If you are accused of being a "chat-a-holic" or think you might be "addicted" to being on-line (who me?*L*)
you have come to the right place!
I'll keep adding goodies to this page as they're received,
so check back often *G*
ENJOY!*G*

And remember -- you're NOT addicted, you're just DEDICATED!!

(this page last updated May 19, 1998)

Link here for CHAT LINGO SYMBOLS

LINK TO "I'm just gettin' on for a minute!" ~~ A special tribute to chatters everywhere! *G*

Contributed by my chat friend, MadSkillz (B'ham, U.K.)

You might be a cha-a-holic if ...

1. You wake up at 3 a.m. to go the bathroom
and stop to check your e-mail on the way back to bed.
2. You get a tattoo that reads:
THIS BODY BEST VIEWED WITH NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR 1.1 OR HIGHER.
3. You name your children Eudora, Mozilla and Dotcom.
4. You turn off your modem and get this awful empty feeling,
like you just pulled the plug on a loved one.
5. You spend half of the plane trip with your laptop on your lap
...and your child in the overhead compartment.
6. You decide to stay in college for an additional year or two,
just for the free internet access.
7. You laugh at people with 9600-baud modems.
8. You start using smileys in your snail mail.
9. Your hard driver crashes. You haven't logged in for two hours.
You start to twitch. You pick up the phone and
manually dial your ISP's access number.
You try to hummm to communicate with the modem... and you succeed.
10. You find yourself typing "com" after every period,
when using a word processor.com
11. You refer to going to the bathroom as downloading.
12. You start introducing yourself as "johnDoe@AOL.com"
13. All your friends have an @ in their names.
14. Your cat has its own home page.
15. You can't call your mother.. she doesn't have a modem.
16. You check your mail. It says 'no new messages',
so you check it again.
17. Your phone bill comes to your doorstep in a box.
18. You don't know what sex three of your closest friends are,
because they have neutral nicknames and you never bothered to ask.
19. You move into a new house and decide to
Netscape before you landscape.
20. You tell the cab driver you live at 'button
21. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. Scarey stuff!

YOU HAVE BEEN ON-LINE....
(friendly reminders one might receive from your server)

1. You have been online for 46 minutes. Do you want to stay online? Please respond within 10 minutes or you will be logged off.

2. You have been online for 92 minutes. Do you still want to stay online? Please respond within 10 minutes or you will be logged off.

3. You have been online for 135 minutes. Not to put any pressure on you, but there are other people in the world who would like to sign on.

4. You DO realize that you have been online for 184 minutes, right? When was the last time you went outside?

5. OK, this is getting ridiculous! You have been online for 240 minutes now. Frankly, you are starting to piss us off. If you sign off now, we will bring back your buddy list, OK?

6. You have now been online for 360 minutes. We promised you unlimited time, we know, but can't you just finish up NOW and go read a good book?

7. You have been online for 467 minutes. Do you remember your family members' names?

8. You have been online for 513 minutes. Your spouse has left you and your pets are starving! Do you wish to remain online?

9. You have been online 724 minutes. I am coming over personally to kick your butt!

10. You have been online for 852 minutes. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MANY HOURS THAT IS!?!?!

11. You have been online for 921 minutes. Do you realize that AOL averages 921 complaints per hour about busy phone lines? This is because of YOU, you loser! Now log off NOW, and go to bed!

12. You have been online for 1,000 minutes. When we went unlimited, we didn't think you would take it literally. Now, please hang up before we go broke!!!

YOU MIGHT BE ADDICTED TO ONLINE IF....

... Tech Support calls YOU for help.
... someone at work tells you a joke and you say *LOL* or *ROTFL*
... you watch TV with the closed captioning turned on
... you have called out someone's screen name while making love to your significant other.
... you keep begging for friends to get an account so "we can hang out"
... Three words: Carpal tunnel syndrome
... you want to meet a girl/guy, and your first impulse is to turn on your computer
... you've ever gotten onto an airplane just to meet some folks face to face
... you have to get a second phone line just so you can call Domino's
... you have evern joined "Si hable Espanol" (Spanish chat room) "just to work on my Spanish"

... you've ever typed "drinking on AOL is better than drinking alone"
... you go into labor and you stop to type a special e-mail letting everyone know you are going to be away
... you have a vanity vehicle tag with your screen name on it (oops! that's me!)
... you no longer type with proper punctuation, capitalization, or complete sentences
... your RT letters are littered with *G*, *L*, and *S*
... your RT letters have weird (and worthless) HTML tags in them
... you have personally met over 100 on-liners/chatters!
... you begin to say 'hehehehe' instead of laughing
... when someone says "What did you say?" you reply "Scroll up!"
... you find yourself sneaking away to the computer in the middle of the night when your spouse sleeps.
... you turn down the lights and close the blinds so people won't know you are on-line again.

