If it were only a question of missing a birthday--even one with such a memorable date--I'd still be mightily embarrassed. But I must 'fess up to the fact that I didn't know about it until today. It turns out that this past Saturday was the 20th birthday of the World Wide Web, in the sense that Sir Tim Berners-Lee uploaded the first web page on that day in 1990 (after concocting hypertext earlier that year).
Although the actual day of the year pales in significance to the event itself, I don't think it's entirely irrelevant. If you adhere to a particular religion, you might speculate that someone was blowing off his duty to interact with family that day. Me, I prefer to project no further than my understanding of the binary character of the last week of the year. To wit: That week tends to be either: a.) A complete write-off, or b.) A bubble of productivity that defies--yea, blithely spits in the eye of--the laws of time.
The difference is in the hustle, I suppose. Given the realities of the workaday world (with its inbox-bombing, meetings held simply because that's what we do every Monday at eight, darnitalready, its cat-herding and/or consensus-building, fire-fighting, etc.), I might as easily find myself writing this post on Valentine's Day of next year. (Or St. Patrick's Day. Or Memorial Day. Or Independence Day. You get the idea...)
(On December 25, 1990, I was six days away from owning my first computer (an Epson 8088 with two 5.25" floppy drives and a CGA monochrome monitor). That was an upgrade from the second-hand IBM Selectric my friend P. had found for me. Not to knock the Selectric, mind you--as a keyboard snob, I can assure you that it spoiled me for life. That being said, it was an upgrade I imagined would be invaluably useful to my career as a freelance writer. In that aspect, at least, I can compare myself to Sir Tim: Dreams are like children in that they rarely turn out to be what you intended. That, and they can have children of their own for the next iteration of that story...)
Navel-gazing aside, I thought the anniversary was too important to leave trampled by the other obligations of this time of year. And, if nothing else, the web's underpinnings will be 21 come next Christmas. Which is as good a reason as I can think of to raise a glass--if I'm safely home, of course--to (legally) raise a toast to its birthday.
