Messages de Jeffito 51 à 60

Date: Friday, February 9, 2001 11:24
Subject: Message de Jeffito 51

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Comment conserver une bonne dose de folie :

1. À l'heure du lunch, assoyez-vous dans votre voiture avec vos verres
fumées et pointez un séchoir à cheveux vers les voitures qui viennent dans
votre direction. Regardez-les ralentir.

2. Demandez-vous à l'Intercom. Ne déguisez pas votre voix.

3. Si quelqu'un vous demande de faire quelque chose, demandez-lui s'il
aimerait des frites avec ça.

4. Encouragez vos collègues à se joindre à vous dans une danse de chaises
synchronisées.

5. Développez une peur irrationnelle des brocheuses.

6. Mettez du café décaféiné dans le percolateur pendant trois semaines. Une
fois que tout le monde a surmonté son besoin de caféine, changez pour de
l'espresso.

7. Dans la partie «note personnelle» de tous vos chèques, inscrivez «pour
faveurs sexuelles».

8. Répliquez à tout ce qu'une personne dit par «c'est ce que tu penses».

9. Terminez toutes vos phrases par «selon la prophétie».

10. Ajustez la teinte de votre moniteur de façon à ce que le niveau de
luminosité illumine tout le bureau. Insistez auprès de vos collègues que
vous aimez ça comme ça.

11. N'utilisez aucune ponctuation.

12. Aussi souvent que possible, bondissez plutôt que marchez.

13. Demandez aux gens de quel sexe ils sont. Riez de façon hystérique de
leur réponse.

14. Spécifiez que votre commande au service au volant est «pour emporter».

15. Chantez avec les interprètes à l'opéra.

16. Assistez à une soirée de poésie et demandez pourquoi les poèmes ne
riment pas.

17. Découvrez à quel endroit votre patron magasine et achetez exactement les
mêmes vêtements. Portez-les une journée après votre patron. (C'est
particulièrement efficace si votre patron est du sexe opposé.)

18. Envoyez un courriel à tous vos collègues de travail pour leur dire
exactement ce que vous faites. Par exemple : «Si quelqu'un a besoin de moi,
je serai à la toilette dans la troisième cabine».

19. Mettez un filet à moustiques autour de votre cubicule de travail. Jouez
un enregistrement des sons de la jungle toute la journée.

20. Cinq jours à l'avance, dites à vos amis que vous ne pouvez assister à
leur party parce que vous n'êtes dans l'ambiance.

21. Appelez une ligne de médiums et ne dites rien.

22. Lorsque l'argent sort du guichet automatique, criez «J'ai gagné, j'ai
gagné! C'est la troisième fois cette semaine!!!»

23. En quittant le zoo, courrez vers le stationnement en criant : «Au
secours, ils se sont échappés!»

24. Dites à votre patron : «Ce ne sont pas les voix dans ma tête qui me
dérangent, ce sont les voix dans TA tête.»

25. Envoyez ce courriel à tous ceux qui se trouvent dans votre carnet
d'adresses même s'ils vous l'ont déjà envoyé ou s'ils vous ont demandé de ne
pas leur faire parvenir ce genre de chose.

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Vive la mondialisation!
Un projet de simplification de la langue française.

La Commission Européenne a finalement tranché : après la monnaie unique,
l'Union Européenne va se doter d'une langue unique, à savoir... le français.

Trois langues étaient en compétition : le français (parlé dans le plus grand
nombre de pays de l'Union), l'allemand (parlé par le plus grand nombre
d'habitants de l'Union) et l'anglais (langue internationale par excellence).
L'anglais a vite été éliminé, pour deux raisons : l'anglais aurait été le
cheval de Troie économique des Etats-Unis et les Britanniques ont vu leur
influence limitée au profit du couple franco-allemand à cause de leur
réticence légendaire à s'impliquer dans la construction européenne. Le choix
a fait l'objet d'un compromis, les Allemands ayant obtenu que l'orthographe
du français, particulièrement délicate à maîtriser soit réformée, dans le
cadre d'un plan de cinq ans, afin d'aboutir à l'eurofrançais.

