Greetings, SUNFUNers!
The guy they named the month January after, the Roman god
Janus, is most often shown in art as having two faces, one
pointed forward and one looking behind. Kind of like like that
two-faced, weasely guy at the office. But Janus also gave rise
to the idea of looking forward at the same time we review the
year past. This year, we remember all the events of 2000 as it
passes into history. We hope, perhaps, that the new year will be
just a little better. Maybe, a lot better!
A fair number of us will even have that slight sense of deja
vu this year from celebrating the new millennium all over again,
just like last year. Sure we all hear that there was no year
zero so we were supposed to start counting from 2001, but our
modern, fast food, speedometer-oriented culture couldn't wait for
such details. Ha! We'll show them. Now we can have an accurate
century celebration at a fraction of the cost of the great Y2K
big zero parties. And no worries about computer malfunctions
this time, either...
Famed science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, for one, was
so upset about people celebrating "early" that he last year sent
out notice that chided folks for jumping into the champagne vats
early. He said at the time that he found it surprising that so
many people didn't understand that it would leave us with a
century of only 99 years. That's OK, not that many people really
understood his best-known novel, "2001," either.
But such precision is probably unwarranted... After all, we
haven't even had a uniform millennium, yet. Because of all the
changes in calendars, it is quite difficult to be within a month
of the "correct" day. The First Millennium (1 - 1000 AD)
consisted of 365,250 days, but the Second was only 365,237 days.
This millennium starting January 1, 2001 is likely to be 365,242
days, assuming we don't change calendars again. Not that any of
us will have much to worry about when it comes to celebrating the
next millennium.
Thanks this week to all of you folks out there, especially:
Jenny & Scott Erlandson, Hiroe Sugiyama, Jan Michalski, Gail
Schneider/Cassafer, Jerry Taff, Kerry Miller, Helen Yee, Diana
Lee, Laura Hong Li, Peter & Peggy Adler, Keiko Amakawa, Lydia
Cheong Chu-Ling, Bruce Gonzo, Tim McChain and Fumiko Umino. Hope
your new millennium gets off to a great start.
Have A "Once In A Thousand Years" Week,
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"New Year's is another day. By the time you get to
January 7th, you forget the new year. The bills keep
coming, you're trying to get skinny ... Life goes on."
- Rock singer Chubby Checker
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OILS WELL THAT ENDS OIL WELLS?
-----------------------------
Some people think we are running out of oil. At the very
least, we are paying more than we used to. Hard to believe that
only a century ago, gasoline was considered a dangerous and
despised byproduct of kerosene refining. Now that we've got
ourselves into this oil-dependence, is there any way out? A
scientist in the north of England thinks he may just have the
answer - hazelnuts!
More accurately, Murat Dogru of the University of Newcastle
believes that cars can be powered by hazelnut shells using a fuel
cell. Turkey is currently the world's largest producer of
hazelnuts, and has to get rid of over 250,000 tons of shells
annually. Reporting on the experiments, England's New Scientist
magazine said that a year's supply of Turkey's nutshells would
produce 6,000 tons of hydrogen -- enough to allow a fleet of
1,000 hydrogen-fueled BMWs to travel 32,500 kilometers (20,190
miles) each. (Reuters/New Scientist)
[ We have seen the future and it IS nuts! ]
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ANOTHER CLOSE ONE FOR OUR NEW PREZ...
----------------------------------
US-based Time magazine opened up voting for "Person Of The
Year" to children this year, with over 60,000 kids casting their
ballots online for the honor. The good news for George W. Bush
-- this time he beat outgoing vice president Al Gore decisively.
Gore received only a little over 15% of the vote in the Time For
Kids survey, compared with Bush's 26%.
But British writer J.K. Rowling, author of the wildly
successful Harry Potter books, came within 0.4% of the president-
elect, coming within 23 votes of beating George the Second for
the honor (Time/Reuters).
[ The young Harry Potter fans immediately
filed suit with the Florida Supreme Court
demanding a recount. ]
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LIVING LIKE A KING?
