Happy New Year
It's funny - to be in the moment and have very sudden and specific memories. Of course, many New Year's Eve celebrations are memorable, but thanks to the Y2K scare, I remember very distinctly where I was the hours before midnight at the end of 1999. For those of you who don't know (and I imagine that will be all of you, unless someone from a very specific group of people I knew then is reading this): I spent much of New Year's Eve playing a game called Axis & Allies, while listening as the various time-zones across the world rang in the new year/decade/millennium (pretty sure it's the century that changed in 2001, not 2000, but I might have that mixed up with the millennium; not that it matters now - I'm sure I won't live for another turn-over).
To the credit of the Y2K bug, it *might* have been worse, had we not been working to pre-empt it since the sudden realization that we should have had several years before that, even. As it was, I *believe* there was a train station or something that had technical problems. Somewhere in Europe. *shrug*
In a matter of a few hundred years or so, especially with the loss of accurate record-keeping, and another advent of oral history and traditions, that could be a really cool legend, about some sort of disease or demon that was attempting to up-end society as we know it and cause world-scale panic at the stroke of midnight on the new year. Think about it - if I just told you that much, it'd be pretty cool, wouldn't it?
At any rate, the hours counting to midnight (from watching the ball drop in New York), on New Year's Eve 1999, was spent at a church dance. And I was 14 years old. I'm pretty sure I was just getting into Magic: The Gathering at the time (I don't remember for sure, but I might have had a game or two at said church dance). I think I remember James keeping a balloon from that dance, air and all, and saving it for... jeez, I don't even know how long. That was my 10 years ago.
...
I guess this is sort of a round-about way of saying it, but Happy New Year, everybody!
To the credit of the Y2K bug, it *might* have been worse, had we not been working to pre-empt it since the sudden realization that we should have had several years before that, even. As it was, I *believe* there was a train station or something that had technical problems. Somewhere in Europe. *shrug*
In a matter of a few hundred years or so, especially with the loss of accurate record-keeping, and another advent of oral history and traditions, that could be a really cool legend, about some sort of disease or demon that was attempting to up-end society as we know it and cause world-scale panic at the stroke of midnight on the new year. Think about it - if I just told you that much, it'd be pretty cool, wouldn't it?
At any rate, the hours counting to midnight (from watching the ball drop in New York), on New Year's Eve 1999, was spent at a church dance. And I was 14 years old. I'm pretty sure I was just getting into Magic: The Gathering at the time (I don't remember for sure, but I might have had a game or two at said church dance). I think I remember James keeping a balloon from that dance, air and all, and saving it for... jeez, I don't even know how long. That was my 10 years ago.
...
I guess this is sort of a round-about way of saying it, but Happy New Year, everybody!