Best laid plans and all that, I'm flat on my back with god-knows-what wrong with me, so I'm not going to be live at the National Mall. When you think about it, though, isn't it more appropriate that I watch it on TV? If this past millennium means nothing else, it means the rise and triumph of mediation.

Life: Top 100 Events of the Millennium.

Joyce Carol Oates: The Calendar's New Clothes. "Since the calendar numeral 2000 (A.D.) has little intrinsic meaning to the majority of the world's people, many of whose traditions predate the Christian era, this elevation of the Western/Christian/Caucasian millennium is embarrassingly chauvinistic…"

I've been down in the land of sun and fun for the last few days to celebrate the holidays with my family, and while I brought my laptop with me, I never quite got the urge to update this site. Because of my laziness, I missed an opportunity to wish everyone a timely Merry Christmas. So, Merry Christmas! The time away was well spent — I got lots of new stuff for my Palm Vx, and I broke 100 for the first time ever out on the links.

Quick question: Is my network Y2K compliant? I have no idea. Two critical machines were built before 1996, which spells trouble. Oh well —sign me up as a member of the "wait and see" coalition.

New York Times: Server Error. "We're sorry, but we are temporarily experiencing a server error. Our systems administrators have been notified and are working to fix the problem." New Years came early, it seems. Right now, every link clicked yields this error message.

CNN: Bradley Claims To Catch Gore In Overall Fund-Raising. These are early numbers, but this is truly amazing.

Wired: Happy New Year, Aliens. Only$9.95? I am so doing this!

Suck: Toy Story. "The shelves of mall toy stores are cornucopias of revolutionary possibility, secret niches of independent pure play versus mediated hegemony." Right on!

Washington Post: Ramsey Calls City Safe for Revelers. This is the story from yesterday; the Post finally fixed the link. The story claims that the city's critical computer systems are Y2K ready. My responses: 1) Impossible; 2) I wonder how badly we will all be inconvenienced with the "non-critical" systems?

ZDNN: Portal Wars Are Over — Guess Who Won. Ah, the power of default browser start pages… Big deal.

Fortune: Keeping Yahoo Simple—and Fast. There is a lesson for all web developers here.

A milestone: thirty days, no cheating.

Washington Post: Vt. Court Backs Gay-Couple Benefits. It's about time.

Washington Post: D.C. Declared Safe for Y2K. Oh come on! Who made this declaration — the Tourism Board? Just a few months ago, the city was admitting that they couldn't possibly be ready and were planning on implementing contingency plans, like having 175 school crossing guards on call to direct traffic when the traffic lights fail. (On a side note, at the time I'm posting this story, the link I copied from the front page WP website is actually taking me to an older article headlined "Chicken Plant Jobs Open U.S. Doors for Koreans". Seems like the Post is having their own Y2K issues…)

Tis the season: six parties in past four days. Everything was going swimmingly until last night, when I had a little bit too much fun. But the recovery is coming along fine, and I'll just have to put off the last-minute shopping I had planned for today until a more later minute.

CNN: Amazon.com founder is Time magazine's Person of the Year. Hey, my internet company didn't make a profit either. Maybe I have a shot at next year's award!

Washington Post: Bad Traffic Grows Worse, Study Says. Tell me something I don't know, guys.

Dallas Morning News: Sound Familiar? "The Democratic National Committee has created the Bush Stump Speech Search Engine at the DNC Web site (www.democrats.org), in which researchers can determine for themselves whether Mr. Bush has been repeating himself." I built that!

Washington Post: Gore Supports 'Flexibility' on Medical Marijuana. Dude!

David Broder: What We Need to Know. "On the available evidence, neither McCain nor Bradley has a medical problem that should cause any concern. But the lesson of their experiences for other candidates is clear: Disclose your medical records early." You heard it here first.

New York Times: Candidates Eager to Negotiate Cyberspace and Cyber-Issues.

Wired: More Grassroots Bush-Whacking. In a different life, I'd be working for Zack Exley, too.

SuBBrilliant News. News so real I wish it was true.

CNN: A Fractured Right Eases Pressure On Candidates. Boo-hoo.

New Republic: Misspent Youths. Dana Millbank reviews the last two GOP presidential debates. If I were to vote in the Republican primary, it would definitely be for the functionally illiterate "Lobsterman".

We had a new addition to the NHI family today, with the premiere of "Narrative Openness", my friend Julie Bestry's new website. Julie used to have a site, but she's been out of the web business for a while now. I can't wait to see what she does with the site.

New York Times: Bradley Delays a Trip to Check Heart Rhythm. It's never what you do, but the coverup that kills you. Bradley probably would have been better off disclosing this himself before there was a problem.

Salon: Revenge Of The Nerd. "Steve Forbes' poll numbers in New Hampshire slowly rise even though the media ignores him." Why? Because he doesn't stand a chance in hell of winning the nomination.

Dave Barry: Gifts to Die From. I want the Astral Projection Kit :)

Slate: Al Gore, Harasser. "…if some of Gore's criticisms of Bradley are fair, others are totally unfair, and all are part of a transparent effort to keep his opponent on the defensive. It's obnoxious political behavior. So why is Gore baiting Bradley like a schoolyard bully?"

I've been playing with Frontier 6.1 tonight, and it looks like a great upgrade. Tomorrow it goes up on the server, and we'll see how it goes.

ZDNN: Political Ads Target Wired Voters. The reader poll, at last check, shows 40% opposed to this practice.

YA weekend spent offline, reading and golfing. Wouldn't want to live there, but it was a nice place to visit.

The Gore campaign released two new ads over the weekend — a biographical spot called "Reporter", and one on education called "Vouchers".

Happy Chanukah everyone!

DNC: Bush's Big Loss. "Now we know why George W. Bush has been ducking debates for so long. Even with $50 million in the bank, months of study time with his faculty of advisors, and a debate format designed to protect him, George Bush was the big loser in tonight's debate."

Salon: See Spot Run. Tired of all those dot-com ads on TV? "For now, the TV networks, radio stations and Internet-ad-fattened magazines and newspapers are laughing their way to the bank. But their glee will be short-lived: This madness is a one-time, self-limiting epidemic."

Yesterday was World AIDS Day, and we here at Nomadder Heavy Industries participated in A Day Without Weblogs. We came a little late to the table, since our day jobs took up most of our quality time, but better late than never.

Stanley Fish: Academic Freedom: When Sauce for the Goose Isn't Sauce for the Gander. I'm still mulling this one over…

OK, it's official: the best Christmas show of all time is… this year's South Park!

I missed this when it came out last week, but Bill Bradley has a new ad, "Drumm", about the Newborns' and Mothers' Health Protection Act.