|
XXXXX DRUDGE RETORT XXXXX 03:23:59 UTC THU JUL 15 1999 XXXXX Future Shock -- Y10K Bug Threatens Our Very Way of Life!
By Emmy Award-Winner Jonathan Bourne Midnight. The millennium hits. The power goes out. The bank loses all records of your money. It's the Y10K BUG. No, this is isn't some MSNBCCNNFOX Sweeps Week story -- it's all true, and IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN. When the wonks at Microsoft concocted computers back in the 1970s, they only allocated two digits of memory for the year, "99" for 1999, "98" for 1998, et cetera et cetera ipso facto quid pro quo. Then the Apple brainiacs came along and added two more digits. But the DRUDGE RETORT has learned from an unnamed source at the Pentagon named E. Stuart Marlowe that "although all computers are prepared for the year 2000, NO COMPUTER IS PREPARED FOR THE NIGHTMARE THAT WILL OCCUR ONE MINUTE AFTER MIDNIGHT, DECEMBER 31, 9999!" "Think about how dependent we are on computers right now," intoned Marlowe, "and this is just the 20th Century! By the 100th and 101st Century--" Marlowe could not finish his sentence as he began weeping uncontrollably. Through a cousin known only as "Inky," the DRUDGE RETORT has discovered that in its special Christmas 1999 edition in stores next week, NINTENDO POWER MAGAZINE will reveal that Microsoft has NO PLANS to add the crucial fifth digit. "Some of us tried to say something about it to Mr. Gates," a Microsoft employee said, "but he just laughed at us. Laughed!" The Microsoft mole added "We'll see who's laughing in the year 10,000! I bet Mr. Gates won't find it so funny then!" The DRUDGE RETORT contacted executives at Apple who were more than happy to assist us. They only required that we call them on a non-toll free 408 area code number and wait on hold for several hours. "To be honest," the support staff told this reporter, "we haven't bothered with the whole Y10K BUG thing because we just assume Apple will have gone bust by then. I mean, like everyone else, we figured we'd have disappeared ten or twelve years ago for God's sake!" According to an article spiked by SCIENCE Magazine due to its complete lack of merit, experts say that if NOTHING IS DONE to avert the Y10K BUG, then on that fateful millennium-turning moment "teleports simply won't function -- and as a result, people won't be able to get from place to place." "Of course," the article goes on to say, "because they are battery-operated, phasers and light sabers will still work properly." I don't know about you, folks, but I don't want to be around when that moment comes. Writer Jonathan Bourne won an Emmy. © DRUDGE RETORT 1999 |