The giant glass ball that rings in the New Year high above New York’s Times Square made its descent one minute late this year. But the delay wasn’t due to some mechanical glitch or operator error. The culprits: two teenage pranksters who remotely hacked the timing software that controls the ball, ushering in 2010 at 12:01 A.M. Eastern Standard time.

Revelers in the street barely noticed the protracted ball-drop, too intoxicated to care. But celebrities and planners of the gala event were livid.

“A treasured American tradition has just been defaced by the selfish acts of a couple vile individuals,” blasted an angry Regis Philbin, perennial host of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. “People expect accuracy from our glass ball. Now who will they depend on? The Naval Observatory?”

Ironically, it’s the Naval Observatory that must now make corrections for the year’s late start by moving back its atomic clock exactly 61.032 seconds across every time zone. This in turn has created a ripple effect as clock-based systems around the world - from cell phones to air traffic controls - must now follow suit in adjusting their clocks. Communications, data, military and transportation personnel were scrambling early Friday morning to adjust their clocks. Technicians everywhere were called in to work New Year’s Day in order to update systems.

The Obama Administration is advising people to set back their alarm clocks and wristwatches by holding down the time set button and counting slowly to sixty-one.

The two unnamed hackers, both 16-year-old high school students from Long Island, have been detained by authorities. Federal prosecutors are expected to file formal charges within the next day.

Meanwhile, officials from the New Year’s event are red-faced over the security breach and the ensuing negative publicity.

“How could this happen?,” exclaimed Alexei Samstoff, organizer for the Times Square event. “It’s eleven lines of UNIX code! No matter how simple we make it, somebody still manages to fuck that up!”