Okay, so I once described my personal computer as the most evil machine ever invented since Rasputin's rotating eye-gouger. Looking back, that may have been a bit of an overstatement because my no-name PC, which was assembled from parts left over from the last dismantling of Nortel and takes 17 minutes to warm up and six minutes to delete a message, is more like Joseph Stalin's nose hair remover and nipple twister. Using it is still very painful but I no longer fear for my life whenever I hit I'M FEELING LUCKY.

However, after a year of plugging away at this arrogant little appliance I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. Like yesterday I'm trying to reboot the bip bag when a warning comes on the screen from McAffee, the people I paid a lot of money to protect my computer. And the warning reads: "Your computer is not fully protected!" So I type in: "How come? The invoice you sent me was fully paid!" McAffee tells me there are 281 security items that need my attention, so I just hit CLOSE because that's their department. I work in editorial and those people in security have never once sent me a story idea.

I only use my computer for e-mails and light research which takes about half a day if Wainfleet's switchboard is overloaded by party lines and pigeon droppings. So to speed things up I plug my new BLACKBERRY into the computer. Okay, it's not actually a BLACKBERRY, it's a BLUEBERRY that runs off an electric outlet which limits its mobility to the number of extension cords I have in the house but it has the full-sized typewriter keyboard and is fitted with rollers making it easy to move from room to room. It's one of those Chinese knockoffs that's really cheap and kinda cool as long as it doesn't kill you or trigger a world-wide recall of baby toys.

The BLUEBERRY allows me to punch in research requests on the keyboard while still operating my PC MOUSE in order to access HARD DRIVE, SOFT DRIVE and drivermacivershe'sbuiltforit.calm. The NO DRIVE pops up followed by a bunch of ads to buy Viagra on-line and an offer to buy a LAPTOP or it might be a lapdance from a woman named Desire who, as a bonus, appears to be giving away all of Victoria's secrets.

In a NANOSECOND, I call security but the McAffee GROUP are off hunting viruses or BROWSING mushrooms so I order everything on the screen using my bookkeeper's e-mail address and her Fedex account number in order to pay for them.

Every part of me aches from shoveling record amounts of snowfall which I'm told, is a direct result of global warming and I'm searching 'hypertension' when in comes an urgent HYPERTEXT containing six vital documents that require my immediate attention, two credit card numbers and the secret code to my bank account. I send them a MasterCard number I found on a receipt in a McDonald's bag of garbage somebody tossed on my lawn. I sign off by saluting them with the big "FO" for the user-defined FUNCTIONAL OPERATIONS button located on the top row of my keyboard which also downloads the latest CD of Alicia Keys. Kool!

So I try and HTMLwrite the word "back ache" when backslash GEOWRITE appears, only to be savaged by underscore APPLE WORKS WRITE and kicked off the edge of the screen by ABIWORDPERFECT WRITE which no matter how clear the words appear, has a slight speech impediment. I punch in WWW and my backstage pass to all World Wrestling Federation events is immediately pre-approved and Mickey Rourke comes on, points directly at me and challenges me to an online lock-the-doors CHAT ROOM fight.

"Yeah, like you're going to take me down! You fat tub of goo! And I sign my e-mail missive message from Dale Hajdu who is my accountant. I give Mickey Dale's cellphone number, his Facebook account number and home address. I sign off with "FYImbecile TAB. Drop dead Bar Fly."

GUI! GUI! Keys are popping up but I haven't had a beer yet today and even if I had I don't drink and DISK DRIVE so I erase it with the rubber end of my CURSOR which only serves to SPREADSHEET the problem onto the pages of SPAM which, and I didn't know this, is celebrating 72 years as the "King of Canned Meat" by introducing Hickory Smoked Span, Hot & Spicy Spam and Spam Lite. Attempting to BCODE it, I win two tickets to Spamelot which is playing at Shea's Theatre in Buffalo.

That's when I heard a crackling sound and smelled smoke coming through my WINDOWS '95. It seems a SPARC ignited the CHIP in the bottom of my MODULATOR when I accidentally hit ROM, RAM and FLASH simultaneously

ZUNES!!! I send 911 E-BOOK urgent HOT JAVA message to McAffee that my desktop is on fire and an INSTANT MESSENGER named MUDding TWEEKS me back and says for $199.99 they will send a FILEMERGER fireman to my house with a bucket of water and a CYBERDOG bomb sniffer provided I pay instantly from my PAYPAL account.

Yeah, right. Like I don't know when I'm being TWITTERED. PULL-ease!!!

I hit DELETE. It registers OBSOLETE and I lose every file and document in the computer including the manual it came with. Just another day online.