Re: Hey Folks ! New Year's Eve/Day Rolloever Feedback ?? !! -- MIDRANGE-L

Los Angeles, CA.

At my wife and I were watching the count down on TV at the
stroke of midnight we felt an earthquake.  News came on and
said that the San Onofre nuclear power plant had just blown
up down by San Diego, apparently their cooling system was
on a time and someone hadn't checked  it.  Then the TV and
lights went out.  Shrugging, we kissed each other and wished
each other a happy new year as we went to bed.

Got up in the morning and tried to come to work, but my car
wouldn't start.  I opened the hood and noticed some smoke
coming out of the place my fuel injection chip used to be.  I
guess they used a date in that too.

Started walking to the train dodging all the people on bikes
and some nut in a 68 cadillac who had hit head stuck out the
window yelling, "And you all made fun of me for having an
old car, well, who's laughing now?  Muahahahah".

I noticed quite a few people had very pale complexions,
probably from the nuclear fallout that was starting to happen.
Too bad it had to rain.  It kinda burned when it landed on my
exposed flesh.  I had to dodge a few fire hydrants and then
shot into the air from the increased water pressure.  Can't
figure out why the Department of Water and Power would
use so many dates.

Finally got to the train station and tried to buy a ticket, but the
ticket machine was flashing "CALL MAINTENANCE".  I
figured I could try to explain this to the sheriff if they asked for
my ticket.  I waited about half an hour for the train but it never
showed up.  I looked up to the marquee that normally shows
the status of the train, but all the red lights were lit solid.  I went
to find a bus, and as I was walking away I saw some man in
a business suit pumping one of those manual pump rail cars
going down the track muttering something about missing a business
meeting.

I went over to the closest bus stop but realized that they were one
of the newer vehicles and probably wouldn't work anymore.
Everything on the road was pre-1980 or so before they installed
the chips in cars.  And quite a few bicycles and old motorcycles.
I even saw a few skateboards go by.

As I was walking back home to get my bicycle it started to get
real dark, and looking up I saw a black cloud blanketing the
entire area.  The advent of nuclear winter, I guess.  After grabbing
my bicycle and pumping up the flat tires (thank goodness for
manual air pumps) I got on to the road and started off to work.

People were looking very green about the gills about now,
but I noticed I was still pretty much normal.  Must be all the
sitting in front of CRT screens that have immunized me to
the radiation.  By the time I got to work most people were
moving very slow and starting to shuffle instead of walk.
Eerie.

After climbing over the security gates at work, they are
open by an electric motor you know, I worked my way
toward my office, waving to people as I went with a chipper,
Welcome to the last year of the millennium!  Most people
gave me a dirty stare, but one guy did wave back, just
before his arm fell off. Nuclear decomposition was starting
to set in big time.

I grabbed a candle that someone had thought to set up
by the doorway and lit it, as I headed off to the computer
room.  As I expected, the UPS lights were dead and the
AS/400 was silent as a lamb.  I went down into the basement
and grabbed a portable generator, actually just a generator
on a bicycle frame.  I hooked up my PC to the outlet
and started to pump.  Finally got enough voltage going
to boot up into Windows.  Well, mostly into windows.
I had to fiddle with the date, since the BIOS thought
it was 1900, and once it booted I got a zillion windows
popping up telling me all my shareware 30 day evaluation
software copies had expired and to either pay the
money or download it again.

After 30 minutes of clicking "CANCEL" I got to my desktop
and fired up Netscape.  And retrieving my messages I
had 140 messages waiting.

Other than that, all is well.

Oh, I gotta go.  I see my boss shuffling down the hallway.
I think he wants to ask me something.  Eccch.  He just lost
a leg.

Regards,

Jim Langston

Chuck Lewis wrote:

> Hi Everyone on the list from ALL over the world !
>
> How 'bout we let everyone know what "area" (world/country) we are in and
> pop a message to the list on the rollover status at our shops during the
> transition ???
>
> Chuck
>
> (In Indianapolis, IN, USA)

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