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Name: “E2K”

Turn-ons: iPhones, Indians, Indians with iPhones, biofuels, unrealistic expectations, mixed metaphors, domestic poverty.

Turn-offs: Adherence to the principles of logic, the fact that Y2K didn't amount to squat and is an embarrassing cultural memory, that smart-ass Paul Krugman.

How I got to be The BEAST Page 5 Inane Friedmanism: You have to understand first that my creator, NYT columnist Tom Friedman, has been going around saying that “Y2K should be a national holiday in India” for years, I guess because it jump-started the trend of outsourcing programming work there. It doesn't make any sense—how do you make a holiday out of a year?--but Tom isn't particularly bothered by that. So now, Tom thinks there's going to be a lot of corporate carbon footprint-monitoring work for Indians, because of the tight emissions laws he fantasizes will be passed in the near future. So, obviously, this trend needs a neato, techie-sounding name that is derivative of an almost totally unrelated event, and if he gets in first, he gets to claim his own little patch of future zeitgeist. So now he's pushing me around like he just crapped a solid gold Blackberry.

Future Plans: I will, in all likelihood, be invoked by some idiotic journalist within the next month or so—maybe Howard Fineman will attempt to interject me into a global warming discussion, to display his “savvy.” From there, I will grow briefly in popularity, then wane as people realize they have no earthly use for me at all, since I was conjured to label a largely nonexistent phenomenon, as it turns out that corporate emissions standards remain irresponsibly lax, due to the outrageous level of corruption in congress my author never hesitates to ignore.

How I'd Like to be Remembered: It would be better for all of us if I weren't.