
You must be a geek if:
- 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.
- You have never sat through an entire movie without
having at least one device on your body beep or buzz.
- 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.
- You think of the gadgets in your office as
"friends," but you forget to send your
father a birthday card.
- 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.
- You use the phrase "digital compression" in
a conversation without thinking how strange your
mouth feels when you say it.
- 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.
- You know Bill Gates' e-mail address, but you have to
look up your own social security number.
- 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.
- You sign Christmas cards by putting :-) next to your
signature.
- Off the top of your head, you can think of nineteen
keystroke symbols that are far more clever than :-)
- You back up your data every day.
- Your wife asks you to pick up some minipads for her
at the store and you return with a rest for your
mouse.
- You think jokes about being unable to program a VCR
are stupid.
- On vacation, you are reading a computer manual and
turning the pages faster than everyone else who is
reading John Grisham novels.
- 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.
- 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.
- You would rather get more dots per inch than miles
per gallon.
- 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.
- You know without a doubt that disks come in
five-and-a- quarter-and three-and-a-half-inch sizes.
- Al Gore strikes you as an "intriguing"
fellow.
- You own a set of itty-bitty screw-drivers and you
actually know where they are.
- While contemporaries swap stories about their recent
hernia surgeries, you compare mouse-induced
index-finger strain with a nine-year-old.
- 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.
- You rotate your screen savers more frequently than
your automobile tires.
- You have a functioning home copier machine, but every
toaster you own turns bread into charcoal.
- You have ended friendships because of irreconcilably
different opinions about which is better -- the track
ball or the track pad.
- 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.
- You email this list 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.
Back to
Chapter Two