Category: Life
Every so often, I’ll grab a beer, lean back into my couch, and observe the world around me. If I observe long enough, I begin to see patterns. My mind, spiked by the beer, will then formulate complex and perspicacious theories, because, as we all know, beer is known to spurn complex and perspicacious thoughts in people.
I would now like to share some of my beer-inspired complex and perspicacious theories, as an effort to show you how harmful the effects of alcoholism can be.
(For those who missed it, the sarcasm train just rolled by.)
These first two have been covered in previous rambles. The last two are brand new.
The Electromagnetic-Spirit Theory
Our brains are basically electromagnetic impulses, right? Well, what if these electromagnetic impulses were coherent enough to exist without neurons? What if these impulses could maintain a semi-conscious state after the body died?
Perhaps ghosts are essentially the electromagnetic impulses of a person whose body has died. These impulses are strong enough to maintain a faint but visible form.
Perhaps their thoughts aren’t fully conscious or rational; perhaps their thoughts are slightly crazed, like a person in shock.
This “shell-shock” phenomenon could be why these ghosts will repeat their last actions over and over again. They haven’t yet grasped the fact that their bodies have died.
The Sleep-Deprived Worker Theory
Technology that was supposed to make our lives easier has only forced us to work more. Instead of having more free time, we now work more hours than ever.
The workers of the American and Asian “rat races” are sleep-deprived. Not many people get a standard eight hours of sleep anymore.
The workers in Europe it better; they have siestas. They have realized the importance of afternoon naps. Right after lunch, they shut down and take a snooze. Then they wake up and go back to work again, refreshed and renewed.
The sleep-deprived workers are slowly burning themselves out. Work has become more important than anything else. Family has taken a back seat.
This lack of sleep is contorting our minds and our priorities. Our society could be next.
The Hero Theory
Hey ladies, ever notice how your boyfriend always wants to solve all of your problems?
You’ll talk to him about your day, complaining about how your supervisor is a jerk or how your parents are giving you a hard time. All you want to do is to get these problems off your chest; all you want is someone who will just sit there and listen to you.
And what does your boyfriend do? If he’s not watching TV, he’ll lay out an action plan for you, telling you exactly what you need to do to solve your problems.
You don’t like that, do you? You want to say to him, “Shut up. I just want you to listen to me.”
But you don’t because you don’t want to hurt his feelings. Or maybe you do, and then you get into an argument.
Do you want to know why he does that?
Well, ladies, here’s why. Your boyfriend wants to be your hero. He wants to be the most important person in your world; he wants to be the man who can solve all of your problems, your knight in shining armor.
Sweet, isn’t that? Sure it is. But if you need a shoulder to lean on more than a Superman, then tell him ahead of time that you just want to talk. Let him know that you just want to complain for the sake of complaining.
Hopefully, he’ll understand and you won’t have to take out the Kryptonite in order to have a simple conversation.
The Ice Cream Theory
Some believe that there’s only one “right” person for them out there.
But how do you define “right”? What makes one person more “right” than another?
There may be several people out there who are compatible with you. Each is “right” for you in different ways and degrees.
Think of it like different flavors of ice cream. You may have a favorite flavor, but there are many other flavors that you really enjoy too. Each is “right” for you in different ways.
Chocolate may rank high on your list. But Rocky Road is damn good too because of its nutty and marshmellowy goodness.
You can choose one of these flavors to be the only flavor you’ll eat for the rest of your life. But which one do you choose?
Some get lucky and find their favorite flavor early on in the taste test. Some have to try out different flavors before knowing which one they like the best.
And still others may get bored with their choice and want a sample of other flavors.
The key here is that there isn’t just one flavor that you’ll like; there are many different flavors that you’ll like in varying ways and degrees.
Same with people. You’ll encounter many people who may be “right” for you in some way. There’s no one “right” person for you, just varying degrees of “rightness” among the many people that you’ll meet.
. . .
What do you think of these theories?
Are you feeling lucky?
I can’t shake it, but I’ve been feeling lucky lately. Maybe a little too lucky. And that’s a bad thing, because there’s also this feeling that my luck will run out soon.
With a vengeance. Not a soft, wimpy puff of air. A loud, jarring, and possibly very painful crash.
I almost killed myself while sky diving once. And I’ve had lots of near-misses while driving. But I was able to walk away from all of those incidents. Lucky me.
