xmascard 99: credits

• Y2K madness, Year 2 thousand (= K), 2000 AD in our western calendar, the nickname for the computer date digit problem we are all waiting to see materialize (hoping that it does not affect us in any significant way)
• Volvo S70 black base model, way too much cash but a dream to drive and rated high in self-defense against all those SUV urban assault vehicles we are surrounded by; Volvo was apparently bought by Ford Motor Company this year but has somehow retained its Swedish identity (till now)
• WTO in Seattle November 1999, [World Trade Organization] probably not interested in our input on this matter
• the M&M mini-telephone from The Sharper Image, an unrequested gift [M&M's, a popular small round sugar-coated chocolate candy shaped remarkably like Advil but unlike Advil comes in various colors]
• Regis Philbin, morning show co-host who finally made his big splash in the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" (... final answer?)
• Manhattan Toy Company pig, last year's animal model recycled
• Jim Hensen's Bear in the Big Blue House, this year's new animal model
• Photo of a big green stuffed creature in Mary Tyler Moore's arms,Time Magazine, July 8, 1991, saved for some future modeling opportunity

notes

1. This edition is the first to miss the Christmas eve mailing deadline, at least the foreign address destinations which went out Monday, December 27. Maybe we could try blaming the late end of the fall semester at dr bob's day job for the delay in creativity, but it's probably just chance.
2. For nonUSA readers, ATM means "automatic teller machine", the magic invention of the late 20th century which spits out money when a little plastic card is inserted and a little finger dance is done on a keypad under the screen, but annoyingly skims off a little fee if the user doesn't have the right profile. [NYC = New York City, which takes the article "an" if you pronounce the letters like Italians, but "a" if you say the words it abbreviates.]
3. Again for nonUSA readers, a small (not small enough) part of the US population believes that adequate home firepower [guns, rifles, small arms] is the answer not only for many of America's problems, but also for Y2K, and it is incredibly easy to acquire such protection in our free market arms economy.
4. The Time Magazine man of the year is the head of Amazon.Com, a hot internet property still unable to make a profit but like many others of its kind, is making lots of people rich on the stock market mostly fueled by investor desire to become rich. Kind of bizarre.
5. No mention of our cookbook this year. But our latest creation, millennium cheesecake fourpack, is on the website.