>One of my favorite computer stories is about a customer receiving a bill for $0.00. No amount of effort by the customer or customer service seemed able to get rid of it. Finally the customer sent in a check for $0.00 and that took care of it. So the story goes, anyway.

Believe it or not, I read that story back in the early seventies, along with few others. I think the editor for "from foreign press" was regularly reading his (i.e. reader's) digest.

>Happy new year, you old curmudgeon. What is NYE like in Serbia? The same as anywhere else?

Larger, I think. Surely larger than both Christmasses. This morning there were already shortages of some items in some groceries (yeast and salt in one, pork in another), spotty and irregular, as if they weren't here a year ago and don't remember a thing. Well they probably weren't here, almost everyone rotates personnel, keeping them employed for a month or two, so they don't pay them any benefits - if inspection comes and wouldn't take a bribe, they can claim that they just started and the paperwork is in the process.

There's a lot of cracker fire, and probably real gunfire too. People shoot in the air, specially around midnight. Allegedly a leftover from the Turkish times, even the verb for "shooting in the air to celebrate" is "šenlučiti", from "šenluk", which has all the signs of being a Turkish word. Metin probably wouldn't recognize it :).

Traditionally, you go out to a restaurant, hotel or a club, eat drink sing drink dance drink and crawl home anywhere between 2 and 7 AM (a hypothetical 'you', of course). Or you organize a private party in your home for your friends (did that twice as a teenager, and once for one of the girls) and do the same. Then six days later you find a hotdog in your boots, or a sandwich behind the sofa. Or you can enjoy a series of concerts on the city square (paid from our local taxes, i.e. free for all) which probably last until at least 1AM, and then see what's still open downtown and where would they let you in (they charge tickets for the night, but that's checked only until midnight - after that they assume everyone spent the pre-paid drinks and food and everyone pays, so now you're welcome).