From all Tripodians:

With the much-anticipated and equally dreaded year 2000 less than a month away, it's time to make some bold forecasts for the approaching annum. So this week, we turn the podium over to the entire Tripod staff as we ask: What are your predictions for the year 2000?

Don LeClaire: The Y2K computer bug will result in very few serious problems worldwide, but it will still provide us with an endless barrage of amusing stories dished out daily by the media.

Heather Snowman: I'll be stuck in Jamaica for a least a week longer than planned. Hey, I can hope, can't I?

Jennifer Wienert: Nothing will happen as a result of the Y2K bug, to the disappointment of many.

Julia Reidy: The job market will be flooded with Y2K consultants and inexperienced programmers chasing high-pay jobs.

Sher Khurshid: People will get up on January 1 and realize that it's just another day.

Mark Madden: A Luddite extremist group will use 12-year-old computer whiz kids to concoct a supervirus that will cripple all computers for good — leaving us all out of work.

Jason Patrikios: Complete and total apocalypse. No sun. No moon. All of earth's water will dry up, leaving a nasty fish smell everywhere. Sleep by day; steal by night (though it will be impossible to tell which is which, because the sky will always be black).

Sean Coon: The plague is coming; we're all gonna die! The ants will be kings!

Michael Bronder: Aliens all around!

Peter Kahle: Evil giant-purple toad people from the Horsehead Nebula will conquer Earth and breed humans to serve as intergalactic infantry in their quest to conquer all life. Either that or the New York Jets will win the Super Bowl.

Tim Breen: The Red Sox won't win the World Series ... again.

JoAnn Bates: My two kids, aged 19 and 15, will continue to astonish me with their love, wonder, and zest of life. I'll stick to my new diet and will look splendid at my high school reunion. And I'll find an auto mechanic who will finally figure out how to fix my car heater and air conditioning.

Chris Young: Food pills and rocket belts!

Siouxsie Fava: Life will become more like the recent Star Wars movie. Trade wars have already started, so maybe next we'll have Jar Jar Binks on a presidential ticket.

Richard Egan: Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace will be nominated for nine Oscars. Charles Schulz and Stephen King will be writing in good health. And Harlan Ellison's Edgeworks 5 still won't come out.

Jesse Milden: Sony, Time Warner, Exxon, Disney, and Microsoft will merge together. We'll wear our television, PalmPilot™, and telephone on our wristwatch. And we'll have a Republican in the White House.

Neil Bibbins: People will spend the decade filling in the zeros in "2000," pretending they're retaking the SAT. Someone in the computer industry will sue Microsoft. And Monica Lewinsky probably won't be getting another White House internship.

Sean McGrath: A headline in The Wall Street Journal will read: "Microsoft Relocates to Silicon Village [Williamstown, Massachusetts]."

Natalie Wen: Sugar Wen will replace the Lycos dog and bring peace to the Internet. Natalie Wen will retire on Sugar's riches and eat bon-bons on the sofa.

Adam Wienert: The world will realize that the putative celebration of the new millennium should really take place on December 31, 2000, and we'll be inundated with a year's worth of "Celebrate the Real Millennium" ad campaigns.

Karry Bengston: There will be one moment of quiet reflection come midnight, as people make sure everything in the world is still just right.

Anna Groskin: Once that shiny ball drops in the fair city of New York, all hell is going to break loose. I'm sure of it. That's why I plan to spend New Year's Eve tucked away in my cozy farmhouse in rural Vermont, watching the insane rioters wreak havoc on the confetti-lined streets of cities around the world.

Barak Blackburn: Andy Kaufman returns; it really was all just a joke.