Date: 4 May 88 17:21:39 PDT (Wednesday)
Subject: Life 3.3
WALT DISNEY IS NOT DEAD!
He's in suspended animation.
----------------------------------------------------
Bumper snickers
I Watch Heavenly Bodies
Supernovae are a Blast
Interstellar Matter is a Gas
Black Holes are Out of Sight
Gravity Gets Me Down
My Other Car is a STARSHIP
----------------------------------------------------
Seen on a sign on the back of an 18-wheeler on the freeway today:
"This truck is operated by a professional. His driving kills are on display.
If you have comments, please call (800) XXX-XXXX."
The (unintentional or otherwise!) omission of the "s" before "kills" sure
changes the meaning!
----------------------------------------------------
More dumb laws (I don't have a source for these; someone told me about them
recently):
All residents of Kentucky are required by law to take a bath at least once
per year.
It is illegal to shoot a rabbit from a moving trolleycar in New York City.
----------------------------------------------------
A man walks into the psychiatrists office with a pancake on his head, fried eggs
on each shoulder, and a strip of bacon over each ear. The shrink, humoring him,
asks, "What seems to be the problem?" The guy answers, "Doc, I'm worried about
my brother."
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A man who thinks he's George Washington has been seeing a psychiatrist. He
finishes up one session by telling him, "Tomorrow, we'll cross the Delaware and
suprise them when they least expect it." As soon as he's gone, the psychiatrist
picks up the phone and says, "King George, this is Benedict Arnold. I have the
plans."
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A man who thought he was John-The-Baptist was disturbing the neighborhood, so
for public safety, he was committed. He was put in a room with another crazy
and immediately began his routine, "I am John The Baptist! Jesus Christ has
sent me!" The other guy looks at him and declares, "I did *not*!"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sign on a psychologists office: Schitzophrenics pay double.
We're a happy schitzophrenic!
A man walks into a psychiatrists office and tells him, "I have an identity
problem.....So do I."
----------------------------------------------------
If you think the 80286 is brain
damaged, you ought to check out the
Colorado State Legislature
----------------------------------------------------
someone said:
As a final note, I find it interesting that apparently the only way to
make fun of a democrat is to take something writen about a republican
and mindlessly change the names.
I say:
Nonsense - you don't have to make fun of Democrats - they do it for
you every time they open their mouths.
----------------------------------------------------
I got this from an electronic fortune cookie:
"Psychiatrists say that one out of four people are mentally ill.
Check three friends. If they're ok, you're it."
----------------------------------------------------
Q: What do the Chinese cooks listen to while making dinner?
A: Wok music on a Wokman.
Q: What is their favorite song?
A: "Wok Like an Egyptian"
Q: What is their favorite spiritual?
A: "Wok of Ages"
Q: What is their favorite music when you see your lover cooking
outside on a bad day with another person?
A: "I saw you...(and HIM!)...Wokking in the rain..."
Q: Have you heard about the new cookbook?
A: It's called "101 Ways to Wok Your Dog."
"You can tell by the way I use my wok,
I'm a Chinese cook, no time to talk"
----------------------------------------------------
* See the happy moron, *
* He doesn't give a damn. *
* I wish I were a moron, *
* My God!, Perhaps I am! *
----------------------------------------------------
I also work as a consultant for students. My favorite question is when a user
comes in with a very blank look and says, "How do I use these things?"
"Well, " I say, "what do you want to use them for?"
"I dunno.........."
You have pull it out of what they want to do!! You ask "do you want to use a
word processor?" or "do you want to program?" or......
Another good move is when you tell them to do something like "just type copy
space a:filename B:" They come back a little while later and say that didn't
work. You go look at their screen and they typed "copy A:filename b:" and
you have to explain "NO not filename, the name of the file you want to copy!"
----------------------------------------------------
My favorites include the operator trying desparately to get the mainframe back
up. Trouble line rings every 30 seconds with stupid students asking why
the computer doesn't answer. Finally:
Student: "Is the computer down?"
Operator: "NO! It knows it's you, and it doesn't like YOU!"
