Well, not much happened after all, and I’m sorry if the more fantasy-inclined among us are disappointed. But I’d wager many of these bunkered-down folks fired up their portable generators and ate a few MREs anyway, so even they probably managed to have a little fun on New Year’s Eve.

There were a few minor foul-ups here and there, but on the whole, the advent of the new millennium or century (or not) was about as uneventful as any other rollover of the Christian calendar.

And, in fact, many of the attendant problems initially attributed to primitive technology’s inability to deal with the change were found to be from other causes. But at least many of us have lots of new hardware and software packages to learn, and the billfolds of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are even fatter.

Whatever, we are all Y2K-compliant, by golly, and should not have to hear another word about it until Y3K, when none of us will be able to hear, period.

But don’t count on it.

Because another school of thought has been strenuously arguing for the past year that 2001 is the real beginning of the new millennium and, of course, these proponents are arithmetically correct, even if they’ve been effectively overwhelmed by popular perception. (One does not start counting from zero, you see, but from one, two, three and so on; therefore 2000 is the last year of the second millennium.)

What I tell people who point this out to me, since calendar years are totally arbitrary figures anyway, is my theory that Jesus was actually born in 2 B.C., so the millennium began last New Year’s Day and we all missed it. I also remind them that according to other calendars, such as the Chinese, this is year 4000-something, so where you sit depends on where you stand. Especially since they can’t figure out that "where you sit" part, this usually stymies them temporarily.

Still, people who go strictly by the number aren’t about to give up that easily, so I foresee a whole year of fresh predictions concerning our impending doom, either from supernatural or technological causes.

Cults proven wrong about the world ending last weekend will now explain they really meant our existence will be abruptly terminated next New Year’s Day and that they were intentionally confused about the correct date by our one-world government.

Does not, after all, a renowned quatrain of Nostradamus warn that when "one thousand is upon one thousand shall the days of our lives be rendered moot"? Just what else, I ask you, could this astute prognosticator have meant?

And did not this precursor of 1-900-FORTUNE not also observe:

that Hister had fashioned for the dead.

Well, no, it doesn’t and he didn’t, as far as I know, but he might have, and that particular manuscript was lost and will be discovered just before the REAL END. At least, this is one of my whimsical predictions.

But come what may, there’s going to be yet another rash of doomsaying related to next New Year’s as well, so we’d all better learn to accept it graciously.

I also predict that the book and film "2001" will be reissued and spark a great debate about the danger of computers taking over the world rather than ceasing to function. Talking "Hal" dolls will be the hottest toy next Christmas, even though condemned by fundamentalists as tools of the coming Satan.

Presidential candidates will weigh in on the luddite/technocrat controversy, with George W declaring Christ would want all our little children to have their own laptops (compassion), but that their families should have to pay for them (conservatism).

And the emotionally challenged Al Gore will woodenly recount a death-bed experience he shared with a close friend who explained, just before expiring, how to develop a cure for cancer through computerized technology. (For the man who invented the Internet, this should be a cakewalk.)

Then come Jan. 2 of the GENUINE first year of the new millennium and century, if I may arrogantly assume this date also will come to pass, perhaps we will have actually heard the last of it.

But don’t count on that, either.

There’s yet another theory going around that Jesus was actually born in 2 A.D., you see, which means the new millennium would still be a year off.