An Internet Christmas
T'was the Internet Night Before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the Net,
There were hacker's a surfing. Nerds? Yeah, you bet.
The e-mails were stacked by the modem with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.


The newbies were nestled all snug by their screens,
While visions of Java danced in their dreams.
My wife on the sofa and me with a snack,
We just settled down at my rig (it's a Mac).

When out in the Web there arose such a clatter,
I jumped to the site to see what was the matter.
To a new page my Mac flew like a flash,
Then made a slight gurgle. It started to crash!!

I gasped at the thought and started to grouse,
Then turned my head sideways and clicked on my mouse.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
My Mac jumped to a page that wasn't quite clear.

When the image resolved, so bright and so quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick!
More rapid than mainframes, more graphics they came,
Then Nick glanced toward my screen, my Mac called them by name;

"Now Compaq! Now Acer!", my speaker did reel;
"On Apple! On Gateway!" Santa started to squeal!
"Jump onto the circuits! And into the chip!
Now speed it up! Speed it up! Make this thing hip!"

The screen gave a flicker, he was into my "Ram",
Then into my room rose a full hologram!
He was dressed in all red, from his head to his shoes,
Which were black (the white socks he really should lose).

He pulled out some discs he had stored in his backpack.
Santa looked like a dude who was rarin' to hack!
His eyes, how they twinkled! His glasses, how techno!
This ain't the same Santa that I used to know!

With a wink of his eye and a nod of his head,
Santa soon let me know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, gave my Mac a quick poke,
And accessed my C drive with only a stroke.

He defragged my hard drive, and added a "Dimm",
Then threw in some cool games, just on a whim!
He worked without noise, his fingers they flew!
He distorted some pictures with Kai's Power Goo!

He updated Office, Excel and Quicken,
Then added a screensaver with a red clucking chicken!
My eyes widened a bit, my mouth stood agape,
As he added the latest version of Netscape.

The drive gave a whirl, as if it were pleased,
St. Nick coyly smiled, the computer appeased.
Then placing his finger on the bridge of his nose,
Santa turned into nothing but ones and zeros!

He flew back into my screen and through my uplink,
Back into the net with barely a blink.
But I heard his sweet voice as he flew from my sight,
"Happy surfing to all, and to all a good byte!"

Men vs. Women
Differences Between Men and Women

Names
If Linda, Kate, Paula and Janice go out for lunch, they will call each other Linda, Kate, Paula and Janice.
If Fred, Luke, Bradley, and Jeff go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Bruno, Scrappy, Peanut-Head and Godzilla.

Eating Out
When the bill arrives, Fred, Luke, Bradley, and Jeff will each throw in $20, even though the total is only $34.25. None of them will have any smaller bills and none will admit they want change back.
When Linda, Kate, Paula and Janice get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.

Money
A man will pay $10 for a $5 item he needs.
A woman will pay $5 for a $10 item that she doesn’t need, because it’s on sale.

Bathrooms
A man has five items in his bathroom: a toothbrush, razor, shaving cream, a bar of soap, and a towel from the Motel 6.
The average number of items in a woman’s bathroom is 284. The average man would not be able to identify most of them.

Arguments
Women always have the last word in an argument.
Anything a man adds after that is the beginning of a new argument.

Cats
Women love cats.
Men may say they love cats, but when women are not looking, will men kick cats.

The Future
A woman worries about the future — until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future — until he gets a wife.

Success
A successful man is one who makes more money than can be spent by his wife.
A successful woman is one who can find that a man.

Marriage
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won’t change, and she does.

Dressing Up
A woman will dress up when she goes shopping, empties the garbage, answers the phone, waters the plants, gets the mail and reads a book.
A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.

Natural
Men wake up looking as good as when they went to bed.
Women will somehow deteriorate during the night.

Children
A woman knows all about her children. She knows about their best friends, romances, secret hopes and dreams, favorite foods, fears and dental appointments.
A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

Maturity
Women mature much faster than men. Most 17-year old females can function as adults. Most 17-year old males are still trading baseball cards and giving each other wedgies after gym class. This is why high school romances rarely work out.

