There are 76 days to go until my birthday; 135 days until Christmas, and 506 until the party to end all parties - The Big Bash!

Or, if precedence can be used as prediction, the likelihood is that December 1999 will be long forgotten in an alcoholic blur whereby, having long abandoned my commitment to sobriety, I will be face-down in a pool of my own vomit or the best part of a year.  Still, like most survivors of  Woodstock, I will remember it as some halcyon paradise of higher existence (rather than the time when I had a three hour conversation with Bhudda and danced a naked mambo in the frozen food section of Tesco).

Why the future obsession?  It could quite possibly be attributed to the cyberpunk literature I fill my head with.  It could be attributed to the fact that as a child I told everyone that we'd all be wearing silver at the end of the century, so I stubbornly wear silver because I refuse to be proved wrong.

Or, it could be attributed to the fact that I appear to be experiencing first-hand the living proof of Kenny J's theory regarding anti-ergonomics

I was brought up secure in the knowledge that technology is alive and is out to get me.  Year upon year began with my father, a perfectly competent electronics engineer, kicking the video out of frustration because its thingumijig was doing whatnot.  Kicking it.  Thumping it.  Talking to it.  Pleading with it.  Taking it apart.  Replacing all the central components.  Soldering a bit here and there and then burying the by-now smashed remains next to the compost heap.  Technology, you see, was Out To Get Him.

Now, it's reconfigured its wrath and is focussing on me.  It won't print.  It won't save.  It won't let me in.  It won't let me out.  It blinks error messages at me continally: dot. squiggle. error 55. squiggle. (That's code for "hahahah fix that one, freak!" for those who Don't Understand).

I worry about artificial intelligence.  Continually.  Imagine- instead of a smug, incomprehensible line of code popping up intrusively every time someone buggers up the mainframe, we'll have a self-satisfied geek-voice giggling arrogantly at us to tell us what we've done wrong:  "Heheheh!  I can't believe you did that, you luddite technophobic fool!"  Then it will spout geekbabble at me trying to explain facets of html that I couldn't possibly ever comprehend, before sighing exaggeratedly at me and saying "Come on, I'll do it.. now pay attention..."

Oh well, in future I'll stick to pen and paper.  You can't fail with pen and paper, provided that your pen doesn't run o-