i'm going go out on a long shot and claim that on monday or tuesday next week, we're going to get a big announcement that some retailer is going to accept BTC

I do agree it gets more and more likely every day, but the announcement will probably be for "sometime in 2014".
The great thing about Bitcoin is that the people who adopt it are monetarily rewarded, and it costs merchants nothing to accept it (actually it tends to save them some money and get them free community attention).
It's a win-win situation. This train lacks brakes.