THE END OF TIME

Just in case you're a little too happy, Dr. Martin Rees has just posted his doomsday prediction on Long Bet, the web-based, "arena for competitive, accountable predictions," funded by Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos. The Cambridge cosmologist announced that humankind has a 50/50 chance of being extinct by 2100, (that's 2100 minus 7, borrow from the one, let's see, ten minus 7 -- that's in 93 years!). There are two questions I'd like answered.

First is, why do professional athletes not wear watches when performing their trade? With the exception of scuba divers, whose last breath depends on it, you never see sports figures wearing watches on the field. Off the field, they flash their Rolexes and Piagets for fat endorsements, but not while they're playing.

You won't see football players wearing watches. I remember Joe Namath wore a Timex after the game, but not during. You watch this Sunday--those big fat men will not know what time it is.

Bend It Like Beckham doesn't wear one, unless he's shooting an ad. A-Rod doesn't wear a watch. If I made $10,000 a minute, I'd wear a watch just to see how rich I was getting. The Shaq? No. Maria Sharapova looks great in a watch, but while on Center Court, her wrist sports only a sweat band. Maybe there's a watch under the sweat band.

You say, Rick, golfers wear watches. Golfers are not athletes. To be an athlete, you must be engaged in a sport. Golf is a game, like Trivial Pursuit. Pushing a quail egg around a lawn doth not an athlete make. Just because it utilizes 479 billion metric tons of insecticide and half the world's water supply, that doesn't make it a sport.

So, where was I? Oh, right. You say that marathoners wear watches. Yes they do. Thank you. May I remind you this is my story?

Anyway, the second question I'd like to have answered before humanity goes quietly into the night is: Are there any jobs left that don't require a computer? If you consider the modern cash register to be a computer, you'd be hard pressed to come up with any job that requires no computer. There are just two jobs that require no modern computers. Air traffic controller and president of the United States.

Air traffic controllers use computers recycled from old barroom Pong Games. The little white blips serve ATC personnel just fine. They're on the ground!

Presidents don't use computers either. Their speeches are written for them. Their intelligence is done by others. They live in a cocoon of misinformation provided by others. It is better they don't have Google. Take George Bush Senior, for example. Remember when he visited a supermarket and was astonished that groceries could be scanned? Those new fangled bar codes, which had been around for twenty years, had not penetrated the bubble of the Bush dynasty. Servants did their shopping.

But, back to the beginning, which is really the end. We need to take our computers and watches and look at the time we have remaining. Whether Bezos like Jeff, or bozos like George, we have no time to spare if we are to survive ourselves. 50/50 is good odds if you're flipping over who gets the cheesecake. Lousy if you're talking about survival of your species. I see from my watch, my time is up.