It's Jan. 1. The VCR flashes the right time, your coffee maker brews a perfect pot and your car starts.
Airplanes take off and land, water flows and lights go on across town.
All seems right despite warnings throughout the past year about potential computer failures related to the so-called millennium bug. A month later, things change. You can't find your brand of cereal at the supermarket because the distributor isn't Y2K-complaint. Your neighbor is laid off because the factory where he works ran out of parts. And your stock portfolio takes a dive because the nation is in the grip of a recession.