Hey RAM

Having just finished watching the movie Eagle Eye in which a malfunctioning super-computer called ARIA controls virtually anything electronic, I wondered how increasingly dependent we are getting on machines & technology. I remembered this funny poem that is a sort of an anthem for Luddites -

Remember when........

A computer was something on TV from
a science fiction show of note
a window was something you hated to clean and ram was
the cousin of a goat

Meg was the name of my girlfriend
and gig was a job for the nights
now they all mean different things
and that really mega bytes

An application was for employment
a program was a TV show
a cursor used profanity
a keyboard was a piano

Memory was something that you lost with age
a CD was a bank account and
if you had a 3 1/2" floppy you hoped nobody found out

Compress was something you did to the garbage
not something you did to a file and
if you unzipped anything in public you'd be in jail
for a while

Log on was adding wood to the fire
hard drive was a long trip on the road
a mouse pad was where a mouse lived
and a backup happened to your commode

Cut you did with a pocket knife
paste you did with glue
a web was a spider's home
and a virus was the flu

I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
and the memory in my head
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash
but when it happens they wish they were dead.

(BTW, Hey Ram (in Hindi) or "Oh Ram!" or "Oh God!" were the last words of Mahatma Gandhi)