It is now the 2000^th year of the "common era" (2000 C.E.). I notice some people are uncertain how to refer to the year number in casual conversation. Some say, "Oh oh," while others call it, "Zero-zero," and still others just refer to it as the end of civilization. My recommendation, as Local 6787's resident technical genius, is to call it "the year of 'aught naught." As in . . . "Reporters and anchor men on local and national television 'aught naught' engage in willful ignorance by calling this the beginning of the new millennium." It ain't, and they know it. If they don't know it, then they should learn to read a calendar.

". . . Let's kill him."

And now you are saying to yourself, "Oh my gosh, our Webmaster is one of those people. Let's kill him." But first, think about this; Arthur C. Clarke knew when the new millennium begins and thought the date was significant enough to name his most famous book for it (2001; A Space Odyssey). This is especially embarrassing because he is a foreigner and, yet, seems to know more about counting celestial time than Americans themselves who, I'm almost sure, invented it.

" . . . we don't count our calendar years the same way we count our birthdays."

Let's mark some time. In the first place, we don't count our calendar years the same way we count our birthdays. Our birthdays are counted in arrears as anniversaries of our birth. When a baby is born, he/she immediately enters his/her first year of life. But we don't refer to a baby's/baby's age as "one" until it/it is actually a full year old. Until then we count its/its age in weeks and months (I'm going to stop doing this/this now and start referring to the child as a male gender human, which is what he is, and P.C. be damned).

Imagine that our theoretical little boy was born on the first second of the first minute on January 1^st of the first year of the Common Era. He will always be the same age as the Common Era. So, how old is this child when March 1^st rolls around in the first year? 2 months, right? Wait a minute, if he's the same age as the year how can he be two months old when it's the third month? He must be three months old. Wrong. Neither he nor the year are three months old until the month is over, which will not happen until the first second of the first minute of April 1, which is the beginning of the fourth month. In the meantime while we are counting the baby's age in months we are calling this "Year One" (1 C.E.). On January 1^st of the following year, which is the beginning of the second year, the baby is having it's first birthday and is one year old, still the same age as the Common Era. But instead of saying the Common Era is one year along we call it the "Year Two" (2 C.E.). Nevertheless, we can see that the Common Era will not be two years old until the year is over on the first day of year 3 when the baby is also two years old and learning obscenities, terrorizing household pets, and generally raising hell.

"People back then were much smarter than your average anchor man."

Do you think people were silly enough to have celebrated the beginning of a new decade on 1/1/10 when our budding juvenile delinquent and the Common Era were both only nine years old. You can bet your water bottle hoard they weren't. People back then were much smarter than your average anchor man. They knew, as you do now, that the first decade didn't end until our little hellion's 10^th birthday on 1/1/11 when numerologists were predicting water would stop flowing downhill and psychics predicted that the late Emperor, Julius Caesar, would be spotted at the local 7-11 consorting shamelessly with Wilma Flintstone. (Both of these predictions came true, by the way, and to this day the Nile River and Salt Creek still flow north).

" . . . fake IDs on clay tablets didn't fool anyone ."

And when exactly was it legal for our young head-banger to walk into a local watering hole and order up his first Miller High Life - the Champagne of Bottled Mead (in cans)? Was it 1/1/21 C.E.? No, he was only 20 years old on that date and fake IDs on clay tablets didn't fool anyone. It was, of course, 1/1/22 C.E. on his 21^st birthday and the beginning of the 22^nd year of the Common Era.

If you will refer back to the first sentence of this column you will notice I didn't say the Common Era is 2000 years old, which it isn't. I, instead, mentioned it being the 2000^th year, which it is. As of this writing, (the first second of the first minute of January 15^th, 2000 C.E.) our once young, beer imbibing raconteur* (and, of course the Common Era itself) is a full 1999 years and 14 days old. He is a retired charioteer, a founding member of the AARP and the VFW, and is looking forward to his 2000^th birthday on 1/1/ 'aught-one which is the first day of the 21^stcentury and also the first day of the 3^rd millennium.

" . . . fuzzy, illogical thinking can lead to poor decision making."

By now you are probably saying, "What does any of this matter to me?" or, "A hundred years from now nobody will know the difference," or even, "Why haven't we killed this damn Webmaster yet? I know where we can get another one." It's just that, as a computer programmer and a millwright, I know that fuzzy, illogical thinking can lead to poor decision making. For instance, I was recently accosted on the street by a newspaper reporter wanting to know who I thought was the greatest athlete of the 20^th century. I told him, "Wait a minute, Bucko. I am not about to commit myself to a major decision like that until the century is over and the results are all in. It could really make me look stupid."

Meanwhile, our drunken retired veteran charioteer is still full of piss and vinegar and has a major birthday coming up next January 1^st. Let's give him a big party . . . with lots of over-the-hill gags.

* Pardon my French.

[Editor's Note: Your Webmaster, Kensey Alsman, was born in 1950 and says he is proud to be a "child of the forties."]