Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng

New Year's Eve, sometime after the family had gone to bed yet still long before the flurry of fireworks in the neighborhood that signals our own roll-over to 2007 (or maybe an impending raid by the INS), I was online.
Big shock there.
Anyway, I was pushing my avatar around my current Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, killing spiders and owls and gathering quest components.
As I read along in the "General Chat" window occupied by 500-600 of my closest people-I-don't-know, I started to notice a trend.
At 11pm Central time, I started seeing "Happy New Year East Coast!" and other well-wishes.
In my experience, most of the time this would be followed (Standard Internet Protocol RFC1337) by something along the lines of, "d13, n00b" or "U R teh suxxor" or "Where is the freaking druid trainer in (insert town/zone name)?". I braced for it. I mentally prepared to participate, planning to compare someone's mother to an orc (unfavorably) or maybe even fling a 1337 speak Shakespearean Insult ("l3$$ 0f Br@1n$ +h@n 3@rw@x") because, after all, it is a role-playing game.
However, in defiance of convention the taunts did not begin.
As my Elven Hunter Artemia heroically felled some weird bear creature and then ran from a giant spider, I read a bunch of congratulatory messages as well as responses.
"L8r, 2006. Not sorry to see U go."
"Glad that is over."
"Worst . . . year . . . ever."
"Where is the freaking druid trainer in Dolanaar?"
Now, I've been up for a lot of midnight new years. I've been sober for most if not all of them.
I don't remember a year as widely reviled as 2006 (or "+w0+h0u$@nd $ux", as I've seen it spelled out). Usually, there are optimistic hopes for the coming year, but few curses for the one just completed.
Even prior to finding these like-minded individuals, I had planned to stay up to make sure that 2006 really left. You never know with a year like 2006, after all.
For an hour and longer, people listed reasons why 2006 was an awful year. It got so depressing Artemia threw herself into a lake. Unfortunately, swimming is automatic but an enraged plant person beat on her until she ran back to the town guards.
I reflected on the trauma that was 2006 as I sent my avatar against some forest demons.
While she (keystroke 8 then 5 then 2, 2, 2), I thought about all the reasons 2006 was un-Airwolf.
There are too many to list. As midnight central rolled around I gestured symbolically to my system calendar, silently suggesting that the year count to one.
I've got resolutions. I've got plans. I may detail them later. For right now, I'm looking forward to 2007 with a vague yet palpable distrust. I have to believe that it will be better than 2006, but only because the bar is set so very pathetically low.
You don't have to go home, 2006, but you can't stay here.
Anyway, the workplace tidbit for today is this:

On the elevator I heard someone say "It is just a motivational meeting. I don't care if I miss it."