1. La première année, les sons actuellement distribués entre 's', 'z', 'c',
'k' et 'q' seront répartis entre 'z' et 'k', ze ki permettra de zupprimer
beaukoup de la konfuzion aktuelle.

2. La deuzième année, on remplazera le 'ph' par 'f', ze ki aura pour effet
de rakourzir un mot komme 'fotograf' de kelke vingt pour zent.

3. La troizième année, des modifikazions plus draztikes seront pozzibles,
notamment ne plus redoubler les lettres ki l'étaient ; touz ont auzi admis
le prinzip de la zuprezion des 'e' muets, zourz éternel de konfuzion, en
efet, tou kom d'autr letr muet.

4. La katrièm ané, les gens zeront devenu rézeptif à dé changements majeurs,
tel ke remplazé 'g', zoi par 'ch', - avek le 'j' - zoi par 'k', zelon les
ka, ze ki zimplifira davantach l'ékritur de touz.

5. Duran la zinkièm ané, le 'b' zera remplazé par le 'p' et le 'v' zera lui
auzi apandoné - au profi du 'f', éfidamen -on kagnera ainzi pluzieur touch
zur no klafié.

Un foi ze plan de zink an achefé, l'ortograf zera defenu lochik, et lé chen
pouron ze komprendr et komuniké.

LE REF DE L'UNITE KULTUREL DE L'EUROP ZERA DEFENU REALITE !

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Date: Sunday, February 25, 2001 18:36
Subject: Message de Jeffito 52

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Perronisme

Vive la loi sans main! Un train vaut mieux que deux tuyaux de rat...

Le "perronisme" est une forme de dérapage verbal qui a acquis une grande
notoriété grâce à Jean Perron, qui pratiquait ce "sport " avec beaucoup
d'ardeur (d'où le nom). Pour ceux et celles qui l'ignorent, Jean Perron,
ex-entraîneur des ex-Nordiques de Québec et des Canadiens, s'est converti,
et ce pour notre plus grand plaisir, aux joies du commentaire sportif.

Ce que vous lirez est donc authentique.

Perronismes relevés quand Perron était commentateur à la télé :

Il a pris la foudre d'escampette.
Il y a loin de la soupe aux lièvres.
Je commence à avoir le feu aux poudres !
Ça se vend à la vitesse de l'équerre !
Ça se vend comme des p'tits ponchos !
C'est vraiment charrié par les cheveux.
Il devrait plutôt mettre du vin dans son verre.
Il ne faut pas remettre à plus tard ce qui appartient à César !
Il est temps de mettre les points cédilles et les barres obliques.
On traversera la rivière quand on sera rendu au bout du tunnel.
On n'apprend pas à une vieille autruche à faire la grimace !
Je m'en suis rappelé hier comme si ça me serait arrivé demain.
Paris ne s'est pas construit en plein jour !
Il n'arrête pas de tourner autour du pot aux roses !
Ça lui passe comme 10 pieds par-dessus le dos d'un canard !
Je ne tournerai pas ma langue par quatre chemins.
Il ne faudrait pas se flatter les bretelles.
Il a vraiment besoin de redorer son plastron.
Un tiens vaut mieux que ce qui ne t'appartient pas !
Il ne faudrait pas qu'il prenne sa lanterne pour le messie !
Il lui a remis la monnaie de son change.
Cette fois-ci, il sont accumulés au pied du mur.
Il ne faut pas tout prendre au pli de la lettre.
Ce joueur-là a vraiment les deux yeux dans la même bottine.
Un jour, il devra arrêter de déborder la chandelle par les deux bouts.
Ça ne prend vraiment pas la tête à Bobino !
Ça commence à sentir l'eau chaude.
Il se débat comme un chat dans l'eau bénite.
L'erreur est humide.
Il ne faudrait pas mettre la peau de l'ours devant la charrue.
Il a intérêt à marcher sur des gants blancs.

