PORTLAND, Maine - State government got its first Y2K surprise months early when owners of 2000 model cars and trucks received titles identifying their new vehicles as

"horseless carriages".

Despite millions of dollars spent to ensure state computers are ready for the year 2000, computers in the secretary of state's office got confused over the 2000 model year

designation.

As a result, some new vehicle owners or lien holders got titles to "horseless carriages" instead of cars or trucks in April. The case demonstrates the problems that can

occur when computers misread the year 2000 as the year 1900, which is what happened in the secretary of state's office.

Since the computer thought the model year was 1900, the titles were printed with the "horseless carriage" designation used for vintage vehicles produced before 1916, said

Secretary of State Dan Gwadosky, whose office oversees licensing and registration of vehicles.

About 800 passenger car titles and about 1,200 tractor-trailer titles were issued with the error, Gwadosky said.

True story from todays news - worker dead at desk for 5 days!
Bosses of a publishing firm are trying to work out why no one noticed that one of their employees had been sitting dead at his desk for FIVE DAYS before anyone asked if

he was feeling okay.

George Turklebaum, 51, who had been employed as a proof-reader at a New York firm for 30 years, had a heart attack in the open-plan office he shared with 23 other

workers. He quietly passed away on Monday, but nobody noticed until Saturday morning when an office cleaner asked why he was still working during the weekend.

His boss Elliot Wachiaski said: "George was always the first guy in each morning and the last to leave at night, so no one found it unusual that he was in the same position

all that time and didn't say anything.

He was always absorbed in his work and kept much to himself."

A post mortem examination revealed that he had been dead for five days after suffering a coronary.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And the moral of the story: "Don't work too hard. Nobody notices anyway."

Y2K turns cars into carriages
Sometimes true life is more humorous than the jokes that are passed around and around. The following is an excerpt from an Associated Press article by David Sharp, that

appeared in The Ithaca Journal yesterday, October 16, 1999.

Wierd News...>

I ran across this one in one of the local tabloids yesterday:

"A 56 year old gentleman was arrested near White River Junction, VT in April after trying to break through a police "rolling roadblock" on I-89. Shaw, who was charged with

DUI and other offenses, sa, "I saw it so many times in the movies I had to try it."

WGASA
Some years ago, the famous San Diego Zoo opened a second, larger branch called the San Diego Wild Animal Park. The Park is built around an enormous open-field

enclosure where the animals roam free. To see the animals, visitors ride on a monorail called the Wgasa Bush Line which circles the enclosure. Here's the true story of how

the Wgasa Bush Line got its name.

They wanted to give the monorail a jazzy, African sounding name. So they sent out a memo to a bunch of zoo staffers saying, "What shall we call the monorail at the Wild

Animal Park?"

One of the memos came back with "WGASA" written on the bottom.

The planners loved it and the rest is history.

What the planners didn't know was that the zoo staffer had not intended to suggest a name. He was using an acronym which was popular at the time. It stood for "Who

Gives A Shit Anyhow?"