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The Library of Short Russian Novels is the smallest library ever.
-- Master Squid
New Years Eve Anxiety
1999-12-31 22:31:12
I woke up this morning thinking "Wow, this is it, the last day before the year 2000."
I've been thinking about this day for a long time. When I was a little kid I calculated just how old I was going to be on New Year's Eve 1999. Very OLD, it seemed then.
Today I'm excited and anxious. I'm not too worried about the Y2K bug. I figure we'll have glitches and inconvieniences galore, but I don't expect major, catastrophic system failures.
I figure several groups of religious nuts will commit mass suicide because they got tired of waiting for God to show up. It's sad but hey, good riddance. I feel sorry for their kids, who will undoubtedly be killed off by their own parents so they can also experience God's Glory without the wait. I expect lots of hand-wringing fake-sincere TV coverage of the suicide sites, with a reporter looking on, all solemn and attempting dignity.
I feel especially sorry for those who will be killed by the religious crusaders who want to take some people with them, which is why I plan to party the night away in a place where I hope the zealots will not be doing their dirty work. I expect endless hours of news explaining how the crusaders did what they did and what steps are being taken by authorities to keep this from happening in the future. I do not expect to hear any thoughts on how we can build a world where people won't feel the need to kill people they've never met.
Then of course there are the assorted militia nuts, terrorist cells, and political freedom fighters who figure that New Years Eve 1999 is the perfect time to maim, kill, and destroy property... in the name of freedom and justice of course. I hope the damage they cause is minimal and the lives they wreck are few. I also hope that at least some of them manage to blow themselves up with their bombs, because I love a news story with lots of irony.
I know I can watch it all appear live, on CNN, on FOX, on ABC, NBC, and CBS. I can sit safe in my living room and watch bits and pieces of the world shatter and die. Then on Saturday we can sit back and reflect on just how few of the failures were related to technology, and how many had their origins in abnormal human psychology.
The end will be covered live on TV. It will not be the end.
T O P S T O R I E S
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The Once & Future King of Dust
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Another Nobel Prize-Winning Author Describes Drunkenness
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Why I'm pretty sure JD Vance had sex with a couch
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In 2010 Dr. Cheng-Huai Ruan discovered a way to cause a patient with an abnormal heartbeat to get back into a normal rhythm by sticking a finger up the patient's ass. (More...)
WKRP in Cincinnati aired from 1978 through 1982. Howard Hesseman played Dr. Johnny Fever, a DJ from Los Angeles who was fired from his previous job for saying the word "booger" on the air. In the show Hesseman would do some dialogue, introduce a song, and start the song. You'd hear a few notes, but never the whole song. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
It was early in May last year when I first heard about Spock Mountain Research Labs. I was working on a story about a Hungarian scientist's new approach to nucleopeptide synthesis when I got a call from my friend Albert. (More...)
The IBM Selectric Typewriter Changed My Life
I ran my hands lovingly across her frame, lightly brushing her metallic nipples with my fingers, admiring the shapes and the ways of her curves, the empathetic hum she produced as I had my way with her, the way she made it all seem so effortless and right... she didn't even seem to mind the way I roughly manipulated her knobs and tweaked her casing. She was extremely tolerant, for a typewriter. (More...)
The Deep Dark Underbelly of the Star Wars Myth, or Ramayana Remembered
It's a fact: Star Wars is a blatant plagiarism of an ancient Asian legend, and the long lines of devout Star Wars freaks are really unscrupulous Asian copyright busters. From Indonesia to Thailand to Nepal, videos are available for sale or rent before they're even released in the US and UK due to this nerdy camcorder-clutching bunch. (More...)
The Liquidation of Hobo Junction
Albany, CA's homeless hooverville by the Bay, "Hobo Junction," is going to be torn down by The Man. Entrances are already being blocked off, and it's now difficult and dangerous to get there. Worse, these obstacles are making it hard to get to the nearby HORSE TRACK on foot. Local historian, Pao Tzu, has an overview of situation. (More...)
An innocent trip to the Central Market resulted in a severe attack of arachnophobia (and a meal) when a depraved street kid set her vicious pet spider on an unsuspecting shopper. (More...)
The end of summer is near and sirens call of Black Rock City are beginning to summons Pigdoggers from all of the world to Burning Man. Spock Mountain Research Labs (SMRL), the world leader in beverage science and leisure technology will be at our second home for a week at 5:00 and Infant (how fitting) as we enjoy the liberated lifestyle of a temporary community 200 miles from nowhere... (More...)
