How The End of The World Will Be on Twitter

So this morning, I dialed up the Twitter, and saw that @TechCrunch had tweeted that he had discovered that Twitter users could now follow CERN, the European Organization of Nuclear Research.

Apparently CERN is going to use Twitter to send out updates about the progress of Large Hadron Collider, the gynormous particle accelerator which lies underground near the border of Switzerland & France. On September 10, they’re going to fire that sucker up and it will give Mankind the Final Key to How It All Began and a Glimpse of the Face of God.

Either that, or suck the entire Earth into an ever-expanding Black Hole that will eventually be the end of existence.

And while I’d like to believe that we’re going to get some answers to the Fundamental Question of Life, I’ve been conditioned by 8 years of the Bush Adminstration to expect the worst and live each and every day in fear of, well, pretty much everything. So I’m going to assume that it’s The End of The World.

Which sucks, because we were going to go to Vegas at the end of next month.

Luckily, thanks to the miracle of Web 2.0, you can follow the End of The World on Twitter!

This all raises two questions. The first question is: “How will I know when the end End of the World is being Tweeted?”

Easy! Just look for any one the following updates:

• @CERN: That doesn’t seem good.
• @CERN: This is new.
• @CERN: Where did all of the particles go?
• @CERN: I don’t remember it doing that in the simulations.
• @CERN: Uh-oh.
• @CERN: Hey, it’s God!! . . . Oh, He looks pissed.
• @CERN: So, that’s what a Black Hole looks like.
• @CERN: SHUT IT DOWN!! IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, SHUT IT DOWN!!!

The second question is: “What do I do when I see one of these tweets?”

Well, I don’t know about you, but I have a plan that ends with me hopping on my spaceship and getting the hell out of Dodge!

Since I’ll probably be at work when the End of the World update comes in, my plan consists of the following:

1. Log out of my computer.
2. Ask my Boss if I can leave for the day (unless it’s near lunchtime, then I’ll just leave.)
3. Drive across town to my home.
4. Download spaceship-building plans from the internets.
5. Buy spaceship-building materials from Orchard.
6. Build a spaceship.
7. Have something to eat. I’m assuming that building a spaceship will be hard. And take time, so I’ll be hungry.
8. Launch the spaceship just seconds ahead of the Black Hole, as depicted in the image at the top of this post. (And yes, that’s obviously not my spaceship, duh. But that’s how the escape works in my mind.)

Some of you might ask why I don’t already have the spaceship built, but that’s just stupid. I live in an apartment, so where would I store it?

In any event, I’d like to thank the CERN people in advance for putting the End of the World on Twitter, because they’re doing us all a great public service.

Unless, of course, Twitter happens to be down that day.

• CERN Website
• @CERN on the Twitter