As my friend Tom said one morning, with a hangover: "don't think I'll be putting much pressure on Bill Gates today." Yes, it's one of those days - I think I'll ease up on poor old Bill today, and just buy cds over the internet. Just came into college, and saw 2 Bananafish digests, with over 2000 lines between them. Unfortunately, 1500 of those lines were someone else's mail quoted and with "By Golly! you could be onto something there!" or whatever appended. Another 300 of those lines were a facet of my mail reader being narrower than the sender's (see the quote below for an example). (These things are important when you're a man - mail reader width, font size, amount of RAM, nose-hair length etc.) Happily, the remaining 200 lines were a treasure trove of sense, wit and rather good writing. This one got me thinking: NovenA16@aol.com wrote >I don't think I have ever been someplace where I have forgotten >who or who >isn't phony.I don't ever want to go there.Maturity is when it >is not >forgotten,it's just accepted as human behaviour.But there are >people who go >way to far with there phonyness(is that mispelled).And that's ok. >They are no >hurting anybody.I can live with them and be friends with them or >whatever.It's amusing and life always goes on. >Jeez,I don't know how I fell upon that last sentence. By an amazing coincidence, I spoke with my boss (a great man - at the age of nearly 60, he has decided to engage in a new career in software. He reckons he's the oldest person in Ireland learning how to program.) about this last night. He told me a story of how a man whose shoes he "wouldn't lick for smarts" (i.e. not a rocket scientist) had once made him stop in his tracks. This man had said that "a mature man is a man that knows a secret.....and is happy at that." Simple as that. I'm a complete blabbermouth, there goes my maturity out the window into the fog . . . . On the Catcher memories stuff (some great stories here people, keep them coming, I'm plagiarising all round me here): I have a very strong memory of being really pissed off with the fact that Ackley had to be given loads of spots. Typical, give the idiot the bad skin; thanks plenty JD. Just reinforcing the myth that teenage males with bad acne are complete morons. The reality, of course, is that all teenage males are complete morons. Well, (ducking under his keyboard) all the ones I knew were, before I got too old to meet any. (Apologies to all you teenage males on this list. In an attempt to cheer you up, I might point out that you can still enjoy a surreptitious occasional drink which is something I can't. All my drinking is completely legal. Bummer.) Then again, I get to sign on the dole in the morning and get FREE MONEY. Still have acne though.... NovenA16@aol.com also wrote >way to far with there phonyness(is that mispelled?) Actually, (pompous sniff) they are both mispelled. Dammit, I swore that this email wouldn't be more than 5 lines. -- Brian VENEER homepage: http://mathds1.ul.ie:8080/ --"Drop"------------------------------------------------------- "...so much that I can't say to you, my voice shakes from the hurt that I hide..." -------------------------------------Red House Painters-------