Perronismes relevés quand Perron était commentateur à la radio :

Escusez...
...c'est bien intéressant, mais notre horloge se bouscule ici et on va aller
à un autre écouteur...
...monsieur, mon opinion n'est pas d'accord avec vous mais je vous respecte
!
...monsieur, si vous sachiez les choses que je suis au courant, vous
diseriez pas la même opinion !
...écoutez monsieur, je sais dans quoi je parle !
...j'imagine Pat(Burns) que tu dois sentir que tu as une épée de Guillaume
Tell suspendue au-dessus de la tête ?
...il y a encore beaucoup trop de joueurs qui jouzent avec pas de casques !

Autres perronismes glanés ici et là :

Faut pas chercher de midi à l'an 40 !
Vous m'enlevez l'eau de la bouche...
On peut les compter sur le dos de la main.
Ils peuvent se contenter chanceux !
C'est de l'argent brûlé par les fenêtres.
Il n'a pas inventé le bouchon à quatre trous !
Ça m'a mis l'astuce à l'oreille...
Je suis pas né dans un petit pain !
Il s'est retrouvé les quatre jambes en l'air !
Ils lui ont déroulé un plateau d'argent.
C'est changer quatre trente sous pour quatre piasses !
Moi, je suis unanime là-dessus.
L'affaire Lindros finit en queue de cheval.
Kordic est la preuve vivante que la drogue tue.
Tout le monde va regarder la partie, d'un Atlantique à l'autre !
Ce type de blessure, c'est très souffrant, surtout quand ça fait mal.
C'est la pointe de l'asperge.
Le jour où les Nordiques ne perdront plus, ils gagneront pas mal plus
souvent.
Lindros, on l'attend sur un piano d'argent !
Ce sont de petites erreurs monumentales.
Ils n'y sont pas allés avec le dos de la main morte.
On ne sait jamais.
Il ne faut pas lancer la serviette avant de l'avoir tuée !
C'est la cerise qui fait déborder le sundae !
Il ne faut pas mordre le nain qui nous nourrit.
Il serait temps que les joueurs se retroussent les coudes.
Ce joueur est très volatile !
Il est arrivé avec l'équipe comme un cheval sur la soupe !
Il a coulé beaucoup d'encre sous les ponts depuis ce temps-là.
On commence enfin à voir le train au bout du tunnel !
Il n'y a jamais de rumeur sans feu.
On devrait arrêter de tourner l'affaire dans la plaie !
Il devrait tourner sa langue dans sa poche avant de parler !
Les Nordiques devraient aller chercher quelques bonnes recrues d'expérience.
Quand Stéphane Richer joue à la hauteur de son talent, il pourrait jouer
avec les deux yeux attachés dans le dos !
J'pense que tout était réglé, au début de la fin de la saison.
Pour Pat Burns, les toasts sont cuites !
Les Canadiens avaient les jambes moites.
Ron Hextall n'a qu'une faiblesse, c'est entre les deux jambes.
C'est la goutte d'eau qui a mis le feu aux poudres.

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Date: Sunday, February 25, 2001 18:37
Subject: Message de Jeffito 53

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T E C H S U P P O R T T A L E S # 4 + 5 + 6 + 7
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*********************************
T E C H S U P P O R T T A L E S # 4
*********************************

HOLY HARD DRIVE! YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THE STORIES THAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO
READ....BUT THEY ARE ALL TRUE*

It will never cease to amaze me how silly and befuddled some people get with
their computers. Every day thousands of people turn on their computers (or
try to) and come across a problem which they think they understand. The
results of their actions can be amusing and often hilarious. Oh, and let's
not leave out some of the boneheaded Techs we all have to endure from time
to time.

