Welcome to Devil Day

For those of you who missed it, today is 06-06-06.

In some flavors of Christianity, the number 666 is considered the mark of the anti-christ. Or you could just call it a devil number. (I'm not getting into the actual meaning of the number, but some also feel that it refers to Herod. Suffice it to say there is not agreement among all christians on this issue.)

Today is also the release date of the new remake of The Omen, a good movie about the anti-christ. The remake is supposed to be good according to Ebert and Roeper, so if you're a film buff like me this might be a good one to see.

I'm not sure what other devil-related activity is occuring today. I think I heard that thousands of evangelicals are praying on this day. I'm not sure what they are praying for -- perhaps for good reviews for The Omen. If so, their prayers are needed! Rotten Tomatoes has it at only 26%.

There has been a lot of end-of-the-world-type news lately. Al Gore says civilization as we know it is threatened, and Al is not one to exaggerate. Not the guy who invented the internet and who's life was the inspiration for "Love Story". There was supposed to be a comet crashing into the ocean just a couple of weeks ago. That was kind of dissapointing when it didn't happen. We were at the beach that week. I remember the scene from "Deep Impact" with all of the water rising up. That would have been neat to see.

Growing up in a fundamentalist christian household, I have been hearing about the end of the world all of my life. Reading back through history, I can see that this is not unusual at all, but it does seem to go through spells. If the world does end, and we have no choice about it, I just hope it is something unusual like Godzilla. Maybe giant intelligent insects. Or a comet crash. Anything but something mundane like the flu.

Did I mention bird flu?