From Gary Miller's NetDiary Version 1.0
Date 12.30.99

I don't need no damn computer, I done tol' ya once." -Bessie May Marnel

Staring at the loaded shotgun leveled at my head, I quickly lower my palm pilot, trying to convince the local natives that it's not a "death laser" I have pointed at them. I look around. No telephone wires can be seen. No electric wires, antenna towers, or even paved roads are visible. Where am I? In the furthest reaches of the Congo? No, but close. The Appalacian Mountains.

And so began Day 17 of my ongoing NetDiary series. While driving to Florida, I thought it might be interesting to drive into the depressed areas of Kentucky in my 2 year old white 'Beemer. See, I was feeling smug, being an important Valley Tech writer, but I wanted to feel really, really smug. So into the impovished woods I went.

All thoughts of "Deliverance" aside, I strolled right up to a quaint shanty that's probably worth less than my desktop computer and flat panel LCD monitor at work. "Hello?" I called. "I'm doing a survey about the Internet Explosion, and how it's changing the country."

"I dinna hear no' xplosion, but you better get yer tail offa my land, Little G'vment Man, or der's gonna be 'xplosion ah raht!" retorted a man (?) that stepped out from behind his... residence. I was stricken by two things: One, how he spoke like the characters from "Pogo" and how much like an actual possum he resembled, what, with the long, narrow, hissing jaw and prehensile tail. I pondered the logistics of this, then asked him about what he thought of the computer industry's effect on his area.

After a terrifying 3 hour chase through the woods, getting my "biscuts buttered with buckshot" I fled to the farm of one Bessie May Marnel, a colorful local resident, who was more than willing to talk to me about the impact the computer industry has had on her impovished mining town.

Bessie May Marnel

"I don't know nuttin' about no damn computers" said Bessie, who wasn't at all afraid of my Palm Pilot as she bit into it to test it's worth. "But I gotta cousin sorta uncle stepfather thing who's a trucker, and he has a Concord Omega. That thing can do everything. Keep recipes, you can type on it, and it has a printer, and you can keep what you typed for later. You can even play some crazy games. Snack Man, for example. have you every played Snack Man? It's crazy. Crazy.

Wanting to be accepted into her culture, I traded my Palm Pilot to Bessie for 2 dead squirrels and a washboard. "There's a great list of SV. Execs on there, with their private e-mail addresses." I told her, knowing my address book for the CEO contacts alone was probably worth $30,000. "List it on EBAY, Bessie, and buy yourself a house and a husband. Or better yet, fly out and pick up some Informix database skills. It's really in demand where I'm from."

Silicon Valley, for all of it's amazing inventions, hasn't even been heard of out there. When I asked Bessie about it, she heard they grew pretty good apples there.

"I'm 9 different colors" I told her. "Though vendors are giving rebates if you buy the less popular ones.

From the road, it's Gary Miller, signing off with a sharp stick and a muddy feild.