Happy New Year’s Eve everyone!

Like most people, at the end of every year I reminisce about the year that was.  This is especially fun at the end of a decade.  It’s amazing to believe where we were a short decade ago. 

Just think… on December 31, 1999:

• Bill Clinton was President of the United States.  We had never heard the term “pregnant chad” and Tim Russert hadn’t yet written “Florida, Florida, Florida” on his infamous slate on Election Night 2000.

 

• We sat around with the cash and canned goods we’d hoarded, waiting for computers to blow up with Y2K.

 

• The World Trade Center towers were still standing.   We were innocent to the  concept of using planes as bombs, Homeland Security and wars on terrorism.

 

• The Lord of the Rings trilogy was just a bunch of beloved fantasy books that hadn’t been translated for the screen by the amazing Peter Jackson.

 

• With rare exceptions, television seasons ran from September through May on major broadcast networks.  13 episode seasons  and original programming on FX, TNT and USA had not been heard of.

 

• Four of the seven Harry Potter books hadn’t yet been published and none of the movies had been released.  Daniel Radcliffe  was just a ten year old actor living in London.

 

• We thought Hurricane Andrew was probably as bad as it could get.  We didn’t realize the devastation that was possible with Katrina.

 

• My personal favorite book of the decade – The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon – hadn’t yet been published.

 

• People still had an expectation of privacy.  Your every move wasn’t captured by cell phone cameras, blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

 

• Generally, people were still famous for doing something noteworthy.    Most of the world had never heard of Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Kim Kardashian, Kate & Jon Gosselin or anyone starring in a made-up MTV reality series.

 

• The following words didn’t exist as verbs:  Google, Friend, DVR, Text, IM

 

• The Red Sox were still battling the Curse of the Bambino and hadn’t won a world series since 1918.

 

• We didn’t know the following things would soon be all but obsolete:  Car phones, VHS tapes, Encyclopedias, renting movies from a store, public pay phones and floppy disks.

 

• We had never heard of the following:
  • American Idol
  • The  Road
  • Gilmore Girls
  • Survivor
  • Friday Night Lights
  • Lost
  • Brokeback Mountain
  • Twilight
  • Juno
  • Lady Gaga
  • High School Musical
  • The Office
  • Supernatural (ok, that one’s just for me…)

Thank you 2000s for the wonderful things you brought and for giving us the strength to endure the hardships.  I am looking forward to an amazing 2010 and decade to follow.