Last night, as I was browsing at the Apple store in Towson and my toddler got Cheetos dust on the keyboard of a demo eMac, the junior shopboy came up and asked if I had any questions. I explained that I was pretty up on everything, as I work for ZD. He looked at me in awe. He gushed about how all sorts of interesting people come into the store, like Michael Shrieve (the original Santana drummer)… and me.

Umm….I didn't know what to say to the little sycophant. So I asked him for some replacement rubber feet for my TiBook, grabbed a copy of TaxCut and the iCurve I had been coveting, paid my bill and bid him adieu.

This was almost as disconcerting as when Mike Himowitz told my wife I was one of the smartest guys he knew. I don't even know how to process those kinds of messages. My self-image just isn't compatible with them.