duh-2000.com

Warning: As we draw closer to the rollover, this column will become more and more schizophrenic.

If we couldn't laugh, we would cry.

This week's feature is a bit of a respite from the doom and horror that usually surrounds the Year 2000 millennium computer bug -- the predictions that no one has been listening to anyway.

Instead of fretting, Duh-2000 invites its audience to send in quotations about the rollover from the lips of politicians, computer industry personnel, corporate spokespeople and other "experts." Then the site presents awards for the most redundant and stupid quotes

Managed by the Ken Orr Institute, a Kansas-based consulting firm specializing in technology management and Y2K solutions, Duh-2000 highlights the mind-boggling scope of Y2K anxiety.

Winners take away six-packs of canned survival food from Heater Meals and T-shirts courtesy of Y2K-Doom.com. (Y2K Doom itself has some great graphics, but that site is centered on hawking their wares before the time bomb fizzles out. The hucksters bent on making a profit from the hysteria will soon be gone, weeping and gnawing on their own tongues, once the date of doom has passed.)

Duh-2000 showcases those who just DGI (Don't Get It).

Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., comments on the fact that (in his opinion) the power company managers are all football fans, and "they're damn sure not going to let those football games go off" on Jan. 1.

If 'twere only so easy. At this late date in the game, the doomsayers and Pollyannas are arguing hotly in cyberspace, flaming each other in chat rooms and forums as if the Internet were the ancient battlefield Meggido. Predictions seem to be either rosy, unaware and apathetic, or so overwhelmingly frightening that we have to resort to that thing that ain't just a river in Egypt.

The whole Y2K issue is such a complex beast that even the most battle-hardened powdered cheese-eater like my Boy Scout self has to resort to humor in dealing with it.

So forget about the four horsemen knocking on the bunker door and try out some of these:

Duh-2000's Pranks -- as if at least one of your friends wasn't already planning to hit the circuit breaker switch at your party come midnight. Just in case, I've recorded my own Emergency Alert videos to slip in the VCR to scare the bejesus out of everyone when Dick Clark's about to drop the ball.

The pranks section is pretty novel, and I must admit, it is the best part of the site. It gives good kids bad ideas. Write in with your own.

Stay tuned. I'll dredge up some more fear-mongering and apocalyptic frenzy next week.

-- Mild Mannered Reporter (clark@super.duper), December 19, 1999

Answers

heh! that should be good reading!

Personally I plan to generate a big EM pulse through out my neighborhood, just so I can watch the faces light up with panic! NOT.

(:

-- smily (jez@kidding.man), December 19, 1999.