SC - the Y2K Bogeyman OT

[Ian Gourdon]

Please forgive the OT.

Dear Editor--- 
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Y2K
Bogeyman. Papa says, "If you see it in The TI, it's so." Please tell me
the truth, is there a Y2K Bogeyman? 
Imellenia Yeares 

   Imellenia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by
the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see.
They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their
little minds. All minds, Imellenia, whether they be scientist or not,
are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere millennium
insect, an eonic ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless
Y2K world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping
the whole of calendarial truth and YK knowledge; this is especially true
in regard to the timing of the new millennium. 
   Yes, Imellenia, there is a Y2K Bogeyman. He exists as certainly as
power failures and road rage and altered dates from culture to culture
exist at the end of Y1K, and you know that they still confuse some of us
and give to life its highest frustration and obfustication. Alas! how
dreary would be the world if there were no Y2K Bogeyman! It would be as
dreary as if there were no Imellenias. There would be no childlike
monthalist faith then, no recourse to centurial satire, no eonic
lampoons to make the data tolerable. We should have no recourse from the
calendaricly rude; no momentary relief from the boring. The external
light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished within
years. 
   Not believe in the Y2K Bogeyman! You might as well not believe in
viruses. Your Crown (the hexamonthal one) might hire men to watch in all
the camps at Pennsic XXIX to catch the Y2K Bogeyman, but even if you did
not see the Y2K Bogeyman coming, what would that prove? Nobody sees the
Y2K Bogeyman, but that is no sign that there is no Y2K Bogeyman. The
most real things in the world (bytes) are those that neither children
nor men can see. Did you ever see computers dancing on the lawn? Of
course not, but that's no proof that they will not eventually be there. 
   Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders: unseen and unseeable
in the world of bits and bytes ...... and though you cannot see the Y2K
Bogeyman, you will know when he has been at work. 
   When you look into the dark corners, or just outside the bounds of
the monitor's light, you will see him out of the corner of your eye. He
is standing expectantly beside the hard drive, and looking over the
User's shoulder. He sits in the chat's codes, and sings along with the
CD. He is everywhere. 
   You may tear apart the many calendars, and see what makes the date
change, but there is a truth which not the strongest man, nor even the
united wits of all the brightest men that ever lived could tear apart.
Only faith, logic, and the fallible thoughts of a early medieval monk
compose that program. Is it all real? Ah, Imellenia, in all this mapped
out world there is nothing else more real and abiding. 
   No Y2K Bogeyman? Thank Gates, he lives and lives forever. A thousand
years from now, Imellenia, nay 10 times 10,000 Cycles from now, he will
continue to make uncomfortable the rustic and unprogramed, the unlinked
and chip challenged, for he is a Concept and tomorrow he awakes again. 
- -- 
altered from something else by Ian Gourdon of Glen Awe
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