Oh, but wait. I lost my luggage this weekend. In it were my lucky boxers, my lucky shirt, and even my lucky bunny slippers. Well, that’s not entirely true. I don’t really have a lucky shirt and only one pair of bunny slippers, so they can hardly be called my “lucky bunny slippers.” But still.
When I lost my luggage, I figured my luck had finally run out. It actually relived me. There was no loud and painful crash. Just a puff of lost belongings.
Then someone found my luggage and returned it to me. Damn.
Sometimes I wonder about guardian angels. Do they exist? Or are they just rationalizations of past occurrences? I don’t know; I wonder.
For instance, how in the world did I survive that sky diving accident if there wasn’t a guardian angel watching over me? And how about all those near-misses while driving? And what does “near-miss” really mean? Isn’t a near-miss a hit?
Or maybe it’s all a set of coincidences. Maybe these things just happened by random chance. Who is to say there even is such a thing as luck?
And if I don’t believe in it, why do I have a pair of lucky bunny slippers?
In the same way that people are agnostic just in case God exists, maybe this is my way of believing in luck—just in case it exists. Better safe than sorry, eh?
That’s probably a lame reason, but it’s the best I can come up with right now. Until my luck runs out and a near-miss turns into a near-hit (is that even a term? does that even make sense?), I’ll keep on wearing my lucky bunny slippers.
Because, well, I really want to postpone that loud, jarring, and possibly very painful crash as long as possible.
. . .
Are you feeling lucky?
Ever have one of those life-shaking revelations? Like hearing about how the Monkees never wrote their own songs? Or that Bill Clinton actually had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky?
Well, maybe that’s going a bit far.
But I had one such revelation the other day.
The other day, I heard that my favorite high school teacher actually hated his job. I couldn’t believe it. I was aghast. I think my mouth literally fell from my face. Really. It dropped off my head and landed in my lap, jaw bone, bottom lip, and all.
Here was a guy who gave me a true reason to go to school everyday. He taught A.P. Biology, and he taught it well. Though I’ve always wanted to be an artist, he made biology seem so easy that I wanted to be a doctor.
Until the day he showed the class just one of the HUGE textbooks that doctors are expected to memorize.
Then I changed my mind and decided to be an artist again.
See? If he hadn’t shown me that book, I would have gone the path of a doctor. Than I would have had to memorize that entire book and gone on to do all sorts of sick, twisted, yet artistic procedures of surgery.
So you see, he saved me. He saved me from that path. And he saved the hundreds, nay, thousands of patients whom I would have conceivably operated on. I should thank him. And if you were to be one of those thousands, you should thank him too.
His sarcastic and witty humor made biology fun. It was my favorite subject only because he taught it. He could have taught Advanced Quantum Physics and I still would have enjoyed it. I would have failed miserably, but I damn sure would have had a great time doing it.
He intertwined his muses on life with deoxyribonucleic acids. Between discussions of anatomy and physiology he’d tell us about the how he’d tell wrestlers to stop shaving a day before a big match so they could use their painful facial stubble on their opponents.
His school spirit was unmatched. If he wanted our wrestlers to win, he’d damn well make sure they won. Not exactly a paragon of virtue, of course. But he captured the hearts and respect of plenty of students.
He was even nominated several times for the “Teacher of the Year” award.
I was never one of those students who was super-nice to their teachers. Many other students would hang out after class and talk to him. Not me. I’d try to get out of that building as soon as I could.
But just the same, I held a lot of respect for this guy. So much respect, in fact, that I cut his class. Twice.
And when he caught me the second time, he sent me to the Vice Principal, who gave me a long and thorough berating (after which he laughed and told me that my bio teacher asked him to scare me as a joke). The stain in my pants was probably a pretty good hint that his joke worked all too well.
The teacher and I held a strange bond. I’d draw pictures of him in class everyday. Each of which he’d snatch up and keep in his desk, “In case you become famous one day. Then I’ll sell these and retire with my millions,” he’d say.
And now I hear that he hated his job. Damn. How could a man who could inspire so many students despise the very actions he took everyday?
I strive to rationalize. Perhaps it was the salary he despised. High school teachers are paid squat. He could have made a great deal more in a different profession.
