It’s been too long since we’ve let Buzz readers have the soapbox, so here are a few items from my inbox:

Last week’s collection of "2008’s 25 Geekiest 25th anniversaries" was a true trip down memory lane for this anonymous reader:

"In 1983 I was in the military, and I remember reading about every one of these. Makes me feel like an old fart," he writes. "I’m now a geek (engineer), and the impact of many of these to our world is indisputable . . . even the movie ‘War Games’ spawned an entire generation of wannabe hackers and cybercriminals. I hate to admit it, but I had the ‘WarGames Dialer’ for my trusty C-64 and a 300bps modem. Never did anything criminal, but it was thrilling to hear that carrier come across!"

Steve Kennedy writes in response to my recent rant about a rude e-mailer who went so far as to call my teenage daughters an ugly name, despite the fact I don’t have any teenage daughters:

"I did a research project many years ago, comparing the negative words used in response to a survey. One group completed the survey face to face; one group completed it via a phone survey; and one group completed it via e-mail (not anonymously either). The amount of negative words used were over three times higher (and usually courser) via e-mail than either phone or face to face. It serves to remind us all to practice e-mail etiquette."

However, another reader found little value in the same column and so found himself fishing about for an explanation.

"In reading your March 31 column, at first I thought you’d blown your cool, something a columnist should not be so thin-skinned as to do, or at least to admit to doing. But then I realized many of us would be reading it on April Fool’s Day and you just wanted to fake us out, that you wouldn’t really waste a whole column on such a rant except as a prank. Right?"

A column about an analyst’s suggestion that "virtual marriage" -- and divorce -- will come to pass had this reader longing for the good old days:

"It seems that forever isn’t a concept often associated with real-life marriage any more either. The advent of no-fault divorce in the late '60s destroyed the standing of marriage in the eyes of the law. . . . It’s no wonder that the lines are becoming blurred and “virtual marriages” are being discussed."

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