STORY:
Matt's Millennium Stew

Today's Millennium Stew --------
'N Sync, Y2K-less Town, Irish Pubs and Concorde

by Matt Markovich
Everything2000 Stewmaster

The millennium travel business has slowly began to gain momentum, perhaps because people have recovered from prices which, at minimum, are about 30 percent higher and in some cases inflated by a factors of five to 10. A survey conducted by industry trade magazine Travel Weekly indicated that only eight percent of the U.S. population has made travel arrangements for New Year's and only an additional nine percent are considering travel during that time period.

If your millennium dream was to tour the world on the Concorde, too late. At $75,000 per person, all 96 seats have been sold. If your funds are limitless however, you can still invite the gang to the Fitzpatrick Manhattan Hotel for a mere $1 million. If you don't like the gang quite that much, you can head for Philadelphia where $1,500 per couple buys a night's lodging and brunch.

In a recent survey of 150 companies, Computerworld magazine found that 43 percent changed this year's vacation policies due to Y2K projects. Nearly all of those are restricting vacations during December and January.

At least one Kansas town isn't worrying about Y2K affecting their power supply. Officials in Clay Center say the town's power plant is operated manually. It's a system so antiquated that it predates all of the computers that run most of the other utility companies. In the entire Clay Center utility system which supports the town's five-thousand residents, there's only one personal computer. That one operates a water feed control and it has a manual backup.

You would think that pubs in Ireland will be open all night long on New Year's Eve, well it's not the case. One in five pubs will be shut. London's Daily Mirror says the top bar chains fear their bars would be empty on millennium night, with most revelers choosing to party at home. Many punters have been swayed by forecasts of high admission charges and pounds 10-a-pint prices at some premises.

And, 'N Sync will perform a third millennium show in Hawaii, this one at 8 p.m. New Year's day at the Blaisdell Arena. The group's Dec. 30 show already is sold out, but tickets remain for its New Year's Eve show, said promoter Tom Moffatt. Reserved tickets for the Jan. 1 show are $45 each, but buyers using their Oceanic Cable Kupaa Card can purchase up to four tickets at $40 each at the Blaisdell box office only.

DATE: 8/23/99

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