Spotted in Silicon Valley

1. Car accessories
   A CD-ROM hanging from the rearview mirror -- fuzzy dice for the Nineties.

2. Personals
   From the the Metro, a local weekly:

   "Cynical misanthropic sysadmin on the rebound seeks sensitive, understanding female for meaningful sex. Must know Unix; gamers preferred."

   Well, a guy needs to have his standards.

3. Discontent youth
   While walking through downtown San Jose, a young guy -- wearing the trademark rebellious leather jacket and Doc Martin boots, sporting a shaved head -- asked me "spare some change so I can get liquored up today?" At least he was honest about it.

4. Camping gear stashed in the backseat
   If the guy wasn't grossly overweight, he could have been a weekend warrior. The dogeared UNIX Administration on the dash was the dead giveaway. Interpretation: the office has better systems and greater bandwidth than he can afford at home, but the desk chair just isn't comfortable enough for snoozing.

5. Non-existent parenting
   At Frye's Electronics, the local super-emporium of everything geek, a demonstration version of Doom II was running on one of their much-abused show machines. A little girl, maybe eight years old, was dashing around with a chainsaw, brutually slaughtering possessed guards and demonic incarnations. Nothing unusual, except that her father was egging her on: "Run into that one! Get him good! Okay, grab the chaingun and go that way!" Hey man, why not just buy her a carton of Camel's and a pint of bourbon?