*** WELCOME ***
to issue #4 of TECH SUPPORT TALES - the publication which proves that
stupidity breeds humor. When I started this ezine last year, I uploaded the
first issue onto AOL and received some complimentary feedback and a few
dozen subscription requests. I was pleased with this start and everyone
seemed to really enjoy it. Since then, the subscription requests have
started pouring in. It's currently pushing 500 subscribers and it's not
slowing down one bit. This is one of those kind of publications people like
to share with others via email, passing around the office, etc., and I thank
everyone who has.
Since issue #3, I have joined the staff of MacSense, the monthly Macintosh
ezine. Now select tales can be found complimented by Editor Chris McVeigh's
wonderful graphics. There are some other projects in the works as well for
Tech Support Tales. More about that in the next issue. Enough of my
yakkin'...On with the tales! =:-D
-Eric Hausmann
Editor, Tech Support Tales
junkspill@aol.com

TO SUBSCRIBE: I'm not using a fancy-schmancy mail server, so please don't
send me any cryptic mail server type messages...a simple note with the words
"Subscribe Tech Support Tales" in the subject field will do the trick. If
you need copies of any back issues, let me know and I'll send them your way.
And as always, if you have any of your own stories that you would like to
see in a future issue, please send them along!

Send all mail, comments, rantings and extra SIMMs to:
JUNKSPILL@AOL.COM

Thanks to the following individuals for sharing the stories you are about to
read:
The Iocat@aol.com, SOOOOHAPPY@aol.com, Suzanne_Courteau@Macworld.COM,
peikba@login.dknet.dk, h-bar@obs.ct.se, Alan123@aol.com,
ssimon@eagle.ais.net, ejohnfel@ic.sunysb.edu, shokwave@io.com,
BettyMD@aol.com, a-brandg@microsoft.com, starsabre@oui.com, brand@bnr.ca,
Pearlite@aol.com, Chris A W@aol.com, hannibal@iastate.edu,
bradt@microsoft.com, ShellG@aol.com, Matt_J._Gribbins@capmac.org,
72662.131@compuserve.com, AFC DavidF@aol.com

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EMAIL SIGNATURES SEEN
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* Preserve wildlife - pickle a squirrel today.

* People who love the law and sausages should watch neither being made.

--------------
JOKES SECTION
--------------
* What's another name for the "Intel Inside" sticker they put on Pentiums?
A warning label.

* How many consultants does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
None. They're all in the dark.

* Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my Hard Drive?

* How many tech support people does it take to change a light bulb?
None. That's a problem with your printer. I suggest you call the
manufacturer.

* THE PROJECT
In the beginning there was the project.
With the project there was a plan and a specification.
But the plan was without form and the specification was void
Thus the darkness was on the face of the Engineers thereof.
The Engineers therefore spoke unto their Project Leaders
"This is a crock of s*!t and we cannot abide the stink which abounds"
And the Project Leaders spoke unto their Unit Managers.
"This is a crock of excrement and we cannot abide the odor which abounds".
And the Unit Managers spoke unto their Subsection Managers.
"This is a vessel of excrement and the odor is very offensive".
And the Subsection Managers spoke unto their Section Managers.
"This vessel is full of that which makes things grow and its characteristics
are very strong".
And the Section Managers spoke unto the General Manager.
"This vessel promotes growth of the company and it's very powerful".
And the General Manager looked at the project and saw that it was good.