Handwriting
To their credit, men do not decorate their penmanship. They just chicken-scratch. Women use scented, colored stationary and they dot their “i’s” with circles and hearts. Women use ridiculously large loops in their “p’s” and “g’s”. It is a royal pain to read a note from a woman. Even when she’s dumping you, she’ll put a smiley face at the end of the note.

Groceries
A woman makes a list of things she needs and then goes out to the store and buys these things. A man waits till the only items left in his fridge are half a lime and a beer. Then he goes grocery shopping. He buys everything that looks good. By the time a man reaches the checkout counter, his cart is packed tighter than the Clampett’s car on Beverly Hillbillies. Of course, this will not stop him from going to the 12-items-or-less lane.

Going Out
When a man says he is ready to go out, it means he is ready to go out. When a woman says she is ready to go out, it means she WILL be ready to go out, as soon as she finds her earrings and finishes putting on her makeup.

Low Blows
Let’s say a man and a woman are watching a boxing match on TV. One of the boxers is felled by a low blow. The woman says, “Oh, gee. That must have hurt.” The man groans and doubles over, and actually FEELS the pain.

Laundry
Women do laundry every couple of days. A man will wear every article of clothing he owns, including his surgical pants that were hip about eight years ago, before he will do his laundry. When he is finally out of clothes, he will wear a dirty sweatshirt inside out, rent a U-Haul and take his mountain of clothes to the laundromat. Men always expect to meet beautiful women at the laundromat.

The Wedding
When reminiscing about weddings, women talk about “the ceremony”. Men talk about “the bachelor party”.

Mirrors
Men are vain; they will check themselves out in a mirror. Women are ridiculous; they will check out their reflections in any shiny surface: mirrors, spoons, store windows, and bald heads.

The Telephone
Men see the telephone as a communication tool. They use the telephone to send short messages to other people. A woman can visit her girlfriend for two weeks, and upon returning home, she will call the same friend and they will talk for three hours.

Directions
If a woman is out driving and she finds herself in unfamiliar surroundings, she will stop at a gas station and ask for directions. Men consider this to be a sign of weakness. Men wil never stop and ask for directions. Men will drive in a circle for hours, all the while saying things like,”Looks like I’ve found a new way to get there.” and, “I know I’m in the general neighborhood. I recognize that Dunkin’ Donuts.”

Admitting Mistakes
Women will sometimes admit making a mistake. The last man who admitted he was wrong was General George Custer.

Toys
Little girls love to play with toys. Then when they reach the age of 11 or 12, they lose interest. Men never grow out of their obsession with toys. As they get older, their toys simply become more expensive and silly and impractical. Examples of men’s toys: little miniature TV’s. Car phones. Complicated juicers and blenders. Graphic equalizers. Small robots that serve cocktails on command. Video games. Anything that blinks, beeps, and requires at least 6 “D” batteries to operate.

Plants
A woman asks a man to water her plants while she is on vacation. The man waters the plants. The woman comes home five or six days later to an apartment full of dead plants. No one knows why this happens.

Time
When a woman says she’ll be ready to go out in five more minutes, she’s using the same meaning of time as when a man says the football game’s just got five minutes left. Neither of them is counting time outs, commercials, or replays.

Conversation
Men need a good disagreement to get talking, e.g., “Wow, great movie.”, “What are you, nuts? No REAL cop would have an Uzi that size.”,”Well, maybe he got it because he knew about those Mafia guys”, etc. Women, not having this problem, try to initiate conversations with men by saying something agreeable: “That garden by the roadside looks lovely.” “Mm hmm.” Pause. “That was a good restaurant last night, wasn’t it?” “Yeah.” Pause. And so on.

Friends
Women on a girls’ night out talk the whole time. Men on a boys’ night out say about twenty words all night, most of which are “Pass the Doritos” or “Got any more beer?”

Public Restrooms
Men use restrooms for purely biological reasons. Women use restrooms as social lounges. Men in a restroom will never speak a word to each other. Women who’ve never met will leave a restroom giggling together like old friends. And never in the history of the world has a man excused himself from a restaurant table by saying, “Hey, Toots, I was just about to take a leak. Do you want to join me?”.