Party On in Wisconsin

So, apparently the world isn’t going to end on my birthday after all.

A while back, some of the weirder folks on the new age fringes ran across the fact that the ancient Mayans had a “Long Count” calendar that divided time into a number of units, the largest being the “baktun,” which ran roughly 394 of our years.  There were thirteen of these baktuns on the Long Count calendar, and apparently if you did the math right the last of them expired in December of this year.

ZOMG!  Teh Wrldz Pwned!

Let’s just leave aside the fact that the Mayans, like most people, would probably just go out and get a new calendar when theirs expired rather than sit around and wait for the planet to explode.  And let’s further leave aside the fact that apparently whoever did the original calculations that led to the idea that the world was ending in December forgot about leap years, so if you go back and redo the math it is clear that the world ended a few years back, which would explain a whole lot of things when you think about it.  This just wasn’t an idea that had all of its oars in the water, let’s say.

On the other hand, I thought it was an opportunity.

My plan, such as it was, was to have a Giant Birthday Bash, one that would be so out of control and so pointlessly harmful to the health and property of everyone in attendance – the birthday boy especially – that if the world didn't end we would all regret it.  I wanted a birthday party where the very thought of waking up the next day would seem more horrifying than the obliteration of the entire planet. 

But alas, no.

Somewhere in Central America, archeologists reported today that they have discovered what appears to be an ancient workshop where the Mayans figured out their calendars, and that inside was a 17-baktun calendar, which would put the end of the world another fifteen hundred years off or so.

In my head I see the Mayan scribes trying to one-up each other, competing to see who has the biggest … um … calendar.  I’m sure the Mayan babes just went gaga over that sort of thing.

Or maybe that’s why their civilization died out. 

So it looks like I’ll have to tone down my birthday bash.  Of course, I might want to have it anyway, you know, just to be safe.