> 36 Signs That Technology Has Taken Over Your Life
>
> 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 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
> 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.
>
> 31. You email this message to your friends over the net. You'd never get
> around to showing it to them in person or reading it to them on the
phone.
> In fact, you have probably never met most of these people face-to-face.
>
> 32. You don't even read magazine articles anymore, unless someone's keyed
> them into e-mail and forwarded it to you.
>
> 33. You print the itinerary of your vacation from a scheduler software.
>
> 34. You pack the laptop computer first for any trip.
>
> 35. While you're away from home, the first three numbers you call are
your
> voicenet, a bulletin board, and one of your e-mail accounts.
>
> 36. You are reading this from a screen.
>