat and corpse disposal. Other speakers will discuss survival gardening, medicinal plants, and how to live without the latest version of Call of Duty.

It's gonna get rough, people.