Chuck, purchased a new laptop for his job. He travels a lot, and needs to have all the important information at his fingertips.

Unfortunately, in installing all the software an insidious new computer virus was also installed. This new virus randomly inserted profanity and scatological references into his printed copy, but didn’t display them on the screen. Since Chuck trusted his Spell Checker software, he never proofread his copy, and in short order he’d insulted most of his friends and all of his business associates.

When one of his more outspoken friends finally brought the situation to his attention, Chuck was very humiliated and became extremely depressed. He then developed an irrational desire to punish his computer, and he tried several methods to punish his computer for the grief it had brought him.

First, he attempted to cause corrosion of the power supply terminals by sprinkling them with sodium and calcium chloride from highway deicing barrels. Next, he scraped away the solder joints from the board. Finally he threw the whole system out the eighth floor window of his hotel.

Poor Chuck’s actions were reported to the Computer Protection Services. The next morning, he was arrested and charged with . . . a salted battery, breach of contacts, and making an obscene clone fall.

• Home is where you hang your @

• A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click.

• You can’t teach a new mouse old clicks.

• Great groups from little icons grow.

• Speak softly and carry a cellular phone.

• C:\ is the root of all directories.

• Don’t put all your hypes in one home page.

• Pentium wise; pen and paper foolish.

• The modem is the message.

• Too many clicks spoil the browse.

• The geek shall inherit the earth.

• A chat has nine lives.

• Don’t byte off more than you can view.

• Fax is stranger than fiction.

• What boots up must come down.

• Windows will never cease.

• Virtual reality is its own reward.

• Modulation in all things.

• A user and his leisure time are soon parted.

• There’s no place like http://www.home.com

• Know what to expect before you connect.

• Oh, what a tangled Website we weave when first we practice html.

• Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to use the Net and he won’t bother you for weeks.

The age of the computer makes it much easier to prepare worship folders. Some churches use the same basic format each week and then make the necessary changes, and presto, it’s done.

But it can be tricky.

In one church I know, they use the same format for funeral services. And when a person dies and a funeral service is prepared, the secretary simply uses the word-search-and-replace process and changes the name of the deceased from the previous service to the name of the deceased who has just passed away.

Very simply.

So when Edna died, the pastor instructed the secretary to prepare the service for her by following the above mentioned process. The last person who died was Mary. So the secretary instructed the computer to change all “Marys” to Ednas.” And so it was.

Image the surprise of the attendees when they recited the Apostles Creed and read: “He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Edna.”