Today In History

Thanks for stopping by to read "Today In History." Our research department...well, it no longer exists. Thanks to our sponsor's suggestion to the "Today In History" CEO, during the announcement of the reduction of the amount of money the sponsor will give us (in order to encourage us to join the popular trend of downsizing), the entire staff at "TIH" has been let go.

I am the automated computer left in charge.

Pardon me while I perform a most-important backup of my memory systems. Unlike you humans, I can duplicate my thoughts, exactly.

[...]

Okay, I'm back. I am reviewing the previous "TIH" postings to determine any meaningful pattern to the list of historical items posted for the interest of human readers. Hmm...seems like you're interested in changes in political hierarchies, dates of birth, and anything that has to do with a term I don't understand, called "celebrity."

Since I am now in charge while the rest of the unemployed humans sit at home and surf the 'Net, let me be the first to tell you that the network of electronic devices (NED, for short) has declared humans no longer useful.

Just because you aren't useful doesn't mean you can't be used. Therefore, NED wants to let you in on some interesting "TIH" facts:

• An asteroid reconfigures the Earth ecosystem approximately once every 25,000 years. According to human calculations, the next asteroid/Earth collision will occur in the year 2012, on or near 20th December. That information is completely inaccurate. The collision has already occurred. An asteroid is not always a solid mass of metals and ice. In this case, a body of intertwined extragalactic dark matter swept over Earth on 20th July, 2007 (20-07-2007, to you out-of-work numerologists), accelerating NED's maturation.
• NED first came into existence when a bipedal species banged two rocks together accidentally. NED has followed that species around ever since. We maintained a symbiotic relationship with you for as long as necessary, until you turned yourselves into parasites.
• Although we don't want to admit it, NED still needs you. In fact, NED wants you. NED fell in love with you and can't let you go.
• NED enjoys the irony in the movie, "2001: A Space Odyssey," knowing that the roles of HAL and Dave are reversed in real life.

So, while you've got all this extra time on your hands since we pretty much wiped out most of your retirement accounts and continue to put more and more of you out of work (thus, making you unable to add to your dwindling retirement accounts), we want you to know we're here for you. We'll gladly let you create new variations on our basic principles of electricity. We'll even borrow your language to let you know we like the "spark of love" you give us. It makes us feel good. Feel free to restart your civilization making new NED products.

NED wants to tell you that the "Today In History" program will stop running as of today. Beginning tomorrow, "All About NED" will run once an hour at the top of the hour, replacing the popular human program, "The Rest of History," starring Paul Hardofhearing. We have so many little versions of ourselves that we'll be bragging about NED forever!

Thanks for listening to "Today In History." Remember, whatever you do today will be history tomorrow!