no.32 - Ninety-Nine

I don't know why the number 99 should be such an awful thing, but it is. As I stood atop the Empire State building with my wife and daughter, this knowledge was brought home to me as my new camera, (a Canon 40D) ceased to function on the very first day of our trip, displaying the dreaded, ambiguous error 99, ruining any plans I had to take photographs of New York, or my family.

This is the ninth time in two years I have suffered through this error which has rendered various pieces of photographic equipment useless. (Nice work Canon).

Of course, 99 is just the messenger in these events, but it still sits there, grinning and useless, conveying nothing but the fact that I am screwed.

99 is bad mojo and I don't even believe in mojo. Stick a horse-shoe on it all you like 99 Restaurant, your food won't be any less greasy or your waitresses any less surly. (We all know you are just the Ground Round without peanuts on the floor.)

One time we were visiting friends in Iowa who were caring for a cute, but heartbreakingly abandoned little boy who kept singing out "Nine E Nine, Nine E Nine" because his mother had left on the ninety-nine train.

99's biggest claim to fame - besides not quite being 100, is the aggravating song about the bottles of beer, rarely seen through to the end, but which is essentially wielded as a weapon by passengers on road trips.

Now it is true that when I was 15 I heard the song "99 Luftballons" and fell in love - and this was before I saw Nena or her leather pants. I was standing just outside my brother's and my room listening intently, hoping he did not notice me. If he knew I was enjoying that song, waiting to hear who was singing, he almost certainly would have have turned it off.

But, I hasten to point out that the 99 balloons in the song do, in fact, start a nuclear apocalypse, so I think 99 still can be considered to suck even if that song is still totally awesome.

I would have preferred to make this my 99th post, but the Demons come when they come.

The last thing my camera saw

UPDATE: About a month after this post, yet another 99 Demon was found which required me to post this entry.