... you know more about your on-line/chat friends and daily routines than you do about those in your own house.
... you find yourself lying to others about your time on-line, and when they complain that your phone was busy you claim it was off the hook
... you have an identity crisis if someone else is using an S/N or handle close to your own.
... you would rather tell people your bloodshot eyes are from partying too much instead of the truth (all-night online)
... you're broke, your modem burns out, and you go out onto the streets to sell your body to buy a new modem
... you open your home to 15 strangers for a week, merely because they have computers and cool s/n's
... your kids are standing at your side saying, "please come cook dinner", and you would rather type another *LOL*
... you marry your cyberboyfriend and you both sit at your own computers and chat to each other ever night from across the room
... you type messages to people while you're on the phone with them at the same time.
... you won't work at a job that doesn't have a modem involved.
... your dog leaves you
... you have to ask what year it is

... you are doing more and more that you swore you would never, ever do when you first found chat
... you write a letter like this ... dear tom, hiyas! How r u doin? well I gotta go bbl!"
... you name your pets after people you chat with
... you smile sideways
... you sign on and immediately get 10 messages from people who have you on their buddy list (::cringe::)
... you have a map on the wall with red thumbtacks to mark where people you've met live
... you look at an annoying person off-line and wish you had your "ignore" button handy.
... you bring a bag lunch and a cooler to the 'puter
... your significant other kisses your neck while you are chatting and you think "uh-oh, *AFRAID* cyber sex pervo!"
... you have withdrawals if you are away from the 'puter for more than a few hours

... you use chat lingo in everyday life (assuming you still have one... hehehehe)
... you take a speedreading course to keep up with the scrolling
... your buddy list has over 100 people on it
... your worst comeback to a bully is "I'll slap you with a rubber chicken."
... you wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is
get online before you have your first cup of coffee
... you have to inject no-doze into your butt to keep it awake.
... you have your 'puter set up so it goes directly into your server's welcome screen
... you wait 6 hours online for a certain "special" person to come home from work
... you don't know where all the time has gone

... you end your sentences with three (or more) periods while writing letters in pen/pencil.
... your relationship online has gone farther than any real one you have had
... you get up a 2AM to go to the bathroom, but go turn on your computer instead
... you spell things outloud instead of actually saying the word
... you don't even notice anymore when someone has a typo
... when you enter a room and the majority of the people greet you with {{{Hugs}}} or *kisses*
... you stop typing whole words and use things like ppl, dunno and lemme
... your voicemail/answering machine message is "BRB, leave your S/N and I will TTYL"
... you type faster than you think

... you got your psychiatrist addicted to online too, and are now undergoing therapy in private rooms instead of at his office
... you want to be burried with your computer when it dies, or vice versa
... you actually enjoy the fact that you are addicted
... you can actually read and follow all the names of the cast that scrolls up on your tv-screen at the end of a movie
... people say, if it weren't for your super reflexes in your eyes and fingers, you would have long been classified as a vegetable
... you dream in text
... being called a newbie is a *MAJOR* insult
... there is absolutely no interesting chat any room and you're really bored, yet you don't want to leave in case you miss something
... you double-click your TV remote
... you can now type over 70 wpm

... you think about starting a 12-step recovery group for chat junkies
... while on the phone you need to do something else, and you say "BRB" or "BBL"
... you check your e-mail and forget you have real mail, a/k/a snail mail
... you go into withdrawls during dinner
... you spend at least 30 minutes making sure you say goodbye to everyone in the room
... you stop speaking in full sentences
... you have gone into an unstaffed tech support room and ended up "giving" tech support to others there!
... you have to be pryed from your 'puter with the Jaws-Of-Life
... your last sexual experience was really just a "textual" experience
... you set your kitchen on fire while cooking dinner because you wanted to 'check your e-mail', and while there, you 'just wanted to see who's on'
... you meet people from chat in public and have no idea what their real name is, so you call them by their s/n

Geesh... I'm sure there's more "signs of addition" out there!!
If you come across any, e-mail 'em to me, OK? *G*

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beej7@earthlink.net