yes, you heard right!

I don't care what the four words are this time. I wrote a good piece for it, and then lost it in a computer crash. So my tirade in this piece is going to be on computers and their habit of crashing all the time.

First, can I ask why when they crash they don't actually slam into a wall in an explosion of plastic and silicon?

Well, I guess that could get expensive.

Yes, you heard right! I think we should all get up on our seats and stop taking these computer crashes sitting down (we'll be standing up!)

Really, we should settle for such a mess. I don't want a car that crashes. I don't want a plane that crashes. So why would I want a computer than crashes?

Someday our houses are going to be wired and managed by a central computer. We'll be able to access our house via the internet and turn on the hot tub and set the wine chiller to get that bottle of Chablis ready. Well, okay, it will nuke the Mac 'n' Cheese and turn on the tape of Springer it recorded for us. But, it will do it all, and be managed by computers.

Now, there will a lot of small problems with this. Sometimes it will record Rikki Lake instead of the last episode of that NBC mini-series "The Day The Mailbox Was Filled With Spam Mail." That will be minor. No lives will fall apart. Marriages might, but no lives will be lost (just erased from memory.)

But inevitably, the computers controlling it all, will crash. And when they do, we won't be able to toast our toast, launder our laundry or refigerate our refigeratables. Life will suck. Suck in that sweltering 110 degree heat with humidity without air conditioning kind of suck. Suck in that freezing your tongue to the radiator kind of suck.

Well, some people might just continue on with their lives, all happy and content. You may not worry, but I will. I laughed at the whole Y2K mania, but this time I will be prepared.

From this point on, I am storing up food and supplies for the coming crash. When my house comes crashing down around me, I will be prepared. You won't. Enough said.