Perhaps it was the bureaucracy of the education system. Perhaps it was the unruly students that gave him a hard time. Perhaps it was because he didn’t know whether or not his teachings were making an impact on his students.
If the last rationalization is true, then I’m going to fix that right away. I’m going to get in touch with him and tell him just how much he’s inspired me. I’m going to tell him how far I’ve come and how much of it is due to him.
And maybe, just maybe, I can inspire him to enjoy his job again.
. . .
Have you ever had one of those life-shaking revelations?
It was believed that computers would give people more free time by making mundane tasks more efficient. We would all be lounging around, sipping our martinis, while computers made our lives easier.
That hasn’t exactly happened, has it? Instead, we’ve become slaves to the clock.
Computers have allowed secretaries the ability to write memos faster, so we expect secretaries to be able to write twice the number of memos now.
Computers have allowed engineers the ability to process complex calculations faster, so we expect engineers to develop twice the number of applications now.
Computers have allowed designers the ability to render images faster, so we expect designers to create twice the number of illustrations now.
This has crept into all other aspects of life too. Faxes make us expect letters sooner. Where it used to take a week for a letter to get to a person can now take seconds. So instead of changing our lives to enjoy that new time that we’ve earned, it’s changed our lives to expect everything delivered in a millisecond.
The web is a perfect example. People used to sit and patiently wait for a book to arrive in the mail, then to sit and patiently read the book and enjoy each and every page. Now people are rushing through each web page impatiently, bypassing everything that does not come to their screen under a second.
Have computers really given us more free time? Or have they made us a more rushed society?
And what’s taking my microwave so damn long? I’ve been waiting for that pizza for a whole minute now!
. . .
Do you have a lot of free time?
I see life as a series of paths before me. Like branches of a tree they stretch out in random directions, each with it’s own branch children and grandchildren.
The path I take becomes my life, my collection of experiences. Each path leads me to a difference set of branches, from which comes another set of random branches.
These branches are the choices in my life. Just as I am faced with hundreds of choices each day, I am standing on a path with hundreds of branches.
During a conversation on fate and destiny, a friend expressed the viewpoint that fate is the string of branches that have been predetermined for any given person—a Yellow Brick Road, so to speak. Destiny would then be the final destination at the very end of the Yellow Brick Road.
With that definition, I’d say I don’t believe in fate and destiny. I don’t believe that there is a predetermined set of paths that one takes.
In my opinion, each person makes his own road. As the person comes across each branch, that person alone decides which branch to take. Everyone controls his own fate and destiny.
I see this Yellow Brick Road theory as a romantic but limiting one. To believe that I have been preordained to do whatever I am doing at this very moment (to believe that you were fated to be reading this) is, in my opinion, a leap of faith for reasons of fear and want of reassurance.
To know that what a person’s actions have already been determined provides a sense of validation to his everyday actions. If he controlled his own fate, then he would be directly responsible for each and every one of his actions.
So I can see why it’s comforting to believe in the Yellow Brick Road theory. That person can make a grand mistake, and he is not directly responsible for it.
If that person is content with what he’s currently doing, then he’s less apt to change it—he’ll believe that that is what he’s been fated to do. There’s no true incentive to go the extra level and make himself even more content.
If one does not believe in fate, however, then he may take that extra risk with the realization that he’s the master of his own fate and destiny. The only way to truly be happy and successful would be to make himself happy and successful, not to sit back and wait until fate brings him there.
For me, it comes down to: If I was standing on a path with hundred branches, I’d rather see a field of paths ahead of me than one Yellow Brick Road that I have to take without question or choice.
. . .
Do you believe in fate?
Love does not make sense. Love is not technical. Love is not black and white.
When it comes to matters of the heart, you cannot apply human standards of fairness and mathematical principles of logic.
When a person Loves, a person Loves. It does not have to make sense. It only has to exist and to be boundless.
I was watching an episode of the American sitcom Friends, the other night. Ross and Rachael, a couple in the show who had a long and faithful relationship, broke up.
Ross, was so distraught that he went to a bar, got drunk, and ended up sleeping with another woman. Later, the two reconciled and were ready to give their relationship a second chance. But when Rachael heard what he had done, she refused to accept him back.
Throughout the show, Ross’ argument was that their relationship was technically on a break. That they were no longer a couple when he slept with the other woman, he argued that it he did nothing wrong.
