My first New Year's resolution for 2000 is to never again utter the term "Y2K". That is my first nomination for the Unicorn Society's list of worn-out words to be banished from the English language. (Incidentally, it's also inaccurate: 2K is actually 2056).

When clocks chimed in the new year in each time zone, you could almost hear the collective sigh of relief that the world kept spinning on its axis, lights kept burning and ATM machines kept spitting out cash. Somewhere along the line, mass hysteria (or a bored press) had turned a computer glitch into an apocalyptal threat. Visions of the movie "the Neverending Story": as the time change swept westward around the globe the world would evaporate into "the Nothing".

But please, folks, don't think the effort was all in vain. Did people in Winnipeg whose homes weren't swept away by floods last year think that all those sand bags were a waste of time? Billions of dollars were spent to ensure that there wouldn't be any problems - and it worked pretty well, didn't it? Don't imagine for a minute that that army of computer programmers found no bugs to fix. Their mind-numbing job was to review millions of lines of code, fixing each and every date calculation that was not able to handle the next century. We will see as the year progresses how well they did their job, but you have already been seeing their handiwork in bills and financial statements, since last January. (A bill sent then for annual services had to span the century).

Admittedly, this is boring stuff, and hardly earth-shattering. But if the work hadn't been done, think of the consequences. Some would be just annoying, like sending kindergarten registration forms to my grandmother, but how about a financial statement that incorrectly calculates the value of your RRSP? At that point you might not be so amused.

Then there was the problem of "embedded chips", the little computers now found in everything from cars to VCRs. Again, most of the effects would be just of nuisance value - elevators that "think" it's Saturday, so run on a weekend schedule. (Climbing stairs to the 20th floor might be a healthy start to the day.) But, embedded chips in 'phone systems or hydro plants are a different matter. Personally, I'm quite grateful to the people who checked them, replaced the out-dated ones, and kept everything running smoothly as the world turned.

The next hurdle, incidentally, comes on February 29. You might think that this is "obviously" a leap year, but it's not that simple. The "definition" for leap years goes like this: if a year is divisible by 400 it's a leap year, by 100 it's not, by 4 it is, and otherwise it's not. So, 1900 was not a leap year, and 2000 is. Some computer programs just divide by 4 (and get 1900 wrong), some of the "smarter" ones checked for 100 (so will get 2000 wrong), but only the more recent ones check for 400. If your VCR doesn't show February 29, you'll now know why.

If you really care, change the year to 1972; the days match this year. And, while you have your calendar out, mark in the Kawartha Internet Users Group meetings on the second Thursday of each month, 7:00 pm at the Lions Club, Main St., Bobcaygeon. See you on February 10th.