ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 15, 1996 TAG: 9605150033
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BEN BEAGLE
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
As if I didn't have enough trouble with my self-esteem, now they're telling me there's nothing in my computer worth stealing.
There it was. Another rebuke for old yours truly here.
The Associated Press said computer thievery is becoming more widespread, but that people with personal computers at home don't have to worry. Once more I find myself out of the Old Mainstream.
It's true that I wouldn't know a web site from the coalyard they used to have in Waynesboro, and it's true that I once thought a floppy disc was a dessert on a stick.
It's true that nobody ever "hits" me - as those of us who have advanced knowledge of computers say frequently. I think this means people read junk in your web site - or is that your chat room?
Still, I've got feelings and it hurts to know nobody's interested in what I've got in my memory banks.
I may not have the payroll for General Motors in there, and I don't have the software that gets you into interactive stripping - as in clicking on some young woman who takes her clothes off.
How do I know about this software? I'm a trained reporter dedicated to illuminating the times in which we live and who knows how to find out such things.
Stated another way, I saw it on HBO.
These young women don't lead easy lives.
They have to be good touch typists in addition to taking their clothes off, and I'll bet some of them already have carpal tunnel problems.
It's also true that nobody ever thought enough of my computer to give it a virus. Never been sick a day in its life except for the time I bent all these tiny little metal prongs in the power cord.
I can tell those people one thing. I've got a diary that has some shocking entries - like the one in which I savage the custom of buying balled, replantable Christmas trees that weigh as much as your average small asteroid.
I haven't written much in there lately . To be perfectly frank, I can't get in there myself because I forgot the password.
There are also some very interesting attempts to balance my checkbook, and I blush to admit there's some poetry and a couple of questionable limericks in there.
I'm hurt deeply, but I'll get over it. I've been ignored before and come through with colors flying, as we used to say in Radford.
Those people wouldn't know what to do with my recipe for squirrel gravy anyway.
LENGTH: Medium: 57 linesby CNB