Illness

Q: What is a computer virus?
A: A terminal illness.

It's Time To Turn The Computer Off

It's time to turn your computer off and read a book when...
1. You wake up at 3 am to go to the bathroom and stop to check your e-mail on the way back to bed.
2. You name your children Eudora, AOL and dotcom.
3. You turn off your modem and get this awful empty feeling as if you just pulled the plug on a loved one.
4. You spend half of the plane trip with your laptop on your lap and your child in the overhead compartment.
5. You decide to stay in college for an additional year or two, just for the free Internet access.
6. You laugh at people with 14.4 baud modems.
7. You start using smileys in your snail mail.
8. You find yourself typing "com" after every period when using a word processor.com.
9. You refer to going to the bathroom as downloading.
10. You can't call your mother. . She doesn't have a modem.
11. You check you mail. It says "no new messages". So you check it again.
12. You don't know what gender three of your closest friends are because they have neutral screennames and you never bothered to ask.
13. You move into a new house and decide to netscape before you landscape.
14. You tell the cab driver you live at http://1000.edison.garden/house/brick.html
15. You start tilting you head sideways to smile.
16. After reading this message, you immediately e-mail it to 10 friends.

How It All Began

In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com, did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot.  And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she had been called Amazon Dot Com. She said unto Abraham, her husband, "Why doth thou travel far from town to town with thy goods when thou can trade without ever leaving thy tent?"  And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said, "How, Dear?" And Dot replied, "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale and they will reply telling you which hath the best price. And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)." Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. The drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever moving from his tent.  But this success did arouse envy. A man named Maccabia did secret himself inside Abraham's drum and was accused of insider trading. And the young man did take to Dot Com's trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Siderites, or NERDS for short. And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums, that no one noticed that the real riches were going to the drum maker, one Brother William of Gates, who bought up every drum company in the land. And indeed did insist on making drums that would work only with Brother Gates' drumheads and drumsticks. Dot did say, "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others." And as Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or as it came to be known "eBay" he said, "we need a name that reflects what we are," and Dot replied, "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators." "YAHOO", said Abraham. And that is how it all began, It wasn't Al Gore after all.