I'm not inventing anything by noting that AOL CDs suck and are worthless, of course. There's nothing new about them being ugly. I suppose it's a compelling ugliness, at least. We all knew that after the apocalpyse it'd just be cockroaches and televangelists and some militia members camped out in bomb shelters in Montana. But I have yet to see a sci-fi writer who correctly predicted that the twentyfirst century would come along and we'd all be literally walking on discarded piles of digital recordings that promised us the ability to instantly connect with anyone in the world, free of charge. But hey, whadaya know. I've got mail.