(Illustration by David Brion for The Washington Post)

Dear Navigator,
No votes for the obvious: the Digital Decade? They are digits, of course, and so are fingers and toes ... which we can count them on. And which, with our "Year 2000" problems, we may yet be forced to employ. Though I also have some fondness for the blizzard of "ought eight." – Karen S. Fairchild

Dear Navigator,
Here are 10 of my top picks: 1. The Osters – pronounced "ohsters." Change will blizzard at us dizzyingly and kaleidoscopically, as though we were placed in an Osterizer blender. 2. The Zippies – others have coined this, not me. 3. The Ozone – We may solve the time/space continuum problem, so the decade will be as much a "place" as a "time." If we do so, this will allow us to understand the origins – perchance "purpose" – of the universe – what teleologists term "The Ought from Naught." 4. The Primordial Ohs or Oohs. 5. The Merry Old Land of Ohs 6. The Munchkins or Munchies – From Edvard Munch's existential expressionist painting "The Scream," in which the subject's mouth is pursed in a perfect "Ohhh!!!" 7. The Ciphers. 8. The Nixies. 9. The Nillies – I get the willies from the Nillies. And 10, The Goose Eggs. – Phil Frankenfeld

Dear Navigator,
First, there's the question of addressing the individual years of the 21st century. Are we to refer to them as two-thousand-this and two-thousand-that, or as twenty-this and twenty-that? Not only is this a semantic point, but, interestingly, it's my casual observation that, already, those who speak of two-thousand-this-or-that tend to be politically more liberal, while the twenty-somethings more conservative.

Should we just go on from the nineties and call it the one-hundreds? Should it be the O's? The ones, maybe? The singles, or even worse, the Swinging Singles? How about the preteens? Should we blandly refer to it as The First Decade? Or should we simply ignore the problem until it goes away once and for all in 2013, and afterward pretend the years 2000 through 2012 somehow didn't happen?

I suspect that last alternative isn't really viable, as something is bound to happen to make that period memorable. If nothing else, Ken Starr will wind up the Lewinsky-Clinton case along about 2007. – Paul H. Butler

Dear Navigator,
Just got done reading your article entitled "One and Only ... Dad," (June 19) and loved it. I totally agree with you about holidays, honoring your parents & grandparents should happen all year long, not just on a specific date. If you get a chance take a look at our Father's World Web site. – David E. Drucker

Dear Navigator,
As a non-custodial father, I am part of a group that receives little attention or support, outside of the pejorative "dead-beat" label. For this we have men to blame. We wrote much of the law that determines custody and child support, and many of us are more concerned about our right to keep and bear arms than our rights in relation to our children. – Michael McMillan

Linton Weeks can be reached at weeksl@washpost.com

CLICK: Amish Laptop If the Amish aren't allowed to use computers, how in the world did they upload so many Web pages? The answer: with the most advanced abacus in the world. The top secret Amish laptop uploads pictures through a string and can and displays them on its state of the art 13-by-7 bead monitor. It even has its own CPU that cranks along at a steady 4.33 Hz. Not bad for a typical Chicken-Pulley Unit. – Dan Pacheco

Surfing Perturbations, pleasures and predicaments on the I-way

Sound of Clapping Underwater
The haikus featured here last week were from a Salon contest. See www.salonmagazine.com/21st/rose/1998/02/24straight.html for an interesting discussion. – Raleigh Romine

Something Strange Going On
Here's a site with something odd for everyone, beginning with charming opening music. The child-oriented Museum of Unnatural Mystery Homepage is dedicated to the scientific investigation of strange phenomena: What killed dinosaurs (or is there something to the Loch Ness Monster?), are there flying saucers (visit the Hall of UFO Mysteries for answers), what happened to the lost worlds?

You'll find a Children's Reading Room, a monthly look at strange science news in Science Over the Edge, a well-stocked store that sells books and videos, a list of do-try-this-at-home experiments for kids, and an opportunity to send museum-designed postcards and birthday cards to your friends. – Edward F. Mickolus

Scratching Your Building Itch
One word: Plastic. I missed the Lego revolution, being born into a Lincoln Logs world. But thanks to the Web, I can marvel at the seemingly unlimited ways people have found to tinker with tiny bits of brightly colored plastic. One may start at the delightfully named fibblesnork.com, featuring a "Cool Lego Site of the Week." Or head to weirdrichard.com, subtitled, "A Lego Odyssey." Richard is an instructor and says, "I am convinced you can teach a student anything using" Legos. And there's always the "Lego Maniacs' Search," which has indexed "over 15,000 Web pages from over 100 different Web sites dedicated to Lego or Lego-compatible bricks." And you can surf to the source, lego.com. – Dave Nuttycombe