(For Morgan in LA.
Happy Birthday, mon cher! Many *hearty* returns to you!
Heureux jour de naissance, bon ami!)
1. Your stationery is more cluttered than Warren Beatty's
address book. The letterhead lists a fax number, e-mail
addresses for two on-line services, and your Internet
address, which spreads across the breadth of the
letterhead and continues to the back. In essence, you
have conceded that the first page of any letter you write
*is* letterhead.
2. You have never sat through a entire movie without
having at least one device on your body beep or buzz.
3. You need to fill out a form that must be typewritten,
but you can't because there isn't one typewriter in your
house -- only computers with laser printers.
4. You think of the gadgets in your office as "friends,"
but you forget to send your father a birthday card.
5. You disdain people who use low baud rates.
6. When you go into a computer store, you eavesdrop
on a salesperson talking with customers -- and you
butt in to correct him and spend the next twenty
minutes answering the customers' questions, while
the salesperson stands by silently, nodding his head.
7. You use the phrase "digital compression" in a
conversation without thinking how strange your
mouth feels when you say it.
8. You constantly find yourself in groups of people to
whom you say the phrase "digital compression. "
Everyone understands what you mean, and you are
not surprised or disappointed that you don't have to
explain it.
9. You know Bill Gates' e-mail address, but you have
to look up your own social security number.
10. You stop saying "phone number" and replace it
with "voice number," since we all know the majority
of phone lines in any house are plugged into
contraptions that talk to other contraptions.
11. You sign Christmas cards by putting :-) next to
your signature. >>
12. Off the top of your head, you can think of nineteen
keystroke symbols that are far more clever than :-).
13. You back up your data every day.
14. Your wife asks you to pick up some minipads
for her at the store and you return with a rest for
your mouse.
15. You think jokes about being unable to program
a VCR are stupid.
16. On vacation, you are reading a computer manual
and turning the pages faster than everyone else
who is reading John Grisham novels.
17. The thought that a CD could refer to finance or
music rarely enters your mind.
18. You are able to argue persuasively the Ross
Perot's phrase "electronic town hall" makes more
sense than the term "information superhighway," but
you don't because, after all, the man still uses
hand-drawn pie charts.
19. You go to computer trade shows and map out
your path of the exhibit hall in advance. But you cannot
give someone directions to your house without
looking up the street names.
20. You would rather get more dots per inch than
miles per gallon.
21. You become upset when a person calls you on
the phone to sell you something, but you think it's
okay for a computer to call and demand that you start
pushing buttons on your telephone to receive more
information about the product it is selling.
22. You know without a doubt that disks come in
five-and-a- quarter-and three-and-a-half-inch sizes.
23. Al Gore strikes you as an "intriguing" fellow.
24. You own a set of itty-bitty screw-drivers and you
actually know where they are.
25. While contemporaries swap stories about their
recent hernia surgeries, you compare mouse-induced
index-finger strain with a nine-year-old.
26. You are so knowledgeable about technology that
you feel secure enough to say "I don't know" when
someone asks you a technology question instead of
feeling compelled to make something up.
27. You rotate your screen savers more frequently
than your automobile tires.
28. You have a functioning home copier machine, but
every toaster you own turns bread into charcoal.
29. You have ended friendships because of irreconcilably
different opinions about which is better -- the track ball
or the track *pad*.
30. You understand all the jokes in this message. If so,
my friend, technology has taken over your life. We
suggest, for your own good, that you go lie under a tree
and write a haiku. And don't use a laptop.
Additions
31. You laugh and forward this message to more than
3 people.
32. Even worse, you laugh and forward this message
to your entire joke mailing list.