Idle threat of the week
Sports handicapping, last words to a dying loved one, warning an archduke he best stay away from Sarajevo, socially dominating high school with new found worldly flair and sophistication -- these are the activities normal people would partake of if they could go back in time.
Here at Idle Threat of the Week we are so dedicated to our craft of picking the idle threat of the week that, if given access to a mythical time machine, the panel of judges would all happily sacrifice financial gain, personal gratification, world peace, and revenge to beam ourselves back to the beginning of 1999 so we could spend a full year declaring Y2K the idle threat of the week.
You remember Y2K? When the computers were going to be tricked into thinking it was 1900 and you better have stocked up on bottled water, self-heating freeze dried meals and Kevlar britches or else find yourself on the business end of a Darwinian nightmare.
As it turned out the millennium bug knocked out a few slot machines at a Delaware racetrack, and messed with the voice mail service for some Japanese cell phone subscribers, but that was it.
The ninnys who screeched Y2K into prominence would like you to think it was the 300 billion dollars spent on combating Y2K that accounted for the striking similarities between December 31 of 1999 and January 1 of 2000. Of course that argument doesn't hold up when you consider countries like Russia -- with its even more outdated software -- made little preparations and suffered no consequences.
It's a sad day when you learn man doesn't even understand the machines he created.
So when the panel of judges heard about threats of a "Mini Y2K," triggered by this year's government-mandated early Daylight Savings Time, we had to jump into action.
"Mini Y2K" is going to be the Idle Threat of the Week for February 26th to March 4th. It's kind of a soft pick because we don't even think the officials who brought warning of it did so with straight faces.
Here at Idle Threat of the Week we are so dedicated to our craft of picking the idle threat of the week that, if given access to a mythical time machine, the panel of judges would all happily sacrifice financial gain, personal gratification, world peace, and revenge to beam ourselves back to the beginning of 1999 so we could spend a full year declaring Y2K the idle threat of the week.
You remember Y2K? When the computers were going to be tricked into thinking it was 1900 and you better have stocked up on bottled water, self-heating freeze dried meals and Kevlar britches or else find yourself on the business end of a Darwinian nightmare.
As it turned out the millennium bug knocked out a few slot machines at a Delaware racetrack, and messed with the voice mail service for some Japanese cell phone subscribers, but that was it.
The ninnys who screeched Y2K into prominence would like you to think it was the 300 billion dollars spent on combating Y2K that accounted for the striking similarities between December 31 of 1999 and January 1 of 2000. Of course that argument doesn't hold up when you consider countries like Russia -- with its even more outdated software -- made little preparations and suffered no consequences.
It's a sad day when you learn man doesn't even understand the machines he created.
So when the panel of judges heard about threats of a "Mini Y2K," triggered by this year's government-mandated early Daylight Savings Time, we had to jump into action.
"Mini Y2K" is going to be the Idle Threat of the Week for February 26th to March 4th. It's kind of a soft pick because we don't even think the officials who brought warning of it did so with straight faces.
But it is a nod to regret and what could have been.
One good thing did come out of the Y2k flop -- this classic SportsCenter commercial.
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