Happy Arbitrary Date to you Too

It’s that time of the year again. The end of it.

Time is an amazing phenomenon. Our desperate attempt to measure the apparent constant movement of our perceivable 3 dimensions. 2015 years (give or take a year) on from the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, we find ourselves still fascinated by numbers. Sometimes scared of them too, with the ever popular triskaidekaphobia.


Then there’s people who believe 2001 was the real new millennium, not 2000. Mostly people who haven’t had the luxury of a ruler or perhaps an introduction to that really complicated scary thing, um what was it called. Oh yeah – Basic Mathematics.

Then there’s the select few who who count “1, 2, 3, 4” and genuinely believe 4 seconds have elapsed. Admit it, you’ve done this.

And congratulations to the Italians on their few of the decimal numeral 17.
My favourite part is the logical steps.

  • Convert 17 in decimal representation to Roman digits, you have XVII
  • Rearrange these letters to VIXI and try not to ask why
  • Vixi in Latin means “I have lived”
  • This can be a euphemism for “I am dead”
  • death is evil and scary

Don’t get me started on the Mayan long count doomsday nonsense.

I’ll be spending the night with the girlfriend’s family eating grub, watching fireworks and more than likely tweaking their PC.

But I started to think. What happens tomorrow? What year will it be?

Two thousand and ten

or is it

Twenty Ten

When you see the numbers 89, 98, 02, 06, you can imagine a year.

What on earth do you think when you see the number 10?

January 10

To me, that says the tenth day of January.

Well what ever happens, it’s gonna be awkward till we get it right.

I’ll start using my own method. Just add a preceding zero, regardless.

January 010 or “January Oh-Ten”

Have a safe night, make some goals, get some sleep, and enjoy every day like any other.