----------------------------------------------------
A lady (very well-off) comes in with about $800.00 worth of software
with she promptly deposits on the counter. She then exclaims, 'None of these
work.' Needless to say, I felt obligated to check this out. I grabbed the
top thing on the pile and walked over to the IBM pc, only to have her exclaim,
'I don't have that computer, I have that computer...' After checking the boxes
I realized she had bought software for virtually every computer we sold,
paying no heed to such petty details as 'machine type'.
Working as a technician's assistant at our local IBM/Apple dealer,
I was one day greeted by a kindly gentleman who had in his possession, a
rather disturbed looking pc. 'Disturbed' is probably too nice a term, as
'completely thrashed' would be more suitable. He plopped it down saying,
'It doesn't work. Can you fix it by tommorrow, as I have a deadline to meet'.
After removing the cover, I was treated to see some of the most obscure items
I have ever seen lying on a motherboard. These included a matchbox car, a
VERY rotten banana peel, about 12 pennies, and an empty coke cup, complete
with sticky, caramel-scented gook all over the board. We didn't get it fixed
by the next day, but we gave him a loaner. And it was a nice commission for
me.
----------------------------------------------------
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 software installation (for S/36, I believe), instructed the operator
to insert each disk in order into the floppy drive, and hit [return]
so that the software could get copied in. The customer hotline
received a call from one customer complaining that disks 1-4 had gone in
fine, but that they just couldn't get disk #5 to fit. Wonder how long the
disk drive held out after that.
Friend of mine worked for an Egghead's in Southern California.
Lady walks in one day with a box of 5 1/2 inch disks (well, the
box was 5 1/2, anyway...). Says "I bought these disks and they
seem to be defective."
"So", says my friend, "what type of computer do you have?"
"An Apple," says she.
So fine, says my friend, and takes her over to a IIe...
"Oh no," she said, "I own one of those!" And points to a Mac.
(at this point my friend, as you do, saw where this was going, and refused
to believe it.)
"Well," says my friend "these are 5 1/2 inch disks, they won't won't fit
in one of those..."
"Oh, I made them fit." Says the woman.
Needless to say (but I'm going to anyway...), she had taken a pair of
scissors.....
----------------------------------------------------
When I was doing software support for a bunch of 11/70's........
Computer Operator 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.
----------------------------------------------------
In article [557@picuxa.UUCP] tgr@picuxa.UUCP (Dr. Emilio Lizardo) writes
about user calls to computer vendor hotlines. I'd like to share a couple
that have happened to my sister who is now a manager at IBM. (I guess
all IBM'ers have to deal with naive users at sometime or the other.) I'll
abbreviate my sister's name with "S", and the customer with "C". Think
you can handle that?
S: Hello, IBM hotline, can I help you.
C: Uhhh, yes. I just bought a system/36. It just arrived with the diskettes
that I ordered. A hundred of them. Wow, them disks are expensive:
[something like 5 or 10 ] bucks a pop.
S: Yeah, I suppose.
C: Well, I just wanted to let you know that we'll be ready for your
installation next Monday as planned. Oh yes, and I prepared all the
diskettes for your service person.
S: Uh...thanks. What do you mean by prepared the diskettes?
C: Oh. I peeled them all out of the covers and put the diskettes in one pile
and the covers in another...
S: (Silent pause). Uh yes. Thanks, by the way, could I have the name of your
marketing rep? I need to discuss something with them...
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
[This one is familiar!]
S: Hello, IBM hotline, may I help you?
C: Yes. I'm sys-genning my system.
S: Go ahead.
C: Well, I'm on page [whatever] and the instructions say to "insert diskette"
number 8. I'm having problems inserting the diskette.
S: Please describe what's happened thus far...
C: Uh, well I managed to get the other seven in successfully, but I don't
think you left enough room for the eighth...
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
[Last one]
S: Hello, IBM hotline, may I help you?
C: This is--
S: Oh, HI mom! How are you doing? Where are you?
C: [Softly] I'm at work. In the computer room.
