Y2K

Younger readers of this blog--and I'll bet you outnumber the Obamaniacs!--may not remember the much-ballyhooed, not-to-be-missed, where-were-you-when epochal event that was December 31, 1999. You could spend about twenty-three grand in US dollars (when US dollars were US dollars) flying westward from New Zealand, so that you could enjoy a dozen or more new millennia. I, much more sensibly if I do say so, procured some lobsters at about 1/750th of that price and co-hosted a very pleasant dinner party.

Anyhoo, the whole year 2000 business got a bit over the top round about the middle of 1998 or thereabouts, and was positively passe by the first month of 1999. The Oriental Institute moves for no one, so its holiday card consisted of the following....

Front cover emblazoned with multiple renderings of 2000 in a variety of scripts, suitably whizbang-like....

Inside the card, in the blandest possible font, was the following: "At the Oriental Institute, it's just another millennium." Great yuks were had by all, or maybe by many, or at least by me!.