Q: What do a blonde and your computer have in common?

A: You don’t know how much either of them mean to you until they go down on you.

Q: What’s the difference between a blonde and a computer?

A: You only have to punch information into a computer once!

“Hard drive” — Trying to climb a steep, muddy hill with 3 flat tires and pulling a trailer load of fertilizer.

“Keyboard” —- Place to hang your truck keys.

“Window” —— Place in the truck to hang your guns.

“Floppy” —— When you run out of Polygrip.

“Modem” ——- How you got rid of your dandelions.

“ROM” ——— Delicious when you mix it with coca cola.

“Byte” ——– First word in a kiss-off phrase.

“Reboot” —— What you do when the first pair gets covered with barnyard stuff.

“Network” —– Activity meant to provide bait for your trot line.

“Mouse” ——- Fuzzy, soft thing you stuff in your beer bottle in order to get a free case.

“LAN”——– To borrow as in, “Hey Delbert! LAN me yore truck.”

“Cursor” —— What some guys do when they are mad at their wife and/or girlfriend.

“bit” ——— A wager as in, “I bit you can’t spit that watermelon seed across the porch longways.”

“digital control” — What yore fingers do on the TV remote.

“packet” —— What you do to a suitcase or Wal-Mart bag before a trip.

Idiocy in the Computer World

When I worked for a company that had a contract with 3M, 3M had asked me to write them a memo describing why we were having problems with diskette failures. I said in the memo that the disks were failing due to head crashes. “If the customers would just clean their heads periodically, we wouldn’t have these problems,” I said in the memo. One customer responded with “What kind of shampoo do you recommend?”

An end-user hotline received a call about a bad software disk. They asked the customer to make a copy of the disk and mail it in to the hotline. A few days later, they received a letter with a mimeographed copy of the disk. Since it was a double-sided disk, both sides of the disk had been Xeroxed.

A Computer Operator says as she is lifting an RP06 disk pack from the drive: “Gee, how much does one of these weigh?”

Me: “It depends on how much data is on the disk.

The operator believed it.

I had a similar experience while working as a student operator at Michigan Tech. One particularly trying afternoon, the computer was merrily crashing for a number of reasons. After about four such spectacles, we broadcast that the computer would be down for the remainder of the afternoon. There was a resigned groan from the users and they began to file out of the Center, except for one comely young woman with wide blue eyes who wandered up to the counter and queried: “What’s wrong with the computer?”

Too tired and irritated to give her a straight answer, I looked her straight in the eye and replied: “Broken muffler belt.”

A look of deep concern wafted into her expression as she asked: “Oh, that’s bad. Can you call Midas?”

A few excerpts from the Computer Help Desk:

Caller: “What’s the name for when you’re entering data into the computer?”

HD: “Data Entry.”

Caller: “Thank you!”

Overheard in a student computer lab:

Client (raising hand and waving frantically): “The computer says ‘Enter your name and press RETURN. ‘What do I do??”

Lab Assistant: “Enter your name and press RETURN.”

Client (as if a revelation has struck): “Oh!”

486 – The average IQ needed to understand a P.C. state – of – the – art computer you can’t afford.

Obsolete – Any computer you own.

Microsecond – The time it takes for your State – of – the – art computer to become obsolete.

Syntax Error – “Hello, I want to buy a computer and money is no object.

GUI (pronounced “gooey”) – What your computer becomes after spilling your coffee on it.

Computer Chip – Any starchy food stuff consumed in mass quantities while programming.

Keyboard – The standard way to generate computer errors.

Mouse – An advanced input device to make computer errors easier to generate.

Floppy – The state of your wallet after purchasing a computer.

Hard Drive- The sales technique employed by most computer salesmen.

Portable Computer – A device invented to force business men to work at home, on vacation and on business trips.

Disk Crash – A typical computer response to any critical deadline.

Power User – Anyone who can format a disk from DOS.

System Update – A quick method of trashing ALL of your current software.

YOU KNOW YOU’VE BEEN ON THE COMPUTER FOR TOO LONG…

When asked about a bus schedule, you wonder if it is 16 or 32 bits.

When you are counting objects, you go “0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D…”.

When you dream in 256 palettes of 256 colors.

When your wife says “If you don’t turn off that damn machine and come to bed, then I am going to divorce you!”, and you chastise her for omitting the “else” clause.

You try to sleep, and think sleep (8 * 3600); /* sleep for 8 hours /

When you are reading a book and look for the scroll bar to get to the next page.

When after fooling around all day with routers etc., you pick up the phone and start dialing an IP number and hummmmm to imitate a modem… and you succeed…

When you get in the elevator and double-click the button for the floor you want.

When not only do you check your email more often than your paper mail, but you remember your {network address} faster than your postal one.

When you look for a icon to double-click to open your bedroom window.

When you go to balance your checkbook and discover that you’re doing the math in octal.

When you look for a trash can icon for throwing garbage.

1. Compaq is considering changing the command “Press Any Key” to “Press Return Key” because of the flood of calls asking where the “Any” key is.

2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.

3. Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn’t read word processing files from his old diskettes. After trouble-shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was found that the customer labeled the diskettes then rolled them into his typewriter to type the labels.

4. Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes to the technician. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed copies of her diskettes.

5. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer put the disk in, asked the tech to hold on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and closing the door to his room.

6. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn’t get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the screen and pressing the “send” key.

7. Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so the Dell tech suggested he go to the local Egghead. “Yeah, I got me a couple of friends,” the man said. When told Egghead was a software store, the man said, “Oh, I thought you meant for me to find a couple of geeks.”

8. Another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then he removed all the keys and washed them individually.

9. A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was “bad and invalid”. The tech explained that the computer’s “bad” and “invalid” responses shouldn’t be taken personally.

10. An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn’t get her new Dell computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response “I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens. “The “foot pedal” turned out to be the computer’s mouse.

11. Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand-new computer wouldn’t work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in, and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked, “What power switch?”

12. A customer called Compaq to inquire about her disks. The customer had recently bought a new computer to replace her old one. The only problem was her old computer had used 5 1/4′s and her new one only had a 3 1/2 drive. The tech explained that she would have to copy the information from her 5 1/4′s to her 3 1/2′s. The customer thanked the tech and hung up. About an hour later the same customer called and stated that her disk-drive was making funny noises. After a few questions, the customer told the tech that she didn’t know how to copy and had cut the 5 1/4′s to the same size as the 3 1/2′s and put them in the drive!

13. True story from a Novell Netwire Sys Op:

Caller: “Hello, is this tech support?”

Tech Rep: “Yes, how may I help you?”

Caller: “The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting it fixed?”

Tech Rep: “I’m sorry, but did you say cup holder?”

Caller: “Yes, it’s attached to the front of my computer. “

Tech Rep: “Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped, it’s because I am. Did you receive this as a part of a promotional, like at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have a trademark on it?”

Caller: “No I didn’t get it from a trade show, but it does have a trademark on it, ’4X’”

At this point the tech rep had to mute the caller because he couldn’t keep from laughing. The caller had been using the load drawer of his CD-ROM as a cup holder, and snapped it off!

How to tell when you are spending too much time with your computer:

You start introducing yourself as “lord at pacbell dot net”

Your wife drapes a wig over your monitor to remind you of what she looks like

You check your mail. It says “no new messages”. So you check it again

Your phone bill is delivered in a box

You name your children Eudora, Mozilla, and Dotcom

All of your friends have an @ in their names

You tell the cab driver you live at http://

123.elm.street/house/bluetrim.html

You tell the kids they can’t use the computer because “Daddy’s got work to do” and you don’t have a job.

You get a tattoo that says “This body best viewed with Netscape

3.01″

You never have to deal with the busy signals because you never log off

You ask a plumber how much it would cost to replace the chair in front of your computer with a toilet

You start tilting your head sideways whenever you smile

Your spouse says communication is important in a marriage, so you buy another computer and install another phone line so that the two of you can chat

As your car crashes through the guardrail on a mountain road, your first instinct is to search for the “back” button

Your computer goes down, you haven’t logged in for two hours. You start to tremble. You pick up the phone and dial your Internet access number. You try to mimic computer noise in order to connect.

“Hard drive” — Trying to climb a steep, muddy hill with 3 flat tires and pulling a trailer load of fertilizer.

“Keyboard” —- Place to hang your truck keys.

“Window” —— Place in the truck to hang your guns.

“Floppy” —— When you run out of Polygrip.

“Modem” ——- How you got rid of your dandelions.

“ROM” ——— Delicious when you mix it with coca cola.

“Byte” ——– First word in a kiss-off phrase.

“Reboot” —— What you do when the first pair gets covered with barnyard stuff.

“Network” —– Activity meant to provide bait for your trot line.

“Mouse” ——- Fuzzy, soft thing you stuff in your beer bottle in order to get a free case.

“LAN” ——– To borrow as in, “Hey Delbert! LAN me yore truck.”

“Cursor” —— What some guys do when they are mad at their wife and/or girlfriend.

“bit” ——— A wager as in, “I bit you can’t spit that watermelon seed across the porch longways.”

“digital control” — What yore fingers do on the TV remote.

“packet” —— What you do to a suitcase or Wal-Mart bag before a trip.

“Good Afternnoon, Ridge Hall, computer assistant; may I help you?”

“Yes, well, I’m having trouble with WordPerfect.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went

away.”

“Went away?”

“They disappeared.”

“Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“It’s blank; it won’t accept anything when I type.”

“Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?”

“How do I tell?”

“Can you see the C:\ prompt on the screen?”

“What’s a sea-prompt?”

“Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?”

“There isn’t any cursor: I told you, it won’t accept anything I type.”

“Does your monitor have a power indicator?”

“What’s a monitor?”

“It’s the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it

have a little light that tells you when it’s on?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power

cord goes into it. Can you see that?”

……”Yes, I think so.”

“Great! Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it’s plugged into

the wall.”

……”Yes, it is.”

“When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?”

“No.”

“Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the

other cable.”

……”Okay, here it is.”

“Follow it for me, and tell me if it’s plugged securely into the back

of your computer.”

“I can’t reach.”

“Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?”

“No.”

“Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?”

“Oh, it’s not because I don’t have the right angle-it’s because it’s

dark.”

“Dark?”

“Yes-the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in

from the window.”

“Well, turn on the office light then.”

“I can’t.”

“No? Why not?”

“Because there’s a power outage.”

“A power… A power outage? Aha! Okay, we’ve got it licked now. Do

you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?”

“Well, yes, I keep them in the closet.”

“Good! Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from.”

“Really? Is it that bad?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it is.”

“Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?”

“Tell them you’re too stupid to own a computer!”