>         How to determine if 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 can no longer sit 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
> A    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 that 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.