1000 Years

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I'm thinking about hitching a ride on the next Hale-Bopp comet that passes. Not because I'm about to shave my head, design Web sites, and contemplate my navel. (I'll leave that to journalists and politicians.) I'm ready to leave this planet because I'm already sick to death of the next "millennium," and it ain't even here yet.

If I were in charge of making laws (and obviously there is still some sanity left in the universe, since I am not), I would propose that from now until Jan. 2, 2000 anyone caught using the word "millennium" in an advertisement should be forced to sit through a seven-day Pauly Shore film festival.

Even the word is awkward. M-i-l-l-e-n-n-i-u-m. It sounds like something on the last row of the periodic chart of elements or a new prescription drug designed to cure impotency in poodles. It has an uncomfortable feel about it. Maybe even a little scary.

Think how much better the world would be if we just referred to the next 1000 years as "Bob." The fear of the unknown just falls away. Witness the following actual fictitious conversation as evidence.

Under the current terminology:

RALPH: Jim, how are you going to cope with the dramatic changes expected to impact the very core of your meager and miserable existence during the impending millennium?

JIM: I'm scared... hold me.

New and improved:

RALPH: So, Jim, what are you going to do when Bob gets here?

JIM: I don't know... maybe go fishing.

See. The world is already a better place to live. Words do matter. But it may be too late, for this word has already caused a great deal of damage.

I truly believe that much of the fuss about the so-called Y2K problem (if you have been living under a rock for the past 10 years, this is the prediction that on Jan. 1, 2000 all the world's computers will think that it is the year 1900, and we will suddenly all be hit with the urge to invent the internal combustion engine and vote for Teddy Roosevelt) is simply the result of bad marketing. Of course, anything called the "millennium virus" will naturally cause people to lock their doors and head for the medicine cabinet. But if we just referred to the situation as "Bob has the sniffles," sanity would return to the world of computing.

Regardless of what you call it, if you think about it, is there really anything to worry about?

Computers crash every day, often for no apparent reason. In fact, most days, millennium or not, I can't get anything with an Intel chip in it to work properly. Just sacrifice a chicken to the computer gods, reboot, and you are off and running again. If the world can survive Windows '95, I figure we can weather almost any storm. Besides, ever since Microsoft met Intel, no computer lasts for more than a few minutes anyway before it's obsolete. Heck, I've bought donuts that stay fresh longer than the current version of my computer's operating system.

But we might as well get used to it. For the next several years, everything from mass hysteria to fashion design (ah, but I repeat myself) to strange weather patterns to television network programming will be blamed on the new millennium. Poor Bob is really going to take a beating.

The sad reality is that time marches on. Things will change; problems will arise. You just can't stop it. It is very convenient, maybe even comforting, to blame it on the calendar. When your computer doesn't work, blame it on the new millennium. It couldn't possibly be that you forgot to plug it in.

In the coming months we will be barraged with articles and advertisements designed to make us uncomfortable. They will point out the passage of time and the uncertainty that lies ahead. So what else is new? The day after tomorrow has always been an unknown.

I say out with the old, in with the new. Embrace change; welcome challenges. Goodbye 20th century; hello Bob!

written by Jay Warmke - September, 1998

At Least it only Happens every 1000 Years or so