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comment by mk
mk  ·  3375 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: December 31, 2014

I remember New Years 1989. We were playing Dungeons & Dragons at a sleep over at my friend's house. I recall thinking, "There goes the 80's." At the time, that decade contained the majority of my existence. I think New Years Eve 1989 felt more momentous to me than the one of 1999. I don't recall where I was New Years 2009.

2019 sounds like a science fiction date.

CNN's website looked better in 2004 than it does today. The New York Times' website looks better today than it did in 2004.

Things are changing quickly. We are on a wild ride, although it's easy to forget.

In the original 1989 Shadowrun game, the "Computer Crash of 2029" is what leads to the creation of The Matrix. The Matrix movie came out ten years later, in 1999.





thenewgreen  ·  3374 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I will always remember New Year's Eve 1999. Why? Because of my head injury. We were at a place called Clutch Cargo's in Michigan. A friend of mine had bought a bottle of champagne and we all took turns drinking out of it. When the clock was about to strike midnight, I could not find my friends and was wandering around the thousands of people looking for them. When people begin to count down I was by myself, among strangers. Still, I was overwhelmed with excitement for the century to be over and a new one to begin. Not just the century, but the millennium. As I contemplated what an amazing time we live in and celebrated the passing of the year, I felt a tremendous thud upon my head. I fell to the ground, momentarily in a daze and then regained consciousness to feel that my head was throbbing. It was slightly bleeding, and I had a huge lump formed on top of my noggin.

I looked down next to me on the floor I saw a bottle of champagne. Someone had thrown a bottle of champagne into the air to celebrate at midnight and of the thousand people in the room somehow that bottle found my head. Later, I found my friends and told them about how if I ever found who threw that bottle in the air I would kick their ass. After re-telling that story, my friend Tim walked up to us, not having heard my story and said he felt so guilty because at midnight, caught up in all of the excitement he hurled his champagne bottle into the air. That's right, of the thousands of people he could have hit, his champagne bottle found me clear on the other side of the room.

That's what I remember. I didn't kick his ass, but he bought my drinks the rest of the night.

Happy new year everyone! Don't throw your bottles in the air tonight.

Edit: comment dictated to siri

lil  ·  3374 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Wow -- Siri transcribed all those words! -- but you went in and edited? or no.

Speaking of New Year's Eves past, my current husband (who note: is somewhat older than me) was working on a computer the size of several Volkswagen buses, 15 miles outside of Boston at the air force base in Lincoln, Massachusetts. It is New Year’s Eve, 1969, and the spousal unit has hung a piece of mistletoe above the computer.

At midnight, the computer suddenly crashed. This is interesting, he mused. He realized that when the computers were programmed in 1965, they had never been tested regarding the transition to a new decade. When the computer’s clock turned from 1969 to 1970, everything crashed. He considered alerting programmers everywhere to anticipate computer breakdowns every time the decade or the century turned over.

And at that moment, his brain, which by this time was the size of a planet, envisioned the great Y2K scare of the late 1990s. Finding and fixing the Y2K bug could employ thousands and thousands of programmers. Universities would have to hire professors to train these programmers. He could have a comfortable professorial job for years.

So he quietly turned out the lights and went looking for a party. He told me this story when the Y2K scare started in the late 1990s.

kleinbl00  ·  3374 days ago  ·  link  ·  

My uncle programmed COBOL in the '60s. When the Y2K scare hit there were dozens of banking firms all over the world willing to pay him several hundreds of dollars an hour to come and Y2K-proof their code.

lil  ·  3374 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yay!! exactly my point.

thenewgreen  ·  3374 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I edited a bit about 30 minutes later. Today was a frenetic day, full of car washes, clothes donating, Targeting, Trader Joe's-ing, Whole Foods-ing, Planetarium-ing, throwing a party-ing, and then... hubskiing.

Favorite part? Yep.... planetarium. Second favorite.. Hubskiing.

swedishbadgergirl  ·  3374 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That was probably not that funny to you at the time but right now I'm smiling and giggling just thinking about it.

thenewgreen  ·  3374 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm glad it made you laugh, honestly. I was pretty quick to realize how funny and ridiculous the whole thing was. Normallly, you see someone like that on film and think to yourself, "that would never happen."

Well, it does and I used to have the scar to prove it!

Happy New Year swedishbadgergirl!

swedishbadgergirl  ·  3373 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Happy New Year thenewgreen! I guess that is the kind of situation were you can take solace in the fact that it will make a great story.

steve  ·  3374 days ago  ·  link  ·  

wow… you said clutch cargo...

thenewgreen  ·  3374 days ago  ·  link  ·  

yep, blast from the past, eh?