------------------
Oh, how many people over the years have dreamed of living
like a king! In past centuries, they paid you to be king. If
you were any good at all, they paid you a lot. But being your
royal whatsis is not what it used to be; there's the loss of
respect in England for a royal family that seems increasingly
like a low-rated TV soap opera. And the general decline of the
quality of royal families around the world. In a world where we
get an ever closer look at each other, it becomes more and more
clear that the royals are less special than they wish to appear.
Now comes word that reality is catching up with even the most
basic perks of the palace. These days, the rising costs of
maintenance on those drafty old rock piles and private estates
can cost almost a king's ransom.
In just the latest example, those expenses caused Swedish
King Carl XVI Gustav to go seriously over budget this year - by a
full 5% or $205,500. That doesn't even include the expense of
properly maintaining all of the cultural heirlooms like furniture
and works of art. And things are expected to be even worse next
year, when Crown Princess Victoria returns from studying in the
U.S. According to King Carl, she will need suitable housing,
plus an office and staff. So the Swedish King has requested more
money from the state to keep the royals in the manner to which
they have become accustomed. In effect, he asked his bosses for
a raise.
Though the king complained that he has had to use his own
funds just to make ends meet, the conservative Swedes show little
sign of rushing to cover the king's cashflow shortage. A justice
ministry official told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that the
government had never covered surplus royal outlays.
"The king will have to fix this himself," one official said.
(Reuters)
[ It is hard to feel TOO sorry for the
Swedish king; after all, his private fortune
is estimated at around $33-million -- not
huge by modern standards, but there seems
little danger that King Carl will be out
cleaning windshields in front of the palace
to pick up some small change. ]
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LOOK WHAT THEY'VE DONE TO MY SONG, MA!
-------------------------------------
One thing that changes with the new year is that the former
Soviet Union, now the Russian Republic, will finally have words
to sing with their national anthem. For over a decade, Russian
athletes had to vaguely hum along to their lyric-free national
song after former Russian president Boris Yeltsin dumped the old
anthem in favor of music by 19th century composer Mikhail Glinka.
the move did make some sense, as the Stalinist-themed 1943 verse
that spoke of the "Unbreakable union of free republics" and
praising Lenin began to sound pretty silly as the Soviet Union
was falling apart. Not that the replacement was much better; it
had no words at all and people found that even the tune was
overly complex and hard to remember. The new Russian anthem is a
reworking of the 1943 tune, with revised lyrics by 87-year-old
poet and childrens' author Sergei Mikhalkov, who co-authored the
original.
While it will be nice for Russians to finally have something
to sing, hardly anyone is all that enthusiastic about the revised
song of Russia. Vladimir Yelistratov, a Russian language
professor at Moscow State University, said the initial drafts he
had seen were a little short stylistically.
"The new words look like a poor man's version of the old
anthem, replacing Lenin with God," he said. (AP/Reuters/CNN)
[ Well, they've got the song. Now if the
Russian government could only give the people
something to sing about, they might really
have something! ]
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A GRASS SKIRT MAYBE?
-------------------
Maybe she never thought they would notice, but a 26-year-old
woman in Harare, Zimbabwe was arrested for smuggling marijuana at
Zimbabwe's international airport as she tried to board a London-
bound Air Zimbabwe flight. Police became curious because her
backside seemed suspiciously large. Further investigation
uncovered the fact that she was carrying 14 pounds (over 6 kg) of
marijuana in her underwear. (Reuters)
[ Police found it surprisingly easy to get to
the bottom of this crime. ]
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DETAILS, DETAILS...
----------------
As he gets closer to becoming citizen Clinton after eight
years in the White House, it becomes clear that there may a few
things the ex-prez will need to learn.
Like the small matter of paying for things. When you have
flacks, spin-doctors, security folks and advisers hovering around
you like a cloud of gnats, it is easy to become accustomed to
having things done for you.
All of which might help explain why Bill Clinton walked out
of a London pub recently without paying his tab. After morning
tea with the Queen, Clinton and staff popped into the pub for a
light lunch and a few pulls of organic beer, running to $36.22.
It is almost enough to make you think that the Queen was going
cheap on the biscuits and crumpets. But the pub owner didn't
sound too upset.
"I wouldn't quite say he did a runner. I just don't think
it occurred to him to pay," pub owner Mike Bell was quoted as
saying. "But I have got the address of someone in America I can
send the bill to." (Reuters)
[ Sure... Clinton left him the address: "G.
