Wednesday, March 25, 1998
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Year 1999 Bug Discovered;
No Fix Possible

Hollywood, CA - (Mar 25) - Computer scientists and programmers, working feverishly to fix the Year 2000 Bug, have apparently stumbled onto a new, more virulent and less fixable bug, the so-called "Year 1999 Bug."

"There I was," said Johns Hopkins Professor of Computer Science, Rebecca Kramer, "Hard at work fixing the, you know, Year 2000 Bug, an' all, when suddenly, out of nowhere, as if in a dream, right in front of me, virtually leaping off the page, was the Year 1999 Bug!"

According to Kramer, she immediately called in colleagues from all sciences and humanities and inhumanities, who all unequivocally agreed that, yes, that definitely was the Year 1999 Bug, and that, yes, it definitely couldn't be fixed in time for 1999, so like, why fucking bother?

"The Year 1999 Bug occurs," said Kramer, "Because, apparently there is a trap door or Trojan horse in the human visual system which was installed at the beginning of time.

"This horse, or door, is activated when the visual pattern "1999" is encountered for the 1999th time -- flipping a switch in cognition that causes the current symbolic structure of reality to utterly cease and be replaced by a system which does not require structure or a fixed reality at all, but can construct and throw away the complete evolution of all the historical "realities" of an entire advanced civilization, from start to finish, in the femtosecond it takes an anti-gravity particle to exchange a neutrino for a black hole -- and then move on to construct a whole new one, then throw that away in a femtosecond, then construct and throw away another new one in a femtosecond, and so on.... until the Year 2008 Bug -- which, apparently, makes all this crap stop cold."

"And apparently," said Kramer, "This pattern holds true for all number systems and their associated calendars and means of visual representation, regardless of what they actually are or how they're expressed or interpreted."

Because there is, according to Newsweek or Batman, no possible fix for this bug -- other than going back to the beginning of time and removing the actual trap door or Trojan horse from the human visual system itself -- some leading businessmen and politicians have proposed various delaying tactics.

Bill Gates, for example, has stated that, "Since 1998 has been such a shitty year anyway, we might as well just call it '1998 beta', or even '1998 95,' and then next year can be the real 1998 -- and we can worry about 1999 then. -- So let's just have a minute of silence for our imminent death -- and then let's fuckin' PARTY like it's 1998 1.1."

In a related story, sources have informed CNN that CNN doesn't exist.

Ted Turner, the man who would have been CNN's founder had it existed, made the announcement, early this morning, to a shocked and stunned television audience, on the Fox News Network, which, ironically, would have been CNN's competitor had it existed, but isn't, cause it doesn't.

"Not only does CNN not now exist nor has it ever," said Turner, "But I don't now exist, nor have I ever." And he tore open his jacket and shirt, revealing lines of code scrolling by on a monitor screen, where his chest should have been.

"This is a sad day for the news business," said a spokesman for the New York Time's-Up and the Wall Streak Journal, who chose to remain anonymous, pending notification of Leonardo DiCaprio.

"I know I speak for all of myself," the spokesman said, "When I say that I deeply regret any statements I may have ever made based on the false assumption that CNN existed."

A spokesman for The Fox News Channel or whatever, appearing on MSNBC, told Brit Hume or Peter Jennings or somebody that, "Hey, despite all the retroactive market share up the wazoo, we will be gaining as a result of this non-event, it is still scary to think that if, you know, like, if Ted Turner doesn't exist, then maybe Jane Fonda doesn't exist. And if Jane Fonda doesn't exist, then maybe Peter Fonda doesn't exist. And if Peter Fonda doesn't exist, then maybe, you know, maybe, Dennis Hopper, man, maybe Dennis Hopper doesn't exist, man. And so, like then, man, then, man, if Dennis Hopper doesn't exist, man, like, where the fuck would the fucking species be, like, then? Man."



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