And so this is the apocalypse and what have you done...

Okay, I've been away for a bit.  I'm sorry.... I'm willing to bet that you're okay.

What with staving off a cold and dealing with the holiday season and all the emotional ups and downs that come with these two things, I was kind of looking forward to the apocalypse.  Okay, not really, but how can I avoid the fanfare and bandwagoning that this day brings?

It just seems so unoriginal and somewhat odd that people actually looked forward to this day.  It is almost as though everyone was making such a big fuss about it because, well, what if it really was going to happen?  Man, can you imagine how silly you'd feel if the world was blowing up around you and you were the only person among your peers who told everyone that they were "complete idiots festooned with internal dunce caps eclipsing what limited intelligence they once had" for believing in such a thing?

Instead, if you just joked about the end of the world coming today and commented about it constantly, everyone would know that either a.) when the world actually did end today that you really were a genius, or b.) HAH, you're such the comedian.

As many of you have, I've witnessed several of these "final" days and at least one of them was taken quite seriously.  It was quite frustrating for me was when I had to be at work on January 1st, 2000 at 5 am to be ready to broadcast news of the end of the world.  Seriously, that was normally a morning off for those of us on the morning shift of live television.  We always had a holiday on Jan 1 and got to party it up hard and stay up late on New Years Eve. 

On a side note, when you work the morning shift in television and have to be in before 5 am every day, staying up "late" for you is typically 9-ish in the PM.  So staying up past midnight is a great accomplishment.

Unfortunately we (me and my crew) had to be at the office by 5 am to report what was expected to be the end of the world due to the failure of all modern technology.  I saw irony in this.  We were supposed to use technology (our computers and all of our computerized broadcasty thingys) to tell everyone that none of their technology was working so they would most likely be dead in any minute.

"What's the point" I thought at 12am that morning as I opened another beer.

So, starting at 5am on January 1st, there were about 10 or 15 or so hung over individuals just lounging about with not so much to do.  Every once in a while we would "cut in" to our network programming to say something like "everything seems to be working... if you are experiencing any technological failures and you cannot see this report, please call us and let us know, in the meantime, here's the weather guy!"

But this happens all the time. 

People constantly think the world is going to end... tomorrow. 

I first learned about this when I watched Poltergeist 2 which was about that weird Pepperidge Farm looking guy convincing all of his followers to bury themselves in a cave because, you guessed it, the world's totally ending soon.  Of course the world didn't end so he had to go door to door and haunt people...

"Good afternoon, can I interest you in a Milano Cookie? 
Oh yeah, if you don't buy one, I'm TOTALLY coming back!"

Needless to say, that movie and that guy in particular gave me nightmares.  But I sure do love his cookies!

So yeah, that freaked me out in middle school and then I started learning about Nostradamus and fortune tellers who kept on predicting the end of the world.  WHY DO THEY KEEP DOING THAT?  Seriously, is there some sort of room in the after-life where all the doomsayers are gathered playing some sort of Apocalypse Lottery?  What do they get if they win?

"Congratulations Nostro....you win the LAST BOX OF TWINKIES!!!!"

So, in short, look at this:



I so love the look on this guys face!

This happened back in either 1988 or 1989.  I love the very first line that says,

"... the most amazing thing about today is that it arrived."



My mother cut this out and sent it to me when I was in college.  She mailed me many newspaper clippings over the years.  My Mom, in fact, most of my family, for that matter, has a GREAT sense of humor!

No disrespect for the South Koreans because every culture tends to do this all the time, but I just wonder if this particular guy is still to this day lounging about thinking "what the hell man?" 

I'm sure he's probably saying that, but in Korean.