I read the other day that if you are someone who checks your e-mail obsessively every 10 minutes and you are distressed when your inbox is empty, then you clearly have a problem.

That certainly doesn't fit my profile. I am not an e-mail fanatic. I check my e-mail a few times a day during the workweek and before I go to bed, but I'm still from the old school that believes if it's that important, the phone will ring or someone will knock on the door. And if you miss the call, there will be a message, and if there is no message then clearly it wasn't important.

I'm also a believer that e-mail is a sad substitute for social interaction with fellow humans. Isn't it still fun to hear a laugh now and then?

I've got two e-mail addresses, one readers know about and one that's private. If I go a few days without checking my e-mail, I'm looking at hundreds of e-mails -- most of which I don't want to read (obviously I'm not referring to the ones from you, my loyal readers) -- and reading, replying and deleting them all is a royal pain.

It's not just the junk forwards with predictably corny sex jokes my friends send me that wear me out. Or the e-mails with links to YouTube shenanigans -- like the one I got this week about a "squirrel catapult" that some idiot had rigged up on his porch with a baited colander that catapulted unsuspecting squirrels about 50 feet.

Nor do I particularly mind the ones with links to, say, pictures of some gorgeous woman who is allegedly Demi Moore's sister -- only better looking and posing mostly nude. No matter whose sister it is, old guys like me can live with stuff like that -- it wakes them up. I know this because about a half-dozen of my old geezer friends sent it to me.

I don't even take issue with the e-mailed rhetoric and opinions that are falsely attributed to Robin Williams or George Carlin or Andy Rooney speaking out on issues that are clearly part of some political agenda. Or the ones that bash George Bush or Hillary Clinton.

"1957 -- Ants die. 2007 -- BATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny's dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

This is cache, read story here