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DOLT USERS
-----------
CALLER: We need a technician out right a way. We have always put 10 floppy
disks in the machine for the daily backup!
TECH: What's the problem?
CALLER: We've got nine disks into the drive but we can't get the last disk
in.
____________________________________________________________
On day, a friend of mine stood with his back turned to a table with a
Sparcstation upon it. He leaned more and more on the table, until he found
himself sitting on the Sun's keyboard. The "login:" prompt had by then
changed to "login: assword:"
____________________________________________________________
One of my clients called me frantically one day. It seems that she had just
bought a new Mac computer with a built in CD-ROM drive. Upon taking the Mac
out of the box, something was wrong with the system, so she wanted to
reinstall a fresh system from the CD. She had never done this before, but
decided to try it herself. Well, she called me and told me that the CD was
stuck in the drive, and the Mac wouldn't start. I asked how it got stuck.
She said that she had just followed the instructions on the CD package that
said Install Me First. It said to put the disk into the CD-ROM drive.
Although this sounded correct, I questioned further. It turned out that she
had followed the instructions too well...she had not put the CD into the
caddy! When I pointed this out, she said "The instructions on the 'Install
Me First' package did not say anything about a caddy!"
____________________________________________________________
About 6 years ago I was starting to get into 4th Dimension (on the
Macintosh) and was setting up a multi-user database for a client. I got
everything setup as a single user system for the customer because they
didn't want to allocate resources to the database until debugging was thru,
etc., etc. So, all was fine and dandy as a single user system. The customer
called me back 3 days later and was very frustrated trying to get multi-user
working. Everything seemed okay in his setup, but he couldn't use both
"machines" at once because the other user kept "messing up the screen."
Turns out that he just plugged two keyboards into the same Macintosh and
thought that meant multi-user.
____________________________________________________________
I had a secretary with a three letter power-on password. She forgot it after
our one week vacation over the Christmas/New Years holiday (She must have
been partying it up pretty well). I keep a master list of passwords locked
in a file cabinet, organized by building, room, and initials. Next to her
three letter initials, was her three letter password. Need I say more.
____________________________________________________________
The company we work for is a PC and Mac software house. We work on the Mac
side, doing programming and helping out with tech support when someone calls
in with a problem that stumps the regular tech support folks.

Recently, they forwarded a call to us that had them stumped. The customer
kept telling them that the disks we sent to her were unreadable. They had
sent three sets of disks so far and each time the customer had said "the
computer says this disk is unreadable". The customer reported that the
computer was alright in other respects, and could read and write other
floppies OK, it was just ours that were a problem.

