Source: http://www.musicoutfitters.com/resources.htm (bottom of page)
(my year of graduation from high school was 1998)
Key: Like
adore
guilty pleasure
loathe
?? can't remember

( The top 100 songs from 1998. )

The songs I remember from 1998 are mostly from the X-Files: Fight the Future soundtrack, and then the songs on the late night MTV and VH1 shows. That was a scary year for me. '97/'98 wasn't so bad, but from January to December, 1998 was not especially a good year to be me, and 1999 was worse.

Acadeca. State competition. 9-12 Talented Yeeth in a large hotel in the biggest city in the state, with minimal adult supervision.

Hell yeah we were having fun.

Someone had bought incense. The hotel thoughtfully provided mini coffee pots in the hotel rooms, with little kits so we could make our own. Excellent.

So, somehow, someone got the bright idea of taking the powdered non-dairy creamer and spilling it out of the package into the air, where it briefly formed a cloud... and lighting it on fire.

Fireballs! Safe, effective, lovely, pyromania-satisfying, fireballs!


There was nothing in the rules that prevented us from playing with incense or lighters. I was surprised. There probably should have been.


They debated throwing a few out the window, since they would not hit the ground. I do not remember whether they did that or not.


At the awards banquet at the end, there were little candles on the tables in the banquet hall. I looked at those candles, and I got a glint in my eye, and I asked a passing waiter if I might have some powdered non-dairy creamer. The rest of the table grinned, because they knew what was headed through my mind.

The plan was to make some fireballs to punctuate the applause for our group, because we were just the coolest, though we did not go on to nationals. Sadly, the creamer was too lumpy, and not finely-divided enough, and merely sat in the wax and sulked.