From Contest #11
And Now, On To This Contest's Candidates (the official list, in no particular order):
Jim Collins, spokesman for the
Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, on why governments should not pass Y2k shelter laws:
"First of all, all these businesses should be trying to solve their problems. If you
take away the right to sue them, where is their incentive to solve the problems?"
Ethics perhaps? We digress with a quick story: A tourist wanders into a back-alley
antique shop in San Francisco's Chinatown. Picking through the objects on display he
discovers a detailed bronze sculpture of a rat. The sculpture is so interesting and unique
that he picks it up and asks the shop owner the price. "Twelve dollars for the rat,
sir," says the shop owner, "and an extra thousand for the story behind it."
"At that price, you can keep the story, old man," he replies, "but I'll
take the bronze rat." The transaction complete, the tourist leaves the store with the
bronze rat under his arm. As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live rats
emerge from a sewer drain and fall into step behind him. Nervously looking over his
shoulder, he begins to walk faster, but every time he passes another sewer, more rats come
out and follow him. By the time he's walked two blocks, at least a hundred rats are at his
heels, and people begin to point and shout. He walks even faster, and soon breaks into a
trot as multitudes of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant lots, and abandoned
cars... following him. Rats by the thousands are at his heels, and as he sees the
waterfront at the bottom of the hill he panics and starts to run full tilt. No matter how
fast he runs, the rats keep up, squealing hideously now not just thousands but millions,
so that by the time he comes racing to the water's edge a trail of rats twelve blocks long
is behind him. Making a mighty leap, he jumps up onto a lamp post, grasping it with one
arm, while he hurls the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay as far as he can throw it.
Pulling his legs up and clinging to the post, he watches in amazement as the seething tide
of rats surges over the breakwater into the sea, where they drown. Shaken and mumbling, he
makes his way back to the antique shop. "Ah sir, you've come back for the
story," says the owner. "No," says the tourist, "I was just hoping you
had a bronze sculpture of a lawyer." Quoted (the lawyer quote, not the story)
on the Chicago Tribune Lawmakers
leery of legal bite from Millennium Bug April 14, 1999. Submitted by Linda
Fitzpatrick.
Britney Spears, 16-year old
heartthrob, on what she was going to do this New Year's Eve: "I'm definitely going to
be at home because all these computers, I hear, are supposed to shut down and I'm going to
be sad. So my mom's like, 'Britney, you're home.' So I'm probably just going to party with
my friends."
We're so relieved. We would have been unable to sleep worrying about her
whereabouts. Now...which one of the Spice Girls is she? Quoted on
Y2kCulture.com Britney
Spears' Y2K Plans April 19, 1999. Submitted by Christine Greenwald.
Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman,
and multi-billionaire: "Some countries will have more problems than others with the
arrival of the year 2000, but for most of us it will only be a minor inconvenience."
When all is said and done, we suspect that many small countries will have fewer problems
than Bill's highly automated house. We wonder who is doing the Y2k
remediation on that job (or is Bill so unconcerned that he has no one working on it)?
Quoted on ZDNet Gates: Y2K not
so bad April 12, 1999. Submitted by Tammy Carter.
Balbahdra Aggarwala, one of
India's top astrologers: "April 9 was not an auspicious day for conception because
Saturn and Mars were in opposition, which denotes trouble and this will be proven with
deformity in one of the legs of a new-born."
At least the parents of children born on January 1, 2000 won't have any trouble a)
remembering the kids' birthday or b) figuring out how old they are. And precisely 18
days after their 38th birthday, they'll get to experience the Unix 2038 problem.
Quoted on (New Delhi) Dawn Some Y2K babies
will be polite, some debauched, say astrologers April 13, 1999. Submitted by
Linda Fitzpatrick.
Victorian (Australia) Premier Jeff
Kennett, after being told that all leave for senior public officials had been
curtailed around 1/1/2000: "[M]y idea of being on top of Ayers Rock or anywhere else
has been cancelled and I'll be at my office as well."
Actually, we like the idea of putting all the politicians on top of Ayers
rock for the millennium. And if it all goes well we'd even let them back down again.
Quoted on Australian Broadcasting Corporation Kennett says he'll be
on standby for Y2K problems April 7, 1999. Submitted by Roger Appleby.
"Furbys don't operate on a real time clock," said Lana Simon, director of public relations for Tiger Electronics,
maker of the Furby. "The whole Y2K thing really has no relevance to Furbys. We're
certain they'll keep talking and they'll remember their vocabulary."
And this is good news? Quoted on HeraldNet.com Pets in the pink when it comes
to Y2K bug April 5, 1999. Submitted by Linda Fitzpatrick.
"At Fidelity Investments, State Street Bank &
Trust, at Fleet Bank and even the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, many hundreds of
staffers will be at the ready to watch the clock tick past midnight. Most of them will be
technicians, but there will also be managers, top executives, public relations people and
lawyers on hand."
Our take: The technicians are there in case there is a real problem that needs to
be fixed, the managers are there to make sure that the technicians are not surfing the net
for Y2k party webcams, the top executives are there to answer any questions pesky
reporters might ask, the lawyers are there to tell the top executives what they can say to
the pesky reporters, and the PR people are there in case anyone needs coffee. Quoted
on BusinessToday.com Party?
Hardly. Financial staffers on full Y2K alert March 11, 1999. Submitted by
Kirsten Oschwald.
Can you say "paranoid"...
Press release from the official North Korean news agency, in response to South Korea's
suggestion that North Korean military systems might be vulnerable to Y2k bugs: "We
are fully ready to teach anyone slandering our armed forces a bitter lesson. Repentance
always comes late. There is no use in making repentance after paying a very high price.