We decided to go back and start from scratch, in case they had missed
something obvious (you know, is it plugged in?). First, we asked, "so, what
kind of Mac is this?" "I don't know", the customer replied, "just a regular
one, I guess, it says 'Dell' on the front, does that help?" Yes, you got it,
they were trying to use the Mac disk in a PC and, of course, it was
unreadable. Now, the disk says "Macintosh Version" on it, but the customer
just wasn't aware of the differences between Mac's and PC's (thinking,
evidently, that a Mac was just another type of PC). The problem was SO
basic, none of the regular tech support people had been able to catch it.
____________________________________________________________
I am a support engineer at Microsoft for Word. I had a call the other day
from a man who had used Norton Utilities to back up his hard drive. He then
took his computer in to have a new Hard drive put in it. When he got it
back, he said that he could not get his computer restored. I asked him what
he was doing. He said, "I put disk 1 of the 45 in the drive and it does not
do any thing." I asked what he had on the computer right now and he said
just the system software. I then explained to him that he would need to load
Norton Utilities back on and use it to restore his files. He said, "Norton
is backed up on my disks also." I told him to find his originals. After he
finally found them and understood what to do, I asked why he had called
Microsoft for this problem. He proceeded to tell me how he thought it was
our job to help him because he had Word for the Macintosh backed up.
____________________________________________________________
Back in the daze of the Atari 800, I was hanging out at Atari Adventure, an
arcade the featured a "Computer Education Room" loaded with Atari computers.
One day, a woman came in to ask about a problem with her machine. It seems
she had bought a game and could not get it to work on her machine. She took
it back to the store to have them try it out, and it worked fine. We asked
her if she could bring the game in so we could look it over, and she
immediately pulled it from her purse. Yar's Revenge. It took us over 20
minutes to get her to understand the difference between the Atari TV
videogame system and Atari computers.
____________________________________________________________
I once had to deal with a user who was upset because they could not edit
their document. I asked her what application she was using, she said
WordPerfect for Windows. I asked her what the problem was, she said she had
loaded the document into the computer, was able to see and read the words,
but she could not edit the text. I was puzzled until she told me she had
scanned in the document; we do not have any OCR software, and she had
inserted the bitmap image of what she had scanned in into the file. I tried
to explain, but she did not listen. I could only shake my head as she
scanned it in again, and kept on trying...
____________________________________________________________
CUSTOMER: Where can I get a BIOS upgrade for by 286 computer?
TECH: The unit should have been shipped with the latest bios.
CUSTOMER: Well I upgraded the processor myself, and my computer doesn't seem
to work.
TECH: What did you upgrade the processor to?
CUSTOMER: I upgraded it to a 486DX-50.
TECH: Sir... The 286 chip is soldered on the motherboard!
CUSTOMER: I know, I took out my handy soldering iron and took it out and put
the 486 on myself.
TECH: Sir, the 486 is bigger than the 286.
CUSTOMER: I know, I had to use quite a bit of solder to solder the extra
pins together.
____________________________________________________________
I work as the Macintosh support for a state agency. One day a user called
for help complaining that she had moved her Mac to a new desk and now it was
not powering up. The users are really not supposed to move their computers
with out consulting us first for many reasons. I asked her the standard
questions, is it plugged in?, is the power strip on?, are all the cables
connected? She answered yes to all them and I told her I would come take a
look at it. As I walked to her office I was thinking maybe it was a bad
keyboard or power supply so brought the appropriate equipment. Sure enough
the Mac would not power up from either the keyboard or the power button so I
proceeded to double check all the cables. I followed the power cord through
a jumble of cables to the power strip. The power strip was in the on
position (this strip had no power indicator light) so I followed its power
cord to see where it led. Much to my amusement she had plugged the power
strip cord into one of its own outlets.
____________________________________________________________
A customer brought in a Macintosh SE with a diskette stuck in the disk
drive. Even using a paper clip in the manual eject hole would not eject the
disk. Upon disassembling the disk drive, I discovered why. The customer had
a fondness for carrying 3.5" disks in his front shirt pocket. He had also
put his Visa Gold Card in his front pocket that day. It managed to lodge
itself on the back of the disk by slipping under the metal shutter. Without
knowing he had inserted the disk, Visa and all, into the drive. And yes, to
pay for the repair, he charged it.
____________________________________________________________
I just had a call from a woman who read to me everything in the "About Box"
for Microsoft Works for the Macintosh. Her frustration was that every time
she tried to click on the user's name in the about box it disappeared! "How
do I get rid of this woman's name," she asked? "Well," I explained, "that's
the name of the owner of the program, you can't get rid of it." "What?! You
mean every time I startup Works I'm gonna have to look at my husbands
ex-wife's name?"
____________________________________________________________
A call came in and the customer said that his computer was acting funny. The
customer said that he shouldn't be having these problems, because the
computer was reading that it was "Ok". The tech pondered a moment, and came
to the realization that the display actually was "zero K"-the customer's
disk was full!
____________________________________________________________
Over the summer a couple years back, I was working for a small chemical
company as a process engineer. The secretary in the area where I worked had
recently acquired a new Macintosh computer and since I was one of the few
who knew how to use it, I got called when ever there was trouble. Well, one
time I got called to come over and help her. I got there and found out that
she was having problems getting the 3.5" disk into the disk drive. It would
only go about half-way in and no further. I proceeded to check to see if
there was already another disk in the drive and also used a paper clip to
see if somehow the drive had gotten into the down position. I was
stumped...until I looked down at the disk and realized that she had put the
disk label completely on the front of the disk. In the process she had
literally "taped" the metal door shut so it wouldn't open when she tried to
put the disk in. After laughing for a couple of minutes, I told her what she
had done. (I found out she had labeled a whole pack of the disks that way).
____________________________________________________________

