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Special New Years Eve 2009 edition: Over the past decade we've had to survive terror attacks, nuclear proliferation, hurricanes, global warming, economic meltdowns, bird and swine flu epidemics, multiple wars, reality TV, and now the Tiger Woods bimbometer (Currently set at ~13 and climbing. Enquiring minds want to know: will he finish playing the back nine? Or has he already?). But exactly ten years ago the greatest threat was known as "Y2K". As the clocks ticked over to the new millennium, millions of computers would supposedly fail because early programmers had failed to anticipate that trying to represent the then-far-distant year 2000 as "00" wouldn't work. Western civilization was going to collapse as a result. Nevertheless, the Friday Fax was, shall we say, skeptical about the impending catastrophe. To celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Y2K we now repeat our classic Pre-Doomsday Edition #68 from 10 years ago. It was the Editor's way of poking fun at Y2K, and it's one of his personal favorites. Keep in mind as you read that in 1999 mobile phones--as they were then called--were exceedingly rare; people still used land lines to make phone calls ... December 31, 1999. I'm excited about my New Year's Eve plans and I'll share them now just in case the world comes to an end and I don't get another chance. Our neighborhood--populated mostly by Y2K deniers--is having a "progressive dinner party." It's like bar-hopping, but you go from home to home instead. Our house, which is totally secluded in the woods, is the last stop. A few moments before midnight I intend to slip away unnoticed into the garage and throw the main circuit breaker just at the stroke of midnight. Some of the wives are the real high-strung mother types, and I know they'll want to call home. Fortunately, the main phone jack is right next to the breaker box, so I can disconnect all the phones at the same time. I'm guessing at least one of them will eventually try to drive home to check on their kids, but by then I will have surreptitiously pulled all the coil wires from the vehicles. For added realism I haven't shared the plan with my wife. Should be a real hoot. |
