If I believed every Internet offer, I'd be richer than Bill Gates, look like Brad Pitt, travel the world for free, and get dinner invitations from Sharon Stone. Fat chance.

Art Gillis 3/31/06

Does anyone fall for these offers? Am I too skeptical? Do I really have relatives in Nigeria who bequeathed large sums of money to me? Is it possible that some day we'll see a more ethical Internet? The answer is YES, if we can count on history to repeat itself.

My first PC was an amazingly powerful device - from purchase to use. Here's how it happened: I drove my "father's" Oldsmobile station wagon a half block from my office to a Computerland store. The sweet young sales lady gave me a 30-minute demonstration. I carried out four boxes and gently placed them in the Olds' cargo area. The total bill was $5,632. I took the boxes upstairs to my office and connected the components. I didn't have a screwdriver so I used a dime to tighten the connectors. I created a WordPerfect document. I produced a VisiCalc spreadsheet. I checked out dBase. All that in about three hours, and I never broke the shrinkwrap. I then said, "Wow." That was a word I never used in my 22 years, at the time, as a mainframe bigot. The long and short of it is that my PC experiences have always been pleasant even though I'd never make it today with that 1980s PC. So I'll wait out the Internet. Some day, all the garbage will go away and we'll have just the clean stuff.