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Also known as Century Club and 100 Minutes, this is a very straightforward drinking game which will get you very drunk, very quickly.

    How to Play:
  • Designate a timekeeper (preferably someone sober)
  • Once the game begins, the players are then instructed by the timekeeper to take one shot, once every minute.
  • Try to last for 100 minutes.
The drunker you get, the shorter those minutes get. This game is usually played with beer and a middling sized shot glass.

In cricket, a century is a score of 100 runs. See: Sir Donald Bradman.

In bicycling, a century is a single bicycle ride of 100 miles or more. There is also a metric century which is 100 kilometers or 62 miles.

Anyone who is physically able to ride a bike can probably do a century with about 8 weeks of careful training. It's just a matter of building up a tolerance to pain.

A variant of the infamous and once-common Jerusalem computer virus for DOS. According to F-secure, this virus has existed, but no virus researcher has got a specimen.

This virus is a pretty stupid one, for several reasons.

It activated on January 1, 2000, and displayed the message "Welcome to the 21st Century". It, like Jerusalem, zeroed all FATs and disk data sectors it could find.

The problems?

  • The virus appreared in the 80s. If this virus existed, there was more than a decade to get rid of it.
  • The virus author was foolish enough to think that MS-DOS would still be in use in 2000 - ah, never mind, it was, but I bet the releases of Win95 and Win98 probably somewhat cramped this virus, as DOS viruses don't spread that well in Windows apps =)
  • The 21st century started on 2001-01-01, not 2000-01-01... Ah, hell, why am I telling this, no one listened then and won't listen to me now, either?

Webster's explanation of 'century' as a Roman army unit is a little lacking - here it is, in more detail:

A century in a legion of the Roman Republic was half of a maniple - typically, 60 men in the case of the soldiers of the first two lines (the hastati and principes), or 30 of the third-line veterans (the triarii.) In an imperial legion, centuries within the 2nd through tenth cohorts consisted of 80 men, while the centuries of the 1st cohort were double that. A century was the smallest individual fighting unit in the legion.

In 1953, Cross introduced what has become its signature pen, the Century ball point pen. True, they have produced a number of writing instruments prior to this point, and they were one of the major manufacturers. Also, they have expanded the line to include other writing modes (fountain pens, pencils, etc.). However, when one thinks of a “Cross Pen,” a Century ball point, a quarter-inch in diameter, and 5.25” long is what comes to mind.

The Century comes in a number of finishes, from matte gray (like mine) to 14 karat gold, though the quintessential finish would have to be chrome. Often, a little emblem is affixed to the clip—a flag, seal of a university or branch of the military, or a company logo. A feature common to all of them is a chrome top with a black stripe, and a chrome stripe about a third of the way towards the tip.

Like all ball points, it is essentially a fancy holder for a refill. Cross makes them blue, black, red, and green, in broad to fine points. They also make a stylus refill, for people who want something more like a real pen for their PDA. The refill is extended by twisting the top part of the pen.

It is my personal theory that every male in the United States received one as a gift sometime during their lifetime. Typically, this is either for a High School or College graduation.

In bicycling, a century is the term for bicycling 100 miles in a day. Although it is not a direct comparison, bicycling a century is considered to be the equivalent of a runner running a marathon: am ambitious goal, but a realistic one that is in the reach of most healthy people. It is not a perfect comparison: to run a marathon takes better physical fitness, and higher cardiovascular output, while a century takes more time and therefore a different type of endurance.

Many people who ride a century go on a supported ride. Bicycling for 100 miles takes a lot of food and water, and mechanical support in case of failure, so many people find it safer to go on a ride with established rest stops and people and equipment who can make repairs. These rides are also planned along routes that minimize traffic. The downside to this is that someone wishing to ride like this has to pay, and also has to wait for such a ride to be scheduled.

I have ridden one century so far, in September of this year. I rode on my own, picking out a spoke and hub route that let me ride 100 miles without ever leaving walking distance of my house in case of mechanical failure. I actually did have a flat tire and had to coast 10 miles downhill to a place where I could get my tire fixed. Every century ride is different, and mine was done on a touring bicycle on mountain roads with a bit elevation gain. One thing I discovered is that riding uphill becomes exponentially difficult when tired: about sixty miles into my ride, I had the last major uphill portion. Those four miles with a relatively small amount of elevation gain (around 300 feet) were the hardest physically, and I was worried about my ability to do another forty miles. However, on flat terrain, while fatigued, I was still able to continue.

Many of these instances of pacing and training can be found in other places, and I am not an expert on that, and as far as cyclists go, I am not particularly athletic. But I can mention one important factor that many of the training guides about endurance forget to mention: someone who is riding a bicycling is piloting a vehicle. The basic fact of balancing on a bicycle and steering it is something that most bicyclists take for granted, especially those who have gotten to the point when they can ride 100 miles. But when riding for 100 miles, it takes a lot of mental and physical endurance to keep riding with a normal amount of control. Moving your legs for 6 to 8 hours isn't as much of a challenge as it is to keep staring at a roadway, looking out for any random rocks or potholes that might send you sprawling. Along with that, the slightest misalignment or mistuning in the bicycle, where it is in the chain, brakes, seat or wheels becomes very noticeable. And of course, getting an out and out flat tire is hard to recover from. So if there is one piece of advice I would give to people thinking of riding a century, it is to focus on the vehicle aspect of the trip as much as the exercise aspect.

The biggest reward for me is that after riding a century, my ideas of what is a feasible and pleasant bicycle trip have all gone upward. Knowing I can ride one hundred miles, 50 or 60 miles seems less daunting, and 30 or 40 miles seems like hardly an exertion at all.

Cen"tu*ry (?), n.; pl. Centuries (#). [L. centuria (in senses 1 & 3), fr. centum a hundred: cf. F. centurie. See Cent.]


A hundred; as, a century of sonnets; an aggregate of a hundred things.


And on it said a century of prayers. Shak.


A period of a hundred years; as, this event took place over two centuries ago.

Century, in the reckoning of time, although often used in a general way of any series of hundred consecutive years (as, a century of temperance work), usually signifies a division of the Christian era, consisting of a period of one hundred years ending with the hundredth year from which it is named; as, the first century (a. d. 1-100 inclusive); the seventh century (a.d. 601-700); the eighteenth century (a.d. 1701-1800). With words or phrases connecting it with some other system of chronology it is used of similar division of those eras; as, the first century of Rome (A.U.C. 1-100).

3. Rom. Antiq. (a)

A division of the Roman people formed according to their property, for the purpose of voting for civil officers.


One of sixty companies into which a legion of the army was divided. It was Commanded by a centurion.

Century plant Bot., the Agave Americana, formerly supposed to flower but once in a century; -- hence the name. See Agave. -- The Magdeburg Centuries, an ecclesiastical history of the first thirteen centuries, arranged in thirteen volumes, compiled in the 16th century by Protestant scholars at Magdeburg.


© Webster 1913.
