Fifteen Minutes: Groovy Train

We are pleased to announce that the Groovy train will once again be available for service to the Northeast corridor. All Aboard.

No one really knows where Groovy trains come from. Only that they appear on time. Groovy train used to be called "In the Groovy Train". It once featured a word puzzle for pre-frosh, to which the solution was "Yale Sucks". This was roughly around the time the Berlin Wall was dismantled. Change was in the air.

Sometime in the late nineties the train picked up speed. It was powered by extreme cynicism and quite a bit of BOLD text. Chugga chug.

To keep things moving, train engineers constantly look to the bottle in order to pour on the juice. Safe enough, right? It's on the rails...

No mo. Our train derailed sometime last year. It is the year 2000. It is time for a change. Or at least an engine overhaul.

Let's see what this baby can do.

New years tend to make people go in for reinventing. Themselves. GT registers its indignation over the prospect of becoming a broken resolution.

New years also inspire lists about the last year. The best, the worst, the most influential. Groovy train was recently voted second-most incoherent column of the decade by a panel of bold-faced riders.

New decades inspire popular music anthologies. The makers of "Disco 70s" and "Totally 80s" have already begun work on the current decade. "Silicon 00s" will feature titles from Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, as well as Weird Al Yankovich's "It's all about the Pentiums".

New centuries are hardly inspired, and their lists are hardly fair - the greats of the past 100 years can't be measured by 2000's ruler. ESPN's 50 greatest athletes of the century are all right. They wouldn't last six seconds in NFL 2K for Sega Dreamcast.

The implications for a new millenium are not promising.

Scariest millenium moment: Your most prized piece of electronic equipment reads 11:59. You realize that you have listened to almost twelve minutes of the Backstreet Boys' "Millenium" album and are starting to like it. Nothing several gallons of bottled waterand three weeks in isolation couldn't cure.

Attention all scientists/inventors: science fiction would have us believe that with the year 2000 comes faster-than-light travel and matter displacement. Let's get a move on, eggheads. A simple orgasmatron will probably suffice for now.

Speaking of the not-too-distant future, when was it that the Planet of the Apes was supposed to occur? GT always loved to show those damned dirty apes. The Y2K bug was supposed to ruin the economy. It totally choked. A shame, really. Not a clutch player.

I want you to hit me as hard as you can.