NOTE:  The following information was supposed to be kept secret for at least the next 50 years.  The confidentiality agreement I signed on October 8 says so, plain and simple.  Just minutes ago, however, I came across the above quote and realized that my continued silence was a threat to our free, democratic government.  After much soul-searching, I've decided to break my vow of silence and tell all I know, regardless of the personal consequences, so that future generations of Americans may enjoy the same sweet fruits of freedom we have.  The fact that I can't think of anything else to write about today is sheer coincidence.
 

Sunday, Oct. 10, 1999     Against doctor's orders I spend the morning and much of the afternoon getting out my flashcards again and trying to master the differences between deja vu, jamais vu, presque vu, and Forster's A Room With A View.  To review: Deja vu means "seen before."  Jamais vu - which one very rarely sees in print anymore - means "never seen."  Presque vu really means "almost seen" even though I keep confusing it with that damn Presque Island in Lake Erie which I've almost never seen and dearly hope to never see again.  A Room With A View is the one in which Miss Bartlett's boiler proves tiresome while Lucy faces an external situation bravely.  I suppose I'd remember that better had I ever seen the video.  As it is, I spent the evening promising the people in the emergency room that I'd put these flashcards away for good first thing in the morning - seems they're getting quite tired of seeing me....
 

Monday, Oct. 11, 1999     Finally remembered to mail my letter to NASA asking if we'll still be able to jump to conclusions if global disaster here on Earth forces us to migrate to a planet with no gravity.  Worried all afternoon that we won't be able to - simply won't! won't! won't! - before realizing that it'll probably be our habit of jumping to conclusions that'll bring on global disaster in the first place.  Wrote NASA a second letter urging them to find a planet without gravity immediately so that we may migrate to it at our leisure without having to wait until circumstances force us to jump.  Sent a carbon copy to Weight Watchers, Inc., my natural lobbyist ally here.  No word from NASA by evening leads me to suspect that the Weight Watchers people, knowing that the NASA people are hard at work on my letter, have launched a surprise attack on Cape Canaveral and eaten them.  Fools!
 

Tuesday, Oct. 12, 1999     At 3 am this journal is surrounded by military vehicles.  As I slumber my cat, Jester, goes to see what the heavily-armed soldiers want.  "The head of Dan Birtcher!" they angrily scream as one, apparently regular readers of these entries to a man.  Jester tells them that my head was last seen in Pakistan.  They depart in a swirl of dust.  Around noon I awake to find my head and journal safe and sound but Pakistan lost to a military dictatorship.  I give Jester a few extra treats for learning a new trick.  The day quickly goes downhill.  Jester vomits the treats.  Wilt Chamberlain is dead.  As sad as the news makes me, I can't imagine how much worse it must be for Wilt's brother, Richard, and for once the media deigns to respect a man's privacy and refuse to tell me.  Doh!  Instead they babble on and on about how Dr. Ahmed H. Zewail has won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work photographing chemical reactions that occur in 0.000000000000001 seconds, or 1 femtosecond, otherwise known as the gap between a pay raise and the moment your spouse discovers a new need.  I could have won, but some of us refuse to resort to such unfair ruses as cute stuffed animals and party horns to get the chemical reactions to hold still for us.  It doesn't help that I also could have been the one to discover the femtosecond - if only I had been able to find the time!  My one solace: At least I didn't die of mad cow disease like that guy in Indiana did after eating a beef-brain sandwich.  Thank goodness I always remember to ask 'em at McDonald's to hold the cerebellum!!
 

Wednesday, Oct. 13, 1999     Word reaches me that there are now 6 billion people on Earth.  Yeah, right.  Have those reporting this U.N.-generated guess as Truth never tried to find a clerk when they needed one?  Have they never called tech support?  I figure there are no more than 1300 people, tops.  And to prove it, I start counting.  Before I can get to five my computer company calls to tell me that they've found what's wrong with the blown monitor I sent back to them.  They say that a few large, sticky images someone unwisely tried to download from the Web clogged the rear end of my cathode ray tube, the pressure built up, unfortunate things happened, many starting with the letter "k"....  I deny everything and angrily hang up, then sheepishly call back to inquire how many people just called me to ensure that my global census is as accurate as possible.  I forget what reply I got.  It doesn't matter.  The idiot I talked to is going down as a mere 0.000000000000001....  As night descends and I go to bed, I can't help but smile to myself, having survived another "evil" Wednesday the 13th despite the "curse of inanity and forgetfulness" the old gypsy fortune teller put on me last time I went to consult her and accidentally scratched her crystal ball when I got an itch.  "Beware the next Wednesday the 13th!" he had warned me - or was it the bus driver?  Anyway, I smiled to myself, for reasons I can't quite now recall...  Maybe it had something to do with the joy that comes from living on a planet with just 6.0000000000001 other people....?
 

Thursday, Oct. 14, 1999     Another day, another 23 hours spent surfing the Web reading all those millions of pages people are writing just for me.  One even addressed moi by name:

"Dan, I don't work in a cubicle. You think they could contain my sizzling glory to a mere cube? Not at all. I share a large office space with my assorted co-workers, allowing them all to bask in my unspeakable presence..."

Obviously a reply to my own posting the day before in which I described a certain someone I know as being stuck in a San Francisco-area office cubicle while trying to maintain her balance in sexy black high heels even while suffering from vertigo brought on by Hollywood's ignorant and inexcusable refusal to recognize her talents as a screenwriter.  Well.  The fact is, darling, that I knew you didn't work in a cubicle - I was merely trying to throw the Quadrophoenicians off your adorable scent so that when they invade next month you, at least, might survive so that the remnants of mankind can forget the collapse of civilization by basking in your presence.  Now what??  "May Gorp have mercy on your sorp," as the Quadrophoenicians say - usually in so-called surround-sound, just so you can never be sure where they're coming from....
 

Friday, Oct. 15, 1999     The day's only begun and yet I'm hit with the biggest thing yet that I'm not supposed to write about: Snortal.  Snortal is nothing less than one company's attempt to bring downloadable odors to the Internet.  Although its creators promise us a product far superior to Hollywood's old Aroma-Rama and Smell-O-Vision (to say nothing of the stench of "Your Friends and Neighbors"), I personally think I've ruined enough monitors for one lifetime.  And I long ago took a vow to keep my nose a cyber virgin right up until the moment I find that One True Fragrance, so don't even think about sending me a sample disk.  I'm just not that kind of olfactory bulb owner!
 

So there you have it.  Virtually a full week's worth of top secret events and happenings, dropped piping hot into the lap of your mind in the name of safeguarding democracy.  No need to thank me, either - just remember to vote this November 7.  And tell 'em Harry sent you, just to see 'em roll their eyes.