When I was 10, I remember calculating how old I would be in the year 2000 and thinking about how cool it would be to live through such an important date.
Part of me was scared that I would be run over or struck by lightning before I got there, but I knew that even if I made it, I would still need to survive for another nine years if I wanted to reach the real touchstone of arbitrarily pleasing dates.
Since then, I've been taking regular exercise, eating sensibly and avoiding major war zones to improve my chances and on Friday, I finally made it.
At 23:31 and 30 seconds, it was exactly 1,234,567,890 seconds since Unix time began. 1 January 1970 is the origin point for this and and all other operating systems based on Unix.
Of course, there have been several other dates of Unix significance before now, but the billionth second occurred in September 2001 at a quarter to three in the morning on a Sunday, which is rather late for me. And the millionth second was in 1970 just 12 days after they turned on the clocks, which was a bit soon to start cracking open the champagne. Plus I was only 18 months old.
So, for me, 1,234,567,890 was the big one. Interesting number, a Friday night and only just after closing time at the pub. Not only that but 1 second later is prime time! It doesn't get any better!
At least until Tuesday, 19 January 2038 when we can do the whole thing in reverse with 9,876,543,210. Just got to keep my cholesterol down until then.
