The beginning of a new year always turns one's attention to prognostications of the economy's short-term future.

Some folks use the same old dusty standards for predicting trends such as the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index at www.conference-board.org, the Gross Domestic Product numbers out of the U.S. Commerce Department at www.commerce.gov, The Census Bureau's housing reports at www.census.gov or the Department of Labor's initial claims reports at www.dol.gov.

That's fine if you want to look at the traditional dull reports that professional, well-informed and highly compensated economists consider. But savvy webizens know the road-less-traveled can be far more interesting.

Some famous oddball economic indicators bandied about over the years include the beer index -- more beer sales equals a higher stock market; the Super Bowl index -- trust me, you are rooting for the NFC no matter where you live; and the Punxsutawney Phil Portent -- OK, I just made that one up, but you can bet someone is rolling the dice based on when the rotund rodent sees his shadow.

The hemline index portends that the more leg we see, the higher the stock market will be. If Vogue magazine's spring 2006 collections at www.style.com are right, shares could be dragging just off the knee this year with a greater propensity for exposed midsections.

My personal favorite gauge of the economy is my daily commute, whereby I assume the longer I'm stuck in traffic, the better the local job market must be. Remembering that the last recession brought with it comparatively empty roadways, it makes a growing economy's gridlock more bearable.

A correlation on that could be the mass transit index, looking at ridership figures on such sites as Mass Transit Magazine at www.MassTransitMag.com or San Diego's Metropolitan Transit Development Board at www.sdcommute.com. But this could be a duel-edged indicator as it may reflect as much upon the price of gas as the improving job market.

Golf Data Tech's projections for sales of golf balls at www.golfdatatech.com could show whether overpaid CEOs plan to spend more time on the greens than in the office. Similar reports from the Bowling Proprietors' Association of America at www.bpaa.com could indicate whether union leaders expect to spend more time on the lanes than on the picket lines.

In a region so dependent on the kindness of strangers, tourism predictions from the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau at www.sandiego.org could be helpful. For the bigger travel picture, there's the Bureau of Transportation Statistics site at www.transtats.bts.gov.

One could look at how many people are in Weight Watchers at www.weightwatchers.com or Alcoholics Anonymous at www.alcoholics-anonymous.org and draw conclusions about what that might mean for the economy.

And since so much of our economy is driven by consumer spending, one can gauge where, and whether, the experts think they'll be doing it from the National Retail Federation at www.nrf.com, whether they'll be going to the movies or staying home from the National Association of Theater Owners at www.natoonline.org and whether they'll be dining in or out at the National Restaurant Association at www.restaurant.org.

Andrew Kleske is online editor for the North County Times. E-mail him at kleske@nctimes.com.