In the beginning, there was nothing but Apple. And the PC was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of its hard drive. And Bill said, Let there be DOS: And there was DOS. And Bill looked upon it, and it was good, and with it the PC slew the Apple. And DOS grew and grew, until its number was legion if you counted the decimal points, and still it was good.    And Bill grew large with ambition, and he decreed there should be a processor of words; and lo, there was Word. And Bill sayeth, Let there be a thingy for the crunching of numbers, and lo, there was Excel, and did his kingdom grow apace.    But there had arisen in the land the thing called Macintosh, sprung from the intransigent Apple-men, and Bill looked upon it, and it was better    Rapidly did he decree that Word should be made to run upon it, and after that Excel, and then all the other fruits of his efforts, but still he was wrathful.    So Bill did order his minions to come forth with Windows, and when they did, he looked upon it, and it was bad.    So he sent them back to try again, assuring all the world they would get it right this time, yet they did not.    Unrelenting, Bill forced yet a third mighty blow, and when it came forth, Bill did order his trumpets to blow, and his chorus to sing, and his criers to cry, until the din could be heard throughout the land; and when he looked upon this third version of Windows, he saw it was not all that great, but like hotcakes did it sell.    And thus did Bill gloat, for the world proclaimed he had matched the lowly Macintosh, and his praises were sung throughout the land.    And so he ordered another, mightier, more magnificent version made, and his henchmen and henchwomen did labor hard.    Still it was not forthcoming in the year promised, nor the year promised next, and rumors did abound, and magazines did overflow with secret peeks, and columnists did heap their scorn upon it. And came the minions of the Justice Department, bent upon proving Bill monopolous, yet before his wrath did they quail, and proclaim him innocent, mostly.    And that which was once called Chicago became known as Windows 95, and the suspense built throughout the land, and Bill, remembering what had gone before, set about building a great Hype.    Into his Hype he put the greatest mouths of the land, and scattered the fruits of his profits so heavily that he bought hosts of angels to sing, and Rolling Stones songs, and trumpets and horns and drums without number. As the time of birthing grew nigh, he purchased television time without end, and appeared thereon himself, and bought entire editions of newspapers to give away unto the faithful, and traveling circuses to visit each great city.    And so when Windows 95 was born did hysteria rule the land, as the choirs sang and the trumpets and horns did blare and the televisions and the newspapers charge their followers to go forth and buy.    Heeding this, the populace did rush to the marketplace at the stroke of midnight, when even the cock doth sleep, and did push and shove and come even to blows the better to secure their own copies lest they be thought ignorant, or uncool, or hamsters in the eyes of Bill.    And Bill looked upon what he had wrought, and he giggled, and rubbeth his hands together, and even in the moment of his triumph, began to think of Next Time. -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 10, 1995   miscellaneous writing   baseball    civil rights    crime & punishment   funerals    ghost story   good old boy    parachute jump   rescue   riding the rails   road racing    short takes    space    survival   thus spake gates    zoo life