The South Korean rulers are well advised to mind their own business before imprudently
slandering others. It is well known a fact that such serious problems as Y2K problems
confront none other than the South Korean authorities. This is clearly evidenced by a
recent missile accident, fighter crash and so on in South Korea. It is a tragedy that the
millennium bug threatens South Korea which relies on outdated military equipment and
control system from the United States."
Of course, now that we've made fun of them we're going to lie awake at night
worried about a North Korean missile attack on Duh-2000. Quoted on
(North) Korean News It is South
Korea that has millennium problem March 12, 1999. Submitted first by Lynn McQueen.
Robert Alloway, head of the
National Leadership Task Force on Y2K, an independent, non-profit organization:
"[Government agencies] are under tremendous pressure from Congress to hit their
numbers, to be 100% compliant. And in a practical sense, they will do so even if they have
to drop some of their mission-critical systems.''
You learn something new every day. It turns out that the definition of a
"mission critical" system is "one you have time to fix." Quoted
on USA Today Govt. Y2K status
reports questioned March 30, 1999. Submitted by Linda Fitzpatrick.
Maine Governor Angus King, in
response to one legislators proposal for the state to stockpile $50 million worth of
beans, rice and other non-perishable foods as a Y2k contingency: "If we are going to
hoard food, why is it beans and rice and not lobster and champagne?"
Let them eat lobster. Quoted on Foster's Online via AP Maine bill would direct
stockpiling of rice, beans, in event of disaster March 19, 1999.
Stupid Journalism
Atlanta-area columnist and consultant Jeffrey
Kagan: "Like every dark storm cloud, Y2K could have a silver lining. Y2K could
be the biggest snow day America has every seen. What would happen if you woke up and
couldn't hear the traffic or weather reports? What if you tried to turn on the TV but
couldn't get CNN, or your children couldn't get the Cartoon Network? What if you couldn't
check e-mail or voice mail? What if you couldn't surf the Web and read news from
newspapers all over the country? What if you couldn't do a conference call, or video call,
or share documents with co-workers? It would be a disaster -- or would it?"
Why do people seem to think that we can do just fine without computers these days?
Quoted on Atlanta Business Chronicle Y2K storm
clouds may have old-fashioned silver lining March 15, 1999. Submitted by Dennis
Olson.
Stewart Alsop, columnist for
Money magazine and a partner with New Enterprise Associates, a venture capital firm:
"No one's shown me any proof that the Y2K problem is anything more dangerous than
that Michelangelo Virus. I don't intend to fly on Jan. 1, 2000, but that's because it's a
Saturday and I try to keep my weekends airplane-free. I'm certainly not going to stockpile
food or pull my money out of all my accounts for the day or do anything else that foolish.
Perhaps my confidence that nothing will happen will make it just a little easier for you
to do what you're supposed to when December turns to January and the new millennium rolls
around--have a happy New Year."
Turn off those phones and beepers for a couple of seconds and enjoy the New Year.
Then get back to work! Quoted on Money Worried
About Y2K? Get a Life. March 15, 1999
And now the the unofficial list:
all those other entries whose sources couldn't be verified, but we liked anyway
I work for a large company with an internal IT group.
Several of us were discussing upcoming Y2K issues and one that came up was home
appliances. One of our senior software people went ballistic because s/he couldn't figure
out how s/he was going to set the DATE on the oven, s/he only knew where the clock
controls were and s/he was adamant that s/he wasn't going to buy a new oven. Even when we
tried to explain that the oven didn't have a DATE, s/he was sure s/he would have to
replace ALL the appliances to get them Y2K compliant. Know anyone that sells appliances on
commission ? I've got a hot lead for them.
We're still trying to figure out how to set the date on the "Y2k
compliant" Sanyo bread slicer. Submitted by Patricia Flint.
My husband is in charge of the y2k project management for
his branch. He negotiates service contracts for fire panels, life safety and security
systems. Now unknown to most of the general public with huge y2k budgets to burn, (most)
fire panels are not y2k vulnerable, but his company will certify them for peace of mind
and of course a little coin. Well, he gets a call from a client that wants to contract his
services to certify him for the year 3000 (no typo here). When my husband corrects him,
"don't you mean the year 2000", the guy says "no we want to be certified
until the year 3000", my husband says to him, "don't worry by then we will be
sleeping with the fishes and someone else can worry about it in 998 years"!
Lets worry about Y2k and Y2.038k before we worry about Y3k—ok?.
Submitted by Niki Donnelly.
Over heard in a busy IT office, and said by someone regarded
as a walking computer virus "This millennium thing is really starting to bug
me."
Urk. You know, they have pills now that will fix that problem (the employee,
not the bug). Submitted by Dom Sarrazin.
As a real estate broker, I meet many people from diversified
backgrounds. One recent customer is employed by a firm that is attempting to fix the Y2K
Bugs in a system that routes electrical power in Nebraska and other Midwestern States. I
found out what he did for a living after this conversation in my office:
Customer: I'm looking for secluded acreage with live water, lots of trees, maybe a cave
even for storing "stuff".
Broker: OK, I have a an 80 acre tract about twenty miles from town, it has everything you
want, except the cave. The only problem with it is that there is no electric service
nearby.
Customer: "Like it makes a difference!"
Please withhold my name and e-mail address - he bought it.
Gee, we didn't know that Nebraska even *had* electrical power (just kidding...those
of us here in Kansas got hooked up just last year).