Rachael did not see it this way. Even though Ross was technically right, she could not bring her heart to agree with that. She could not force her heart to see the situation in a logical manner. Even their friends agreed with Ross’ logic, though they supported her as well.
My opinion? I agree with Rachael.
The heart does not work in a logical manner. When was the last time you fell in love with somebody who you “logically” should love? When was the last time you saw a person whom would seem perfect for you, but felt utterly nothing? When was the last time you fell in love with exactly the wrong kind of person for you?
I don’t know about you, but I’ve done that plenty of times. I guess my heart must not make much sense.
A friend once tried explaining to me why it was okay for another friend of mine to start going out with my ex-girlfriend. We had broken up, so technically it was fine. And sure, the logic in my brain agreed with him.
But for the life of me, I couldn’t convince my heart of that. Why? Well, like I said, I guess my heart must not make much sense.
. . .
Do you think love is logical?
Here’s a subject full of controversy: human cloning.
Ever hear of G. Richard Seed? He’s hellbent on cloning a human being. Government, activists, and ethics be damned. And he’s starting with himself.
Mr. Seed is a physicist with three degrees from Harvard University. Want to know what he thinks about cloning? In an interview with Richard Kardrey of Wired Magazine (March 1998), Mr. Seed states:
“First of all, I believe in God. Second, I’m a Christian. Third, I’m a Methodist, a very serious Methodist. The Bible says that God made Man in his own image. The Bible also says that Man will become one with God.
To explain this, let me digress a little: During the first few hundred years of the Christian church, there were constant arguments and debates. One of the big arguments was about the resurrection of Christ. Was the resurrection in spirit or was the resurrection in body? This was a schism of major proportions.
It was settled around the third century, and the resolution was that Christ was resurrected in both spirit AND body. This is still the doctrine in Christian churches all over the world.
The same interesting question is present now. When God intends to meet Man with himself, is that in spirit or in body? I choose the interpretation that it includes spirit and body both. Human cloning is one small step in that direction.”
To follow through with his statement, he’s going to clone a human being—himself. His stated intent is to help infertile couples. His real intent is to meet his God.
In January of 1998, Mr. Seed publicly announced that he was opening up a clinic to help infertile couples have children, according to Wired Magazine. He volunteered himself and his wife, whom he described as “post-menopausal,” to shepherd the first cloned being to the world. The procedure would entail the combination of the nucleus of one of his cells and a donor egg. His wife would carry the resulting embryo. He’s already received thousands of requests from couples and parents, including requests to clone their dying children.
Though there have been laws passed in California and Michigan banning human cloning, Mr. Seed’s hometown of Chicago hasn’t politically opposed his actions yet.
Perhaps you’re wondering if conventional ethics bother Mr. Seed. Well, that depends on your definition of conventional. For him, animal experimentation is nothing more than a scientific procedure. For him, human experimentation is the next logical step.
“It’s currently forbidden to use federal money to do human-embryo research; embryos are essential for this work. We’d like to fund it ourselves. But this type of experiment is so dramatic that the prohibition must be lifted for the kind of experiment I just described. It won’t do any good to do these experiments on monkeys. You have to do them in humans.”
He certainly has guts saying this in a public forum. Mr. Seed is bound to attract the religious right, as well as countless other activists (pro-life, animal rights, etc). And to top it all, he touts religion itself as his purpose for carrying out these experiments.
“I’m not saying I have any instructions from God to do this, but I am saying that it’s the nature of Protestant thinking. People are dying every day, and they need sympathy. This is the pastor’s role. But in the Protestant era, when anyone could read the Bible and think about it, Christians were able to read and think for themselves, without anyone between them and their idea of God.
When we attain an extended life span and access to unlimited knowledge, we will become God-like. And that is God’s intention.”
Eureka! I’ve got it! I know what a soul is!
Please keep an open mind when you read this theory of mine. And it’s just that—a theory.
Consider, if you will, how your brain works. I don’t mean how the blood cells carry oxygen to the brain cells. Dig deeper than that. Think about the basic exchange of electrons within the complex nervous system of your brain.
It all comes down to electrons. A live brain puts out electromagnetic impulses across it’s nerve cells. These impulses are translated to thoughts and memory. Everything that you are is in these impulses. These electrons.
You know how some people are born taller than others? How some are born with better eyesight than others? In short, some are born with a heightened ability than others. Keep that in mind while I move on to my next point.
