Any curiosity I had about extraterrestrial life had been crushed by the eerie consistency of alien "sightings". Oh it's not the abductions, the anal probes, the failure to at least take the victims to dinner first - no. It's the aliens themselves. Have you seen what these guys LOOK like? Every now and then you'll get some guy who envisions aliens as big green lizardy things that will rip your head off and impregnate your women, but for the most part they tend to be these diminutive, big headed, big-eyed, earless, speechless, sexless grey things with long padded fingers and no fashion sense.

A few years ago I pondered the implications of this body type. Any which way you turn the various theories on these guys the aliens are either our ancestors, our heirs or an indication of what our own body types are going to look like in a few milleniums. For the record let me state that I am NOT happy about any future that doesn't include room for a strappy pair of Richard Tyler stilettos. Go ahead. Try to picture one of those big-headed aliens in my shoes. See what I mean? No thank you.

Be that as it may, I'm a team player at heart. I try to listen to other people's ideas and give them a fair shake before pointing out how ridiculous they are. Sometimes a bad idea isn't really a bad vision, it just lacks direction. So I tried to come to terms with this future physique.

There is a logical hypothesis for how anyone could allow this alien body type to evolve and I happen to be typing on one: the computer. All those days scooping up new knowledge from the internet could explain a need for expanded cranial capacity to hold our bigger brains. (Sure, even more porn) All those days spent staring at the monitor while ignoring friends and family and other calls to socialize might lead to the big saucer eyes and our ears falling off from lack of use. Great reductions in outdoor recreation could explain the hair loss, lack of muscle and pasty complexion of the aliens. And those fingers - obviously Darwin prefers those most deft with a keyboard. Long fingers, great dexterity, little pads on the end to protect the metaphalanges from all those keystrokes.

See? Anything seems reasonable if you look at it long enough. It could happen. And future pasty alien paleontologists could be explaining it just they way I wrote it there. So can I just say right here, right now THANK GOD for the palm pilot. That little handheld, remote access device is going to save us from a future doomed to looking like animated fishing lures. Bless the trekkies and their gods Spock and Kirk for "The Communicator." Oh yes. I'm mobile. I'm communicating. I can check the stock market and Leiutenant Uhura still wears a skirt and saucy boots.

And bless the trekkies for alerting us to the need for international cooperation on these future projects because the western versions of handheld computer technology aren't going to cut it. But don't panic. I already did that for us and I found out some good news: the Japanese know what to do with wireless. Japanese wireless is so far ahead of the game I'm on the verge of sinking some of my Manolo Blahnik spring sandal allowance into investing in their progress. Not that I intend to give up my keyboard anytimes soon. Or my shoe habits. Evolution is a slow thing.

But I have seen the future and I owe it to my children and their children and the future of any children, even the alien inbred ones. Japanese Wireless. They know something. Why do you think all the Japanese aliens look like giant lizards?