

Above: The Nicktix as of 12/2/2001.

Above: The Nicktix as of 3/25/2002.

Above: The opening panel to the British MyNick section, advertising the coming of the Rugrats E-Cards. Instead of informing viewers of a normal start date to receive the cards, MyNick counts down with "Nick-tix". In my opinion, this is nothing but a ruse, which I'll explain in a second. This is where I went wrong: With a little calculation, I estimated that the E-cards will be available around January 28, 2002. How did I figure that? In the Nick-tix clock, the fourth digit from the right counts down at a rate of once per second. Then I calculated as follows (all numbers are rounded to nearest whole number): 4959508 seconds (the last 3 digits aren't important)

divided by 60

= 82658 minutes

divided by 60

= 1378 hours

divided by 24

= 57 days

divided by 7

= 8 weeks The date I wrote this was December 2, 2001. I added 57 days from that date, and the end result is January 28, 2002 (give or take a couple of days). However, I checked again on 1/28/2002, when I thought the cards would be released, and the "Nicktix" counter didn't budge. As a matter of fact, the counter ticked down, and started again with a higher number. As of 3/25/2002, almost 4 months since the announcement of the cards, the first 2 digits, which were "49" through the end of January, has been changed to "75". Also, the last digit has been dropped. However, the timer is still looping -- the fourth and fifth digits from the left start at "80" and go to "74", before starting over again at "80". And as of 7/1/2002, the cards were still not available. The reason for this delay, according to the Nickdisk forum, was the difficulties in installing the special equipment for the e-cards. The new target date to make the cards available was moved to July. But apparently, whatever was causing the trouble, it was never fixed, and the cards' opportunity has long passed. When Nick US released their cards, it was only about a month between the initial announcement and the actual release. But in Britain, the promotion, which never went beyond the promotional and "coming soon" stages, was quietly pulled in mid-October 2002 -- over 10 months after it was first announced at Nick UK's website.