S: What's up?
C: I'm bringing up the system and something's wrong...
S: OK. Explain.
C: Well, the instructions say to insert the diskette in the drive. I was
about to insert it in the drive, and then it disappeared.
S: Huh?
C: I thought I tried to put it in but I must have dropped it. How do I get
a new copy?
S: Wait, ma. Go back and check to see that the diskette is NOT in the drive.
It's very thin and you should look carefully, cause it's probably
there.
[Pause]
C: Yes, it's there. Golly, it is thin. And to think that for five minutes
I was reaching in all over the computer, on my hands and knees feeling
underneath the computer 'cause I thought I dropped it...
S: Excuse me ma, I have another call on the other line. I'll call you back.
[Hangs up phone.] AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHOHOHOHOHOHOHO. HEY, JUDY,
GUESS WHO CALLED AND WHAT HAPPENED THIS TIME!
----------------------------------------------------
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 wench 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?"
----------------------------------------------------
more stupid user tricks:
1) all our terminals are connected to a port-selector. After
about 30 sec., the port times out and the terminal says'
"DISCONNECTED". All you have to do is press return to get
system's attention. It's really great to see the truly
brain-dead look at the message and say, "Oh, it's broken."
and move to the next terminal. And discover that all the
inactive terminals have the same message. One time we told
them, "Yeah, all the terminals in this room are down for
repairs, you'll have to go to another lab." And off they
go to search for a "working" terminal...
2) the system uses the prompt, "TERM" to ask the user what type
of terminal he's using. It never fails to have one or two
new users type in "spring" (or fall or winter depending on
what quarter it is).
----------------------------------------------------
Paranoia?
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in a newspaper or magazine [this was on a CALENDAR!]
----------------------------------------------------
I work for University Computing Services answering questions about any and all
aspects of computing here, and as a result I run into some truly astonishing
mental densities... A few excerpts from the Helpdesk:
Caller: "What's the name for when you're entering data into the computer?"
HD: "Data Entry."
Caller: "Thank you!"
----
Someone else, using a terminal with a PRINT SCREEN key but no printer attached,
wanted to know where (which VaxCluster system printer) the printouts went when
he pushed PRINT SCREEN...
----
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!"
----
Another friend of mine in a similar situation reports having a student in the
lab one day, who had to abort out of the SET PASSWORD sequence because he
couldn't think of a six-letter word.
----------------------------------------------------
Q: Why did God create WASP's?
A: Someone has to buy retail!
Q: What do WASP's think Zimbabwe Rhodesia is?
A: A wide receiver for the Houston Oilers.
Q: How can you tell if a WASP is sexually excited?
A: The stiff upper lip.
Q: What's a WASP's idea of open-mindedness?
A: Dating a Canadian.
Q: What does a little WASP girl want to be when she grows up?
A: "The very best person I possibly can."
Q: What's a WASP's idea of social security?
A: An ancestor on the Mayflower.
Q: Why did the WASP cross the street?
A: To get to the middle of the road.
Q: What happens when four WASP's find themselves in the same room?
A: A dinner party.
Q: What do WASP's think of the Mideast situation?
A: Well, Newport is all right, but EVERYbody goes to the Cape.
Q: How does a WASP propose marriage?
A: "How would you like to be buried with my people?"
Q: What's a WASP's idea of affirmative action?
A: Hiring South American jockeys.
Q: What's a WASP's definition of conspicuous consumption?
A: A Sunfish with a spinnaker.
Q. How can you tell when a WASP is dead?
A. He lets go of his wallet
Q. What do you call a WASP virgin?
A. You can't. Her number's unlisted
Q. What's a WASP's favourite song?
A. "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas"
Q. What does a professional WASP call her boss?
A. Daddy
Q: How many wasps does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Three. Two to mix the martinis and one to call the electrician.
Q: Why do WASPs play golf?
A: So they can dress like pimps.
--
Henry Cate III [cate3@netcom.com]
The Life collection maintainer, selections of humor from the internet
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in
overalls and looks like work. - Thomas Edison
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