I'm not sure how I am doing this weekend.  

Am I

  

:)      

 :}     

 :|    

  :0   

>:(  

Damn.  I'm just not sure. How shall I sign my texts today?  This could affect my entire day. How will my FaceBook friends know whether to Poke me, or send me a little sticker of a turned up thumb.  I'm not really sure my keyboard has enough keys to communicate how I really feel today.   Maybe that's because it is a BLEEDIN' KEYBOARD.  

Once again the digital age has given us ways to express  sentiment and emotions while at the same time relieving us of  having to feel anything at all.  It is obvious how Megs and Gigs have de-humanized how we see others.  But now it is trying to de-humanize the way we see ourselves.   

Some of the more progressive email programs will turn this particular key stroke :) into a 60's yellow happy face icon.  You know the one that usually said, "Have a nice day" below. It was sold in every possible form in every Aquarian Age head shop.  It was on the tee shirt you threw out in college along with the Esperanto textbook and the black light poster of Strawberry Alarm-clock.    

Can't we use this amazing digital technology for something a little better than just to give us symbols to hide behind?  We are losing language. Time was a person used a dictionary, thesaurus and intellect to find the perfect word to express his emotion before he set it to pen and ink. The closest we get to emotions today is a fey teenage boy screaming "Leave Brittney Alone" on YouTube.   In fact the thought of this is just so  :(   I just want to :'(

As you were,

Jay