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stux the weekender saturday february 2sa 998 f 7 iwy first trip on the electronic turnpike from where i live bruce stapley for the past halfdecade or so i have lived in fear of last thursday that was the day when a knock on the door signaled the arrival of a presence so diabolical as to make me break out into a cold sweat at the mere notion of its longpending arrival no we didnt break down and get a dog a cat or even a vietnamese pot bellied pig for the kids nor did we set up a basement apartment for my motherinlaw the dreaded entity of which i am speaking is a brand new state of the art personal computer complete with icons task bars email capabilities and a bil lion or so other functions to catapult a fossil like myself kicking and screaming into the 21st century to properly appreciate the extent of my elec tronic ineptitude it is necessary to trace my sorry technological ascent my very first from where i live column back in march of 1986 was hammered out on a small underwood typewriter salvaged from a pile of unsold items at a garage sale a year or so later that old clunker gave way to an electric typewriter which while very used represented a quan tum leap of communications technology for me after running this device the rest of the way into the ground i finally took advantage of yet a third friends offer to set me up with a used mouseless com puter just as the 1980s were coming to a close it took a while but i soon came to appreciate the luxury of being able to write a newspaper story rearrange a sen tence or two along the way and then have it print itself out without having to apply whiteout the same way an aging holly wood actress plasters on makeup but it soon became quite obvious that the world of technology was zooming past me ads for personal computers started to take on the look of foreign language films i was no longer able to hold my own in conversations with my fellow journal ists about the equipment being used to produce their work my occasional attempts at operating even the simplest com puters belonging to friends inevitably became exercises in futility so you can understand my trepidation upon waking up last friday morning faced with the prospect of having to meet deadline for the weekender using a machine which was to my old computer what a porsche is to a tricycle armed with the lists of aids i had scribbled down while the man setting up our new win dow to the world quickly briefed us on its oper ation i sat down to work within has taken over an airplane when the pilot has passed out at the controls susan fully expected to come home to find id purchased a gun and blown the thing into electronic oblivion by wednesday however 1 was on the infer nal device on a fulltime basis still tentative but able to succeed in a pinch at writing sav ing and electronically sending a story to my editor i know things can only get better as i endure the painful process of coming to grips with ihis hellish technological contrivance but along the way hrri going to continue to curse bill gates thomas edison and everyone else whose contributions to the electronic age where computers rule have turned my life upside down over the past week minutes i had lost the task bar and misplaced my first story i quickly decided to admit my unreadiness and beat a hasty retreat to the famil iar confines of my old beatup com puter with its black and white screen over the weekend i took a few lessons from my wife susan whose school teacher exposure to comput ers has left her light years ahead of me on the technological turnpike i tried again monday morning to get my new nemesis to dance with me with only a little more success than i had met with on friday at one point i somehow managed to make the istarti icon which is the key to per forming any and every function become irretrievably lost a panic phone call to the guy who sold me the thing led to his steering me back on course much like a person who sydney ijhlcli councillor ward 7 vote marlene mogado ward 7 councillor serving the community for 16 years elect neshan ward 7 councillor resident of ward 7 advanced poll saturday february 2810 am 6 pm armadale community centre 2401 denison st 9054711946 jm elect khalid man ward t march 2 1998 security deposit down payment at this cavalier venture ww intrigue 22 ltr 5 speed rear spoiler 15 wheels abs dual air bags cd player more stk 80131 air auto cassette 15 wheels electric mirrors deep tint v6 engine more stk 80359 air auto keyless entry cassette spoiler 16 wheels 38 ltr v6 bucket seats much more stk80306 so down or 2000 dqvvnjor sale venture van intrigue sedan 2 dr cavalier 36x 36x 36x or or or 36x 36x 36x north che v r que t inte o l d s m o b i l e the little dealership with a big v sale hours mailthun 9 jun pm filf unpjn 5336 highway 7 just east of mccowan 2941440 toll free 18008922209 wwwautonetcanorthpointe ngtohooti ii 0 down plus 1st fit taxes lie oac ins extra 2000 down plus 1st frt taxes lie oac ins extra 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