Friends,

Now that most of us are even more intimately involved with the electronic
device you are watching, a short pause may be in order.  The following was
gleaned while surfing the big wave.
           25 SIGNS THAT TECHNOLOGY HAS TAKEN OVER YOUR LIFE

1.  Your stationary is more cluttered than Martha Stuart's weekly calendar.
 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 on the back.  In essence, you have conceded that the
first page of any letter you write *is* letterhead.

2.  You have never sat through an 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 find
a typewritter that works.

4.  You think of the gadgets in your office as "friends", but forgot to send
your honey a birthday card.

5.  You disdain people who use low baud rates.

6.  When you go to 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 customer's questions, while the salesperson stands
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 find yourself in groups of people to whom you say the phrase "digital
compression".  Everyone understands what you mean, and you are not surprised
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 holiday cards by putting : ) next to your signature.

12. Off the top of your head, you can think of ninteen 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. On vacation, you are reading a computer manual and turning the pages
faster than everyone else who are all reading John Grisham novels.

16. The thought that a CD could refer to finance or music rarely enters your
mind.

17. You go to computer trade shows and map your path of the exhibit hall in
advance.  However, you cannot give someone directions to your house without
looking up the street names.

18. You would rather get more dots per inch than miles per gallon.

19. You own a set of itty bitty screw drivers and you actually know where
they are.

20. While contemporaries swap stories about recent hernia surgeries, you
compare mouse induced finger strain with a nine year old.

21. You rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tires.

22. You have ended friendships because of irreconcilably different opinions
about which is better:  the track ball or the track *pad*.

23. 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.

24. You understand all of the jokes in this message.  If so, my friend,
technology has taken over your life.  For your own good, go lie under a tree
and write a haiku.  And don't use a laptop.

25. You e-mail this message to your friends.  You'd never get around to
showing it to them in person or reading it to them on the phone.  In fact,
you have never met most of these people face to face.