As many of you know from the alignment of the stars and the amount of precipitation in your area, we are rapidly approaching (at a rate of one second per second!) the change of the calendar year.

Sure, sure, there are some who celebrated the false change of the year a few weeks back. Some did it to release tension in hectic period of Consumermas, car registration renewal, and ordering new checks. Others did it because the house drinks and draft beer were cheaper - more than enough reason for celebration in my opinion! And some celebrated the New Year because they actually thought it was the New Year!

Fools! Certainly, in a society of liars it's easy to get duped like this. Not many people are even aware that it is actually the year 4575 PTTE (Previous To The Event). We've been counting down the years to The Event (sometimes called That Event in certain circles) for so damnably long, many societies have grown bored of the idea.

Various "alternative" calendars have been adopted around the world, from the Chinese calendar (soon to be year 4699) to the Gregorian calendar (recently turned 2001!), and even the fledgling French Revolutionary Calendar (which leaves us with a measly 209 years to count back!) None, of course, approach the authenticity of the Atlantean Doomsday calendar.

Devised in the year 30444 PTTE by an Atlantean doctor whose name has, unfortunately, been lost to antiquity, the Doomsday calendar ticks off the days until The Event, reasoned to be the exact moment in which someone (presumably a divine someone) would turn out the lights. For thousands of years, theologians and philosophers debated whether the lights would go out permanently, or flicker on and off rapidly, as if to get everyone's attention. Though J'neh's army of whales swallowed Atlantis, we have retained their calendar throughout the ages.

And now the New Year, 4576 PTTE approaches, and only a few scholars, madmen, Madagascarites, and Lovecraft fans are even aware of it. We're getting close, people! In a mere 160 generations, the lights are going out! Science of some kind or another proves it. The question is:

Will your great-great-great-great......... great-great-great-great-grandchildren be forced to mutate into mole-like darkness-dwellers; or will they have to sit up and listen to some kind of cosmic high school vice principal, as he self-importantly issues some inane decree that will probably only be in effect a whimsical few millennia?

There's no point in counting backwards, friends. The past is done. The Event is something to look forward to!

Happy New Year!