Anyone who tells you they just looove being online, that it always works fine for them, that they can rely on it completely, is either lying or in denial. The giddy enthusiasm of the dot-com czars in the e-biz magazines reminds me of the courtiers in "The Emperor's New Clothes": They're pretending everything's fine.

True, Web life can be quite fabulous, as when you are working on a computer with plenty of power and via a connection that allows you to click around the Web like a master pianist thrilling on a Steinway grand.

And, Web life can be quite surreal. Take, for instance, the noise your computer makes when it logs on. You know what I mean: that familiar "handshake" noise, straight out of a UFO's control room.

No one, not even Bill Gates, has a great Internet connection all the time. A run-of-the-mill dialup service, such as most of us have from our homes, or from most hotel rooms, is sometimes stupefyingly sluggish. The good news is, it won't be sluggish for long. Solutions are inevitable. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to complain about the "broadband" end of things.

Instead, let's complain about stuff that shows no sign of being fixed. I mean, let's get down on the numerous ways in which Web life misses the mark when it doesn't HAVE to. Here are seven examples.

1) Weird noises. I asked my techie friend John why computers must make that jarring handshake noise when they dial up the ISP. John told me to deal with it: They just DO. Okay, I'll buy that. But must AOL take the cue and deliberately propagate the weirdness on its Instant Messenger "handshake" refrain? (Go see for yourself: sign up at www.aol.com.)

2) Cryptic abbreviations. Computer Life is riddled with cryptic abbreviations. It's not only "T-1" and "ISP." It's CGI, TCP/IP, PCX, RAM, and HTML. Hey, why not use the English language, boys?

3) Scare tactics. Terrifying words are used to describe perfectly routine computer occurrences: crash, flame, hyper-anything. The result is that we approach the keyboard fearfully, lest a scary viral disaster be inflicted on us.

4) We aren't in Kansas. On the other hand, cozy, grandmotherly words like cookie, spam, mouse, memory, and handshake have new meanings all of a sudden. It's a cliquey, in-crowd lexicon. Newbies are on their own to translate and adapt.

5) Cloak-and-Dagger Ambiance. A scent of espionage hovers over this terrain. You never know when a fishy secret-agent term is going to crop up, like "authentication," "Ethernet," "cache," "encryption," "firewall." Also, I don't know about you, but the black, squishy, zippered laptop luggage that is used by millions (because not much else is available) makes me feel like we're all spies in the KGB.

6) Drop-dead Drabness. Until recently the vehicles that bring us to the Web— computers—were only available in the following exciting colors: tan, beige, taupe, gray, off-white, and black. Could it be any drabber? Imagine if car colors were limited to this range, or shoes.

7) Too Much. Looking for something on the Web is like drinking out of a fire hydrant. Who among us hasn't searched for something we thought was reasonable, like "hot flashes," "stock quotes," or "barbecue sauce recipes," only to be met with a virtual stampede of results, so inundating that we rush from the screen, begging for the dog-eared family encyclopedia.

Going online. Can you think of one other aspect of our lives that is so flawed yet so phenomenal?

A certain discombobulation is forgivable. After all, the suffix ".com" didn't even exist four years ago. Now, every shop and service we ever knew has sprouted this ubiquitous tail, from Walmart.com to Sothebys.com.

The pace of the Internet's technology development is so fast that it has gotten ahead of itself. It's like an eager bride bounding heedlessly down the aisle, oblivious that her hot rollers are still in.

Trouble is, the honeymoon is over. Nearly half of all Americans are online: a critical mass. It's time to improve the technology so that normal human beings feel at home there. I'm not suggesting that the IPO moguls should slow their pace. But between trips to the bank, it would be nice if they'd support efforts to make Web life more comfortable for the rest of us.