So you woke up Jan. 1 in a queasy quasi-panic attack. Was it that recurring Dick Clark dream — or the stark realization that you now have less than a year to plan for the Really Big One? Yes, the juggernaut that is New Year's Eve 1999 rolls ever closer, and it has your name on it. Never fear, though. The Internet can help.
First, work yourself into an appropriate millennial frenzy: Bookmark one of the many Internet countdown clocks and watch those months-weeks-days-hours-minutes-seconds sift away. Which to choose? We suggest the celebrated Greenwich Meridian timer, which, being the official countdown for the ''home of time,'' has more cachet than a countdown from, say, Junior Philatelists on the Internet.
Your next step: Prepare some talking points. There are sniffy Gregorian purists out there eager to mock you for celebrating the second millennium in the year 2000 rather than 2001. Luckily, there are almost as many sites springing to your defense. Scott Cook's Cloth Monkey offers erudite justifications for premature partying, such as explaining that pro-2001 calendars were created by monks with ''little knowledge of the Arabic notion of zero.'' Zing.
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