Have you ever had an experience of deja vu? Or simple intuition? Ever just have a bad feeling about something and discover later that you were right?
Every human being seems to be endowed with these special abilities of the mind. Some just seem to have it stronger than others. There are plenty of stories of individuals who’ve accomplished wondrous feats of psychic ability.
So say some people out there were born with heightened psychic abilities. That could mean the electromagnetic impulses in their brains are more numerous or more coherent than others. Just as some people have better eyesight, some may have better psychic abilities.
Now when I say psychic abilities, I don’t mean clairvoyance or telepathy necessarily. It could be as simple as an elevated sense of instinct.
If all we are are electromagnetic impulses, what happens when we die? In this theory, our bodies would cease to function, blood would stop flowing to the brain, and the impulses would end. Death is a complete and total shut down.
But what if certain individuals, with stronger psychic prowess, don’t totally die. What if their electromagnetic impulses are strong enough to actually leave the body upon death and not dissipate?
Here’s something you may not know—doctors have recorded that when a person dies, their total body weight decreases ever so slightly. What causes this?
Well, Einstein theorized that energy is related to matter. Perhaps the energy of a person, the brain impulses, physically leave the body. Perhaps that is what death truly is.
Most people simply go through a dissipation of their energies. Those with stronger psychic abilities, however, go through another kind of transition. The transition from corporeal living to phantom living.
Ghosts, in other words. Perhaps ghosts are just the coherent, free-roaming, collections of electromagnetic impulses. Just as radio waves travel through the air, brain waves could do the same.
To take this further, hauntings are generally associated with some kind of traumatic experience. You know how adrenaline increases the body’s energies in a time of crisis? Maybe hauntings are the result of a traumatic episode that enhanced the energies of an individual.
When the body moved to the death state, the electromagnetic impulses left the body in a coherent form and remained upon the geographic locale.
What if these electromagnetic impulses were able to have a semi-aware consciousness? It’s been reported that ghosts interact with living beings. That could lead to the supposition that an “exorcism” is the convincing of a conscious coherent energy to leave a particular location.
An individual’s disembodied energy could perhaps enter a living person’s mind. This could explain possession.
The disembodied energy could also enter the fresh brain of a developing human fetus. That could explain reincarnation.
You know how some people say they see a bright light as they are about to die? Well, close your eyes and press your fingers against your eyeballs. Besides some discomfort (if you’re feeling pain, you’re, um, pushing too hard), you’ll see some colors and light.
Know what that is? That’s energy coming from the electromagnetic impulses of the nerve cells in your eyeballs. Yes. You can actually see that energy—it’s perceived as light by your brain.
When someone is dying and sees the bright light, perhaps it is their brain’s energies leaving their body. All of these reports are generally of people lying on their backs. In order for the energy to move up, it must pass through the eyes.
Why would energies rise though? Your existence as disembodied energy is no longer tied to a physical body that is affected by gravity.
Perhaps you’d be too confused to be concerned about maintaining a static location. When a body is lying down, the most natural way to leave that position is to “get up.” So you act out that natural behavior and, without the confines of gravity, you rise.
All of this is just a theory. It’s not meant to offend anyone; it’s just one viewpoint of a soul, as seen through a very scientific lens.
I’ve found it to be able to answer many of the questions I have about death and the afterlife. Perhaps it’s true. Perhaps it’s not. In any case, I find it a fascinating theory.
. . .
What do you think of this theory?
“I’ve seen how fragile so many software systems are—how one bug can bring them down.”
Scott Olmsted uttered this line to Wired reporter Kevin Poulsen in the same breath he used to tell him that he was just about to buy his first gun.
Scott is a veteran programmer, one of many specialists hired to combat the infamous Millennium Bug. And Scott, like many of these same specialists, is running to the hills.
You see, he’s scared. No—terrified.
He’s terrified that millions of electronic systems around the world will not be able to escape the Millennium Bug. When year 2000 hits, so will Armageddon.
But wait. How can that be? He must be exaggerating just a bit there. All the big companies are employing Y2K teams right now; in fact, Y2K programmers are one of the hottest commodities in the current job market. With all of this energy being focused on solving this problem, why are so many intelligent people running scared?
