Question on The Millenium

I saw this one again the other night, and there has always been a line I never understand, so maybe someone here gets it.

First, Kramer discusses his preparation for "New Year's Eve 1999, the Millenium".

Then toward the end of the episode, we hear this:

JERRY: By the way Newman, I'm just curious. When you booked the hotel, did you book it for the millennium New Year?

NEWMAN: (smug) As a matter of fact, I did.

JERRY: Oh, that's interesting, because as everyone knows, since there was no year zero, the millennium doesn't begin until the year two-thousand and one. Which would make your party one year late, and thus, quite lame.

Here's what I don't get - if the party is New Year's Eve 1999, and the millenium doesn't begin until 2001, then Newman's party is one year EARLY, not one year LATE.

Am I missing something? Why isn't Jerry's line, "Which would make your party one year early, and thus, quite lame."

Newman says he booked the party for the "Millennium New Year" - that would make it Dec. 31 2000 as the new millennium really starts Jan. 1, 2001.

And that is the correct time to celebrate the real new millennium but all other people are incorrectly celebrating it Dec. 31, 1999

So Newman is correct but a year too late for the real celebrations that all took place (incorrectly) Dec. 31, 1999.

It is all very confusing as is the spelling of millennium. ;-)

"TheNewsGuy(Mike)" wrote in message news:74ddd$471747b2$cf702f96$[email]...

Newmannium however is somewhat easier to spell.

"TheNewsGuy(Mike)" wrote in message news:74ddd$471747b2$cf702f96$[email]...

I understand your point, but it conflicts with earlier dialog. This means Newman's party is one year later than Kramer's, which can't be, since they had conflicting parties on the same date, and we already had established early in the episode that Kramer is preparing for a party on Dec 31, 1999. So, before Jerry explained that the millenium is really Dec 31, 2000, Newman was answering that his party is on the millenium under the erroneous assumption that this is Dec 31, 1999.

Conclusion: the writer's did a bad job.

That is the point. They only THINK it is the same date. We establish that Newman reserved the revolving restaurant and booked Christopher Cross for "the millennium" he never said Dec. 31, 1999. So Jerry then explains to Newman that the restaurant knows that the new millennium doesn't start until Jan. 1, 2001 would have booked Newman for Dec. 31, 2000.

So I repeat. It is all very confusing as is the spelling of millennium. ;-)

and we already had established

"TheNewsGuy(Mike)" wrote in message news:452e1$47188869$cf70282b$[email]...

Thank you - I finally can make some sense out of this. To the Kramanium!