W. Bush, 1600 - Pennsylvania Avenue,
Washington, D.C. USA." ]
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SHOP OR DROP!
------------
Alright, so it wasn't the best Christmas season ever for
stores. There were lots of shoppers, but not as many people
buying big-ticket items, a situation that certainly frustrates
store owners.
High on the short list of the world's most frustrated
storekeepers is Yokohama's Akira Ishiguro, who even posted a
threatening sign on the door of his womens' clothing shop.
The sign read: "Entry strictly prohibited to shoplifters,
browsers, and teasers."
But many shoppers either didn't see the sign or ignored it,
which apparently was enough to push the short-tempered Mr.
Ishiguro over the edge.
"Didn't you see the sign outside? Do you take me for a
fool?" Ishiguro allegedly screamed at a 26-year-old woman upon
realizing she wasn't all that interested in buying a coat she had
handled.
According to police, the shop owner then forced the young
woman to her knees to apologize, and required her to pay a 3,000
Yen ($27.12) downpayment on the 42,000 Yen garment. Ishiguro
wanted more, but that was all the cash she had on her.
While the shopkeeper denies the story, it is clear that he
is no great friend of the Better Business Bureau. The shopping
mall association said it had received several prior warnings
about the irate Ishiguro. One woman complained that he kept her
locked in his store until she agreed to purchase something.
(Reuters)
[ And they say that good customer service is
a thing of the past. Word of this should
really improve the guy's business, right? ]
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SIGNS YOU'VE HAD TOO MUCH OF MODERN LIFE
----------------------------------------
- You just tried to enter your password on the microwave.
Twice. On the second try, it worked.
- You haven't played solitaire with a real deck of cards in at
least a decade.
- Your daughter sells Girl Scout Cookies via her web site.
- She has made more money on the web this year than Amazon.com
and is being considered for an IPO.
- Getting your PDA, smart watch, text pager, laptop and home
computer synchronized consumes more than three hours a week.
- You didn't give your spouse a Valentine's Day card this
year, but you did post one for your Email pals via a web
page.
- A list of 15 phone numbers is required to reach your family
of three. This doesn't even include the nine Email
addresses.
- You drive a wide-tired, four-wheel drive sport-utility
vehicle with a winch, brush bars and a full body pan, just
in case any mountains or jungles suddenly spring up in front
of you while driving the two miles to work.
- The telephone company bothers you at suppertime to offer you
Caller ID Service for your phone line, in order to prevent
being bothered by calls at suppertime.
- You realize with a shock that the new "Best of the Beatles"
CD cost more than all of your original Beatles LP's put
together.
- You page your son's beeper to let him know its time to eat.
He Emails you back from his bedroom to ask "What's for
dinner?"
- If you are offline for more than a day, you start suffering
symptoms of Email withdrawal. Sometimes you phone your ISP
anyway, even when you don't have a computer with you, just
to hear the familiar modem whistle.
- Your idea of being organized is using color-coded Post-it
notes.
- Your daughter just bought a CD of all the records your
college roommate used to play.
- In a week, you recieve twice as many calls from
telemarketers as friends and relatives.
- You check the ingredients of a can of chicken noodle soup to
see if it contains today's bad food item.
- You chat several times a day with a stranger from South
Africa, but you haven't spoken with your next door neighbor
all year.
- Every commercial on television has a web-site address at the
bottom of the screen.
- You checked your blow-dryer last December to make sure it
was Y2K compliant.
- Your dining room table is now your flat filing cabinet.
- Spending over a dollar for 2 cents worth of water in a half-
cent plastic bottle somehow makes sense to you.
- You buy a computer and a week later it is out of date and
sells for half the price you paid.
- The concept of using paper money to make a purchase now
sounds weird to you.
- You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to
see if anyone is home.
- You buy the low-fat versions of everything, no matter how
much more they cost. Even of products that contain hardly
any fat to begin with.
- You have lost contact with the part of the family that does
not have Email addresses.
- You now consider "second-day air" as being in the same
delivery class as sending something by clipper ship or
carrier pigeon.
- You hear all of your jokes via Email.
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© 2000 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.
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