The answer to that question is fuzzy. According to US News Online, 44% of the companies in the U.S. have already experienced some kind of Y2K failure, be it simple accounting problems or major computer systems breakdowns. One airline in New Zealand tested their computer systems by switching the internal clocks past 2000—and watched in horror as their entire network shut down.
Sure, these statistics just tell you what companies have noticed so far. And no doubt they’ve been throwing everything they’ve got towards rectifying this, right? Sure.
But wait. There’s more. Company computer systems aren’t the only objects at risk. There are the embedded systems.
Embedded systems are programs coded onto tiny chips. And these tiny chips are everywhere—from microwave ovens to stereos to computer mainframes to essential medical equipment. Most of the embedded systems out there were built with long outdated technology, making them difficult to reprogram and correct.
The most dangerous instance of embedded systems are the ones in the electricity generators of our country’s power grid. These little fellahs have a feedback function that will initiate a shut down if they have not received maintenance in several months or so.
Pretty shrewd of the programmers to force electrical employees to keep the generators well maintained, huh?
Well, imagine if you will, what could possibly happen when year 2000 clicks by. These chips would see the date (read as 00 instead of 2000 because the programmers wanted to save space by shaving off the first two digits) and interpret that as year 1900.
Whoa! That must mean a lot of months that have passed by since the last generator maintenance, right? Time for a shut down! Click.
Without our power grid, we get no electricity. Without electricity, even the most up-to-date Y2K-compliant computer systems are useless. Banking and medical systems would go kaput. And the ripple effect would be devastating.
Awfully frightening concept, isn’t it? So what are they doing about it?
They’re scrambling off their asses to solve this issue. But there are billions upon billions of these chips spread out across thousands upon thousands of power generators all across the country. They’d have to replace each and every one because they can’t reprogram them. And if they don’t, then we’d have that damned ripple effect to contend with.
Rather futile way of thinking, isn’t it?
No, I’m no born-again luddite. Far from it. In fact, what I’m more worried about isn’t the inanimate computer systems surrounding us, but the living, breathing, flesh-and-blood humans surrounding us.
And more specifically, what I’m afraid of is that dreaded four-letter word: Fear.
People are fearful. Panic spreads easily. Most of the population is beginning to hear the catastrophic possibilities of failed banking and medical systems. Many are already constructing various scenarios of Armageddon.
And belief is a strong thing—if enough believe in it, then it will happen.
Here is one version of Armageddon:
Sometime in 1999, maybe in the earlier part of that year, millions of people will frantically withdraw their savings from their banks. This will birth a market crash of unforeseeable proportions. Employment will drop, companies will overturn, and millions will be forced to find alternate modes of sustenance.
It’s been prophesied that our race is headed towards a war of the classes. Or ethnic groups. Or nationalities. Or for some other stupid reason. This would be the perfect time for crazed masses to harp upon these prophecies and initiate them of their own frenetic will.
War will erupt in some areas as tensions reach a boiling point. And chaos will enslave these cities.
While the fray ensues, other communities will be quietly rebuilding. Living without the comforts of modern society will be difficult. But it will force many to reevaluate themselves and their behaviors.
See how your viewpoint of the world changes when you don’t have the television to keep you informed. Social interaction becomes limited to geographical boundaries. Our modern beliefs of human equality will be harmonized with near-forgotten models of social cooperation. And a form of social cleansing will sweep these communities.
Life as we know it will change. Life as we will know it will be refreshing. The human population will be forced to change. To rethink our ways and beliefs. To mature and grow and reach a higher level of cooperation and coexistence.
Kind of far-fetched, huh? Sounds like something out of some science-fiction novel, doesn’t it?
Maybe. Maybe so. I’m a romantic this way; I’m just a dreamer, dreaming up a Utopian society that will rise from the blood, fire, and ashes of a corrupted and divided world. Forged in conflict and tempered by compassion. Gosh, that sounds so damn dandy.
If you were to walk up to me and ask me to my face what I really think will happen, I’d tell you this:
I’d tell you that nothing much will change. A few computer systems may fail, but the major ones will brush on by without a noticeable glitch.
Sure, there may be a few disruptions, but for the most part, life will not change. Humankind will not change. We’ll all go on, living the lives our ancestors have built for us, ignorant of the biases and perceptions we’ve all internalized. And we’ll go on for a long, long time.
. . .
What do you think will happen in Y2K?
