A New Year's Eve Twofer Special!

      This is what got me started on “Doctor Who,” and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The movie, which starred Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann as the Doctor, was produced and aired on FOX and BBC1 in May 1996, but its main plot concerns the Year 2000 celebrations. It’s a flawed production (mostly because it shows us how NOT to bring back “Doctor Who”), but it’s still pretty awesome for trying to bring the show back when it was widely considered all but dead and buried.

Changes in 2013

On Monday, we say au revoir to 2012 and hello to 2013. I'd say the New Year would be a great time to give the Millennium Museum a NEW LOGO, wouldn't you?

ABC 2000: New Millennium Highlights

After a break for Christmas, I feel ready to add to the display. And I shall start with...

 I bought this tape at our local Salvation Army Thrift Store in May/June 2012. I was taking something to them—toys or something, I can’t remember what—and I saw this video right there on the shelf, while I was in line. As soon as I gave them my stuff, I snapped up the video and bought it right there. As its name implies, it’s* a “greatest-hits” compilation of ABC News’ 24-hour coverage of New Year/New Millennium celebrations worldwide. From Toledo to Tokyo, from Kansas to Kiribati, this tape has it all, including appearances by Charlotte Church (who?) and Dame Edna Everage. And, on a more bittersweet note, it prominently features the late Peter Jennings and Dick Clark...this Happy New Year will be slightly less happy now that he's gone.

 

 

"2000" Champagne and Martini Glasses

These have also been in our family since 2000. We might have bought these at the same time as those face-towels…Marshall’s or something, probably. The amazing thing about them is that they've survived for twelve years. As you can see, the numbers in "2000" make up the stem of the glasses. I still break 'em out every New Year's Eve, 'cause it just wouldn't be the same without them.

The Guinness Book of World Records, 2000 Edition

   I bought this for $7 at a consignment store in downtown Kenosha sometime in July 2012. The glossy, chrome-finish cover was a bit of a nightmare to photograph because it kept reflecting the light. In the end it was a matter of making sure to cast a shadow over the book. Be careful with that cover—the Guinness inset is molded in a brittle plastic, and too much pressure will crack it!

Year 2000 Face-Towels

These face-towels have been in our family since the year 2000 itself. I’m not entirely sure where they came from, though. They’re made of linen, and the lower border has “Y2K 2000 Y2K” embroidered in silver.

Welcome to the Millennium Museum!

Welcome to 2000…sorry, 2000 and 12, now? Well, how about that? It’s been twelve years already—no, thirteen years! Goodness me, how time flies. 

So, exactly why are we celebrating the turn of the millennium thirteen years late? Well, dear reader, there’s been a lot of hubbub about 12/21/12. The Internet's been abuzz with “OH NOES! THE MAYANS PREDICTED THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!1!11 0MGWTFBBQ!!11!” And it got me thinking about the last great crisis…the Y2K bug, and how I pretty much missed the New Millennium celebrations because of it. 

A bit of background for you: on New Year’s Eve 2000, computer software that hadn’t been adjusted for the next century would, for whatever reason, switch the calendars back to 1900. Ultimately, this proved to mean absolutely nothing, but financial experts whipped up all sorts of crazy hysteria about it. That’s right—financial experts. Not computer experts or scientists, but money-men. Unfortunately, we herd animals automatically think “Authority!” upon seeing someone wearing a professional-looking suit (or a white lab coat) and glasses. Sometimes they carry clipboards, but I digress.

Anyway, the point is, there was so much cra-a-a-a-ziness around me that the change from 1999 to 2000 went by without so much as a yawn for me. It was as if everyone had suddenly said, “Oh…that’s it? No planes falling out of the sky? No bank savings crashing? No nuclear power plants melting down?” and then decided to get on with other things. NBC contributed to a lot of it with Y2K: The Movie, which featured the above doomsday scenarios and many others.

Flash-forward to 2012. Roland Emmerich’s imaginatively-titled 2012 carried echoes of Y2K, but this time most of us didn’t get so crazy with that. Most of us, that is…there were a few doomsday-preppers here and there, but I think most of us just rolled our eyes and said, “Here we go again.” 

And it got me thinking: When this 2012 business blows over, I might like to remind people that we survived the 2000 crisis and the 2012 crisis, and we sure as hell are going to survive whatever else happens. And then, I realized that I have a lot of Year 2000-themed stuff in my collections, and I should put it to good use with this blog.

And now, without further ado, we move to the first exhibit.