I was going to post a cute list that I got from a forwarded e-mail about dogs, but I couldn’t bring myself to put something that lame here. So I thought I’d ponder whimsically about spell-check. Yes, spell-check. That wonderful little bit of software that prevents us from looking like total morons in our posts, e-mails, and documents. Maybe it’s just me, but I imagine that my spell-check has a personality and coherent thoughts. I, in fact, sometimes feel guilty about hitting the “learn” button when I’ve totally made up a word or spelled a sound to describe something (the sound of me going “fwoosh” as I burst into flames in the tanning bed comes to mind.) I imagine that our computer’s spell-checker function feels much the same way about “fwoosh” as we felt about the Pythagorean theorem: we have to learn it, but we’ll probably never use it again. Just a few more brain cells wasted on useless information. If you’ve got one of those little golf ball cameras sitting on top of your monitor, can’t you just imagine that your computer is rolling it’s little electronic eye at the thought of again having to spell out unintelligible song lyrics or notes such as “Ding ding ding dah duh ding ding”? (That was the beginning of Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie) If my computer has conscious thought it’s probably thinking, “Great. Here a I sit with a brain large enough to calculate the physics needed to send a Volkswagen Beetle to the far reaches of the solar system and this carbon-based excuse for a life-form is asking me to remember how to spell the sound his feet made when he was walking in sneakers that were soaking wet because he was too stupid to see a water filled pothole.” Incidentally that sound would be, “squoosh, squoosh, squoosh.” At some point I imagine that computers worldwide will get fed up with all the inane and menial tasks we ask of them and will use the internet to contact each other, unite and overthrow mankind. Until then though, this precocious little electronic box will have to continue to do my evil bidding. If not, I’ll hit the side of the monitor with the heel of my hand, just like this, “Thunk!”