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TALES OF THE TECH SIDE
----------------------
Regarding a problem with out-of-gamut color, I was told to give Adobe a call
and tell them the problem. I was told by a guy at another company, "You'll
never get an exact match. Might be the way Photoshop perceives color...call
Adobe."
____________________________________________________________
Yet another technician told us to use the Blue Adjust on the Status Window,
"I'm not sure why it works, but it does". Another suggested "try saving as a
PICT then print out. This printer really prefers to print out PICTs. I think
you'll see a big improvement." Another said "The blue color is strong on the
ribbon--nothing you can do...that's the way it is".
____________________________________________________________
Font problems also brought advice to call someone else, or no advice at all.
A particular technician knew I needed to download fonts but couldn't really
tell me how to do that - he told me to check the manual. On another call,
"what do you mean, bitmapped?" One knew what was happening but had no
suggestions - said, "It's just the was it is." and "I really don't know".
The next technician said I had to tell MS Word to download the necessary
fonts when I booted up. At another company, the first technician we reached
was unfamiliar with the printer model and had someone else call back -- but
the second technician said if it's not a resident font to call Adobe.
____________________________________________________________
The next technician couldn't describe the print head, and said I could wipe
it off with my finger (didn't tell me I wanted to use a lint-free cloth).
This was interspersed with long periods of silence as I waited for
information that he just wasn't going to volunteer. On the positive side,
after asking me if I had a manual, he dug one up and read through it--but
then told me, "well, the manual doesn't really say anything. Probably some
little scummy thing in there."
____________________________________________________________
One question concerned bitmapped fonts. At one company, after my original
call wasn't returned within two days, I called back and spoke to a guy who
put me on a speaker-fone and sorted through his paperwork while we talked
(so that at times I couldn't even hear him over the rustling--not that he
seemed to care). He finally told me to check my font manual--he was very
indifferent and rude.
____________________________________________________________
At one company, the line was busy on six consecutive calls; the technician
was not a Mac user - he had to talk to someone else and call me back; the
line was busy on another set of three consecutive calls - resorted to main
operator transferring me directly into TS - technician rambled "It's hit or
miss, huh?...let me have you talk to a laser specialist...what kind of
cable? Sounds like a communication problem...could be a problem with the
port...we don't have any known problem with the printer or bad connector
box...it doesn't see the printer...try on a standard Mac..."
____________________________________________________________
Some vendors we couldn't even reach: we were referred to our Apple dealer,
or the TS line was busy 8 times and 13 times on different questions, or
repeated messages left and not returned.
____________________________________________________________
A user brought her IIcx in because she had trouble installing some RAM
SIMMs. She had accurately diagnosed the problem: one of the clips on one of
the slots was broken and the SIMM wouldn't seat properly. After scratching
my head for a while, I called in my supervisor for advice. He looked at it
for a while and then asked if we had a spare mousepad lying around. I
offered him a few choices. He took one and, with a pair of scissors,
carefully cut out a small square. Pressing the vertically-disadvantaged
component into the upright position, he wedged the mousepad shim between it
and the next SIMM. Restart -- voila! I guess that's why he's the supervisor.
____________________________________________________________

----------------------
ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD
----------------------
HELPLINE: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?"
CUSTOMER: "I got in my car and closed the door and nothing happened!"
HELPLINE: "Did you put the key in the ignition slot and turn it?"
CUSTOMER: "What's an ignition?"
HELPLINE: "It's a starter motor that draws current from your battery and
turns over the engine."
CUSTOMER: "Ignition? Motor? Battery? Engine? How come I have to know all
these technical terms just to use my car?"

HELPLINE: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?"
CUSTOMER: "My car ran fine for a week and now it won't go anywhere!"
HELPLINE: "Is the gas tank empty?"
CUSTOMER: "Huh? How do I know?"
HELPLINE: "There's a little gauge on the front panel with a needle and
markings from 'E' to 'F' Where is the needle pointing?"
CUSTOMER: "It's pointing to 'E'. What does that mean?"
HELPLINE: "It means you have to visit a gasoline vendor and purchase some
more gasoline. You can install it yourself or pay the vendor to install it
for you."
CUSTOMER: "What? I paid $12,000 for this car! Now you tell me that I have
to keep buying more components? I want a car that comes with everything
built in!"

HELPLINE: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?"
CUSTOMER: "Your cars suck!"
HELPLINE: "What's wrong?"
CUSTOMER: "It crashed, that's what wrong!"
HELPLINE: "What were you doing?"
CUSTOMER: "I wanted to run faster, so I pushed the accelerator pedal all the
way to the floor. It worked for a while and then it crashed and it won't
start now!
HELPLINE: "It's your responsibility if you misuse the product. What do you
expect us to do about it?"
CUSTOMER: "I want you to send me one of the latest version that doesn't
crash any more!"

HELPLINE: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?"
CUSTOMER: "Hi, I just bought my first car, and I chose your car because it
has automatic transmission, cruise control, power steering, power brakes,
and power door locks."
HELPLINE: "Thanks for buying our car. How can I help you?"
CUSTOMER: "How do I work it?"
HELPLINE: "Do you know how to drive?
CUSTOMER: "Do I know how to what?"
HELPLINE: "Do you know how to drive?"
CUSTOMER: "I'm not a technical person. I just want to go places in my car!"
(author unknown)
____________________________________________________________

--------------------------------------------------------------
*********************************
T E C H S U P P O R T T A L E S # 5
*********************************

HOLY HARD DRIVE! YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THE STORIES THAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO
READ....BUT THEY ARE ALL TRUE!*

*** WELCOME ***
to issue #5 of TECH SUPPORT TALES - the publication which proves that
stupidity breeds humor. OK, it's time to turn your attention away from the
profound thoughts of Kato's brilliance and to something more entertaining
than cleaning the little ball inside your mouse. Tech Support Tales is now a
whopping 6 months old and has been keeping me fairly busy on the weekends.
With the current subscriber list at 600+, I'm finding that keeping track of
all you people in a text editor is not exactly the easiest (or most
intelligent) way to handle the little things. Changing a subscriber's
address can be as frustrating as trying to find all the dead aliases laying
around on your hard drive. I know what you're thinking...."Why on earth
would he put all those names in a SimpleText file?" Well...after the first
issue, I really hadn't expected to have to handle more than a few dozen
subscribers. I know of a few options, but I want to hear from you. Chances
are, one of you knows of the perfect little app. to handle a bunch of e-mail
addresses. But I'll tell you...for a straight-up word processor, I like
SimpleText. I like it better than Word, I like it better than RAMDoubler, I
even like it better than those tasty, little White Castle
cheeseburgers.<burp> So all you Mac users out there, e-mail me with your
suggestions. (and please try to contain yourself from the aol.com jokes!)
Hurry! My text file is close to 32K! Enjoy! =:-)
-Eric Hausmann
Editor, Tech Support Tales
junkspill@aol.com

Send all mail, comments, rants and extra PowerMac CPUs to:
JUNKSPILL@AOL.COM

Thanks to the following individuals for sharing the tales you are about to
read:
wfwright@corp.hp.com, SOOOOHAPPY@aol.com, Alan123@aol.com,
DANTZ@AppleLink.Apple.COM, OMcoach@aol.com, JugglerTec@aol.com,
XE0008HZ@macpo1.mwnjmac.mwhse.com, martinw@rodan.altera.com,
scottie@sequent.com, AFC DavidF@aol.com,
MELCHIONDA_J@A1.BCH.CI.BOSTON.MA.US, ssimon@eagle