I somewhat suspect the author heard the standard "by Christmas" timeline and didn't get the joke... But then, we've got an April-Fools'-Day timeline in the works now that could turn out to be either sort of joke ("yes, it's for real. no, really. really, just look here!" | "April Fools!")... just like parrot.

<update time="Thu Mar 10 07:00 UTC 2006">
And reality keeps on getting faster... we have a beginning perl6-in-perl6-on-(perl5|pugs) compiler called lrep, which has bootstrapped itself... as of today, 3 weeks and a day remain. Come join the fun!
</update>