Digital Days Are Running Out!

Come gather around, boys and girls, because it's time once again to point to the calendar and celebrate our geekiness. Digital Days are here again!

Huh?

What are Digital Days, you ask?

Please, please! Put down those pitchforks and torches, my fellow nerds, and let's not massacre the ignorant masses. We're coming together for the spirit of techno-brotherhood and not some computer illiterate genocide.

Now where was I? Oh yeah… Digital Days are when the numbers in the date consist of only ones and zeroes. So, when you're looking at a date like November 1, 2001 the right way, you see 11/1/01.

All ones and zeroes in a row, so it's a Digital Day! Rejoice!
How?

Well, I'm not exactly sure. There's no universal method out there to celebrate a Digital Day as of yet, considering that most local communities in the United States are still coming to grips with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and fighting over the backlash over Columbus Day. (I hear that the Cemetery and Morticians Association is boycotting Easter because of its resurrection and anti-death theme)

Hopefully, we'll come up with a method of celebrating these Digital Days properly soon, because there's only six of them left this year. You'd think we'd have planned better, since there's been a bunch of Digital Days this year and last year. 00 and 01 in the year slots help, you know. If we don't get our collective acts together soon we'll be out of Digital Days for a long time. October 1, 10, and 11 rolled right past us (10/1/01, 10/10/01, and 10/11/01) without as much as a whimper, but then we were all still in shock from that whole plane-smashing-into-buildings kind of thing. Sure, I thought by posting a version of this at the widely-read Writtenbyme.com a month in advance would give the world time to read it, prepare, and celebrate the crap out of Digital Days.

Osama bin Laden, you're a real jerk for messing up our plans!

Okay, so there's a lot of folks dead or in shock still, and the price we paid was a little bit of that pesky Freedom thing that Congress and this new Security Czar just legislated into submission as well as three precious Digital Days. As important as 9/11/01 was to many of our lives, we know there's going to be repercussions echoing for years and years after it. Why focus on that glumness? We cannot let that stop us from living our lives as our President said, so instead of going to that mouse-run theme park full of pedophiles or going back to work and waiting for our own special downsizing pink slip, we need to focus on Digital Days! If you don't act soon, there won't be another Digital Day for another eight years and two months (1/1/10).

Who knows if we'll even have any dot-coms or computer-literate people left in the world by then to even remember that they're Digital Days? We might be heading for a Digital Day Dark Age, where it's back to pens and paper and adding machines at this rate. Perhaps we'll all get wiped out by Code Red Version 6.2 or the media hype leading up to its release? Heck, I barely survived the Monica-Chandler wedding on Friends… who knows how much more I can take?

Or, perhaps, Digital Days will be a big smash by them with our need to fill 500 all-news-all-the-time channels on our digital televisions, handheld news tickers, and anthrax-free electronic mail delivery. Could Digital Days be the way to bring us out of our funk and into building a better America... and world?

Some people say that Detroit's already come up with a way to celebrate Digital Days by shooting their guns in the air and burning down houses, but that's how they celebrate New Year's (1/1/00 and 1/1/01) every year. Not that it's any loss that a person stupid enough to celebrate a major holiday by shooting themselves by accident gets killed or burned alive, but I don't think we should turn this Digital Day thing into something violent and handgun-related.

Let's make it constructive and pleasant, okay? There's only three precious Digital Days left to us for the near future. That's a long time between Digital Days, my friend, so let's come up with some way or marking this special occasion properly.

Here's some suggestions:
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HUG A GEEK

Hand out treats and little tokens of appreciation for your IT guys. If you're really grateful, shut the door (or drag them out of their cubicle and into a closet and shut the door) and go download a little on him (or her). If you're not feeling so generous, frisky or willing to get a feel copped by these social rejects, you can even send a card through e-mail. Even though Hallmark.com and BlueMountain.com don't seem to have any available at the moment, just pick a generic and say something nice.

"For a total zero, you're number one in my book!"

You'd think geeks like those cyber-card developers would be aware of such things instead of days like Leave Zucchini On Your Neighbors' Doorstep Night (There's actually a few online greetings cards dot-com companies left on the web? I thought they all died out with e-Greetings!)

If you don't have an IT people, just go to a few web sites, collect technical support numbers, and then call them up and wait for a person to come on the line. When they ask for your name, number, and the nature of your problem just yell HAPPY DIGITAL DAY and hang up.

I'm sure they'll get that special glow of joy and recognition after the fiftieth call.
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HUG A COMPUTER

It wouldn’t be a Digital Day without your computer, so thank it the best way you can. Treat your computer well for a change. Clean the screen off with a lint-free rag. Run the CD, floppy disk, and backup tape cleaning kits before you start working. Dump out all the accumulated filth and grime and gnarly bits out of your keyboard. Pop out that mouse ball and scrape the grim from your trackers… and toss that cloth mousepad out and get a Precision Mousing Surface or vinyl pad. Clean off the scanner's glass and get that magnetic paperclip holder off of the CPU. Defragment the hard drive, check it for errors, and do a double-sweep for viruses to boot!

And for God's sake, when you screw up, don't hit the thing!
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HUG AN ILLEGAL ALIEN

The name Juan is close enough to the word One, so why not be nice to someone named Juan on a Digital Day? I don't know anybody named Juan personally, but if I did I'd be sure to give the guy a hug and let him know. Maybe Juan Valdez and his coffee-packing donkey will do for now.

"It's a Digital Day, Juan! Happy Digital Day! No, I don't want to see your Green Card… it's a Digital Day!"
The only Zero I know of, Zero Mostel, has been dead for years. But Nathan Lane's playing his Max role in The Producers show on Broadway, so if I see Nathan Lane walking about I'll give him a big thanks as well. (He'll be doing that show for years, I figure... it's the only one to survive the 9/11 with any sense of profitability. Damn you, Osama!)

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Personally, I'm hoping be around to see 10/10/10 roll around… maybe I can get a 41st Digital Day birthday card from President Rodham-Clinton and Vice President Bill Gates then.

[amykhar]

I love playing with date numbers, and I am surprised Sara hasn't been here playing as well. That woman is a digit nut.

My youngest child wasn't born on a digital day, but it was a pretty cool day nonetheless. She was born on 02/02/2000 Which was the first day since 08/28/888 that all the digits of the date were even.

Now, it's going to be a heck of a long time until all the digits are odd again. I believe 11/11/3111 will be the next one. Guess I won't be here to see it.

Amy

This was actually the article I quit WBM over... when they passed it over for front-page headlining for a really lousy anthrax topical article, all of the indignities just blew at once.

I guess we've got a few years to prepare for the next Digital Days.

[kurt_messick]

Amykhar wrote:
Now, it's going to be a heck of a long time until all the digits are odd again. I believe 11/11/3111 will be the next one. Guess I won't be here to see it.

You won't have quite so long to wait. 1/1/3000 occurs earlier (assuming you don't count zeroes as even numbers, which in my mathematics classes, I was taught zero is neither even nor odd.). Hey, it saves almost 112 years!

[amykhar]

0 is even

Amy

0 is just downright weird.