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The lighter side of Y2K by Erik J. Martin Enough panicking about the upcoming millennium and fretting over what may happen on January 1, 2000. If you can't laugh at life (or an impending doomsday, for that matter), then maybe you deserve the bleak Y2K future so many experts are predicting. Here's a little levity garnered from the recent press (true stories, all) to ease your Y2K worries: Information Week recently reported that Coca-Cola is spending $130 million to $160 million on Y2K fixes. Just a thought: I wonder if Coke ran a Y2K test in one of its bottling plants and, instead of the machines thinking it was the year 1900, they thought it was 1985 all over again and started churning out cans of "new formula" Coke II. Cola lovers can only shudder over the possibility. Guess you can stop worrying whether or not your pets are Y2K compliant: Animal experts say the identification microchips that may be inside your cat or dog will be able to be read just fine come Jan. 1, 2000, according to a story by the Chicago-area Daily Herald. The Associated Press recently reported on hot Y2K novelty items for this past April Fool's Day, including Bug Off 2000! -- a "Computer Bug Spray and Virus Killer" that's actually a monitor screen cleaner, suction-cupped plastic insects including Millie, the Millennium Bug, and plastic keyboard keys with adhesive backing labeled "Panic." Sounds like fun items to keep around for New Year's, considering we'll need something to play with when our computers go wacky and the electricity goes out or not. It appears that the millennium bug has bitten Hollywood. The Toronto Sun recently revealed that "Y2K: The Movie" starring Chris O'Donnell will be shelved. The actor apparently killed the project due to production delays that would have forced the film to be released no sooner than February 2000, after the Y2K panic had subsided. The film's demise won't stop the slew of other Y2K-themed movies rumored to be in the works, however. Great. We need multiple movies on Y2K like we need more simultaneously released animated ant flicks, doomsday meteor blockbusters and giant lizard/ape features. According to CNN, monks enrolled at Maha Mongkut Buddhist University in Bangkok are working hard to rid their computers of the millennium bug before January 1, 2000. Ironically, that date fell over 500 years ago, according to the Buddhist calendar. Too bad that Buddhist calendar system never caught on across the world, considering that the end of it as we know it is coming in just a few months, courtesy of a Y2K bug that should have happened around the time of the Middle Ages. Concerned about your VCR biting the dust on New Year's Day? Here's a quick-fix solution that's been circulating on the Internet. Set the VCR's clock to just before midnight, December 31, 1999. Wait 5 minutes and see what happens. If it indicates Saturday (the day January 1 falls on), the unit knows it's the year 2000. But if it reads Monday, it thinks it is 1900. If so, don't despair: On New Year's Day, set your VCR's clock back to 1972, which was a leap year that began on a Saturday, just like 2000. Set the year back and all the dates and days of the week will match up. Only don't be surprised if your VCR ends up taping news bulletins on the Watergate break-in and new episodes of "The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour" and "All in the Family" instead of your favorite soaps. In response to one legislator's proposal for his state to stockpile $50 million worth of beans, rice and other non-perishable foods in preparation for a possible Y2K catastrophe, Maine governor Angus King was quoted in an Associated Press story as saying: "If we are going to hoard food, why is it beans and rice and not lobster and champagne?" Wonder if King introduced a proposal to give himself a raise, too? On a final note, if you were planning on having "the first baby of the new millennium," you're too late. And anyway, you would have had to have hired a hospital boat and have a scheduled C-section in the middle of the South Pacific on the International Date Line just as the clock strikes midnight on January 1, 2000. And a San Diego couple has already made arrangements to give birth on an island on the date line on January 1. Quick: someone tell these fame-and-fortune-seeking, wannabe parents that the new millennium actually begins January 1, 2001, and that they're going to be cheated out of an extra deduction on their 1999 tax returns. 1999 Thomson Target Media Erik J. Martin is a freelance journalist who has penned a regular multimedia column for Screen Magazine and has written for a variety of other publications, including the Chicago Tribune, Coverstory and The X-Files Official Magazine. He lives in Oak Lawn, Illinois, with his wife, son, and the Millennium Bug, which he is still trying to exterminate from his PC. Certainly no self-proclaimed technowhiz, Erik prides himself on being "an average guy with the same concerns and questions about Y2K as everyone else. My job? To get answers to those questions, and pass them along to you." Techno file index Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA