It happened a few years too late, but I am finally elite! I checked my email this morning and I had 1,337 unread messages in Outlook. Maybe it is a sign from the computer gods, indicating that I will become rich beyond my wildest dreams. Or maybe my 1,337 unread messages is just an indication that I signed up for too many RSS feeds, which count as unread messages in Outlook 2007.

If you are not familiar with the significance of the number 1337, it is one of the several terms that stand for "Leet" - which is short for "elite". Leet is also known as "Leetspeak". Leet or Leetspeak is kind of like a language of Internet slang terms.

Leet used to used by hackers who considered themselves "elite" - and a lot of these people were very good at hacking, cracking security codes, and things like that. Nowadays, Leet is used a lot for mocking people - especially people who are newcomers to the Web or to online gaming.

For instance, if you are playing Call of Duty 4 Xbox Live and some 12 year old tells you that you are a "leet gamer", then he is most likely making fun of you because he has your head in the crosshairs of his sniper rifle. He knows that your fun is about to be over. Not that I have actually had this happen...