Hey, I'm watching ER right now and they just did a Y2K spoof.

Some guy comes in with a burnt hand due to working on his generator. The doctors ask why he's got a generator and he says "for TEOTWAWKI, you know...y2k". He then proceeds to prove to them that their computers are NOT compliant. He asks the cheif nurse to bump the computer to 1/1/2000 and then retreive his medical records. The computer says, "no records found for (whatshisname) for 12 24 1900." The doctors then start to panic.

Man, I can't believe they did that. Funnier than hell watching the doctors scramble trying to find a technician to fix the problem. In the meantime, the guy with the burnt hand says, "whooa, I'm outa here".

-- Familyman (prepare@home.com), December 16, 1999

Answers

yeah I saw that too. Really got my attention there for a minute. But only for a minute. All was well when "santa" was able to download a patch. No more problems. Yeesh. Will it really be that easy?

-- michelle (me@home.waching), December 16, 1999.

Wasn't the chief nurse. Was a Doctor, Head of the ER department.

Another of their patients came up and said he could fix it by downloading a software patch.

Gee, if everything was as easily solved as it is on TV.

-- Ryker (ryker@soybean.chat), December 16, 1999.

Familyman,

I saw the show also. I was impressed with the obvious vulnerablity of the system. What if the Y2k guy had not had Dr. Weaver "test" the system? What would have happened on New Year's Day? Some problems may be easy to fix (if you happen to have a Santa Claus who owns a software company near by). :)

The story is of course fictional, however, it may make some folks more aware. I thank ER for at least trying to write something into the show to shine a little light on y2k without making the y2k guy look like a total lunitic.

-- Tess (preparingfortheworst@prayingforthebest.com), December 16, 1999.

At first I thought they were trying to make the guy look like a nut, so I was pleasantly surprised at how it worked out that he wasn't so stupid, after all. Then the software guy/santa put in a patch and later asked Dr. Weaver out to eat. Hmmm, a romance for Dr. Weaver?

One of the upsetting things about Y2K is that I want to see if the Croatian doctor and Carole are going to get together. If the electricity goes out, this will be impossible. I will also miss the new season of NYPD Blue. Please, someone put the world back together-- quick!

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), December 16, 1999.