why do they keep trying to sell me viagra?

i am old.  therefore, i am a computer neophyte.  i know some old people are
computer-savvy, but they are more intellectually engaged than me.  they are aware of the culture around them and how they might contribute to it.  i prefer cheetos and tv.  “but,” you vigorously retort, “you are blogging.”  ”not my fault,” i reply. a young “techie” friend, david spotts, sent me a link to wordpress.com and said, “type something here and press ’send’.”  had david not been so intrusive altruistic and irritating persistent, then you, dear reader, would be without the pleasure and illumination of my “downzheimer’s wit” (thank you, ben ortlip).  

on this tech journey, i have discovered a number of computer-related terms that seem to me quite queer.   i’m talking about terms like “firewall”, “hypertext”, “emoticon”, and “kernel”.   thank god we no longer use “floppy.” “upload” sounds like something i would yell at someone on the freeway.  most confusing, however, is the term “cookie.”  now, i love cookies of all kinds and i have tried my best to embrace ”cookie” as part of my new tech vocabulary.  but i just cannot bring myself to say it out loud.  cookie.  c’mon.

besides the ungainly nature of the term, i am told that “cookies” are troublesome and potentially dangerous.  it seems that a “cookie” is a footprint, of sorts, that i leave every place i go in cyberspace.  all sorts of corporations are, this very minute, examining my “cookies” to see how they might be able to exploit my habits and interests.  who knows what they might find, and what sort of nefarious intentions and furtive motivations they might have (although “cookies” might explain the nature of the spam in my inbox…all this time i had suspected my wife of speaking out of turn)?

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