Monday, December 10, 2012

Y2K Bug


As we approach the end of the world (December 21st, 2012) I must admit I'm a little anxious. But fear not. I can still remember the last time I survived the end of the world. Believe me when I say there is tremendous potential in armageddon.

On December 31, 1999 I was preparing for a new life. A life without computers and everything that came with them. I believed all the hype about the Y2K “Millennium Bug.” The experts who were saying that the internal clock in millions of computers was going to be set to zero at midnight  (unleashing a form of technological Armageddon) confirmed everything I had always believed. Computers were sterile, evil machines that were accelerating a process that TV had started when I was a kid… turning me into a useless couch potato. I was excited.

Seven days later I pulled the plug on the water reserves I was storing in my bathtub. Taking a computer catalog off the recycling pile, I began shopping for a new computer while I soaked in a sudsy bubble bath. That was the beginning of my fascination with expressing myself through computers and technology. Computers, cameras, software, the Internet and printers. It was 2000 and I had discovered a new medium.