I once got a summer job as a part time programmer for this public utility firm back home. I used to watch my supervisor, Mr. T., literally holding a swatter in one hand and sitting motionless in a fully alert position, awaiting the next poor fly who'd land on any of his piles of dusty files and binders. On a good day he'd get 5 to 6, with an occasional gadfly, which called for an immediate tea break to share the hunt experience with the rest of the swatter gang in the tearoom.

A decade and a few years later, I'm professionaly posing for my flat 21-in monitor at my cubicle, my left hand almost permanently on Alt-Tab position. My left eye has developed a direct neuron to my left hand, bypassing my brain, which enables me to switch to my outlook no later than a fraction of a second after the new mail icon pops up in the bottom left corner of my screen, pinpointing the mail folder in which I've just received another spam, selecting it, scanning through it, sometimes detecting a familiar name or two in the middle, and exterminating it by a solid Delete command. On a good day I get 28 to 30, with an occasional super deal at Fry's or CompUSA, which calls for an immedaite coffee march around my floor to share the potential insane profit of buying 50 and ebaying them with a 10% markup...

I wonder if Mr.T. ebays his dried gadflies nowadays. I wonder if he's got an email now, or even better, does he IM? Maybe we could chat online and preserve insect population while debating the best deals for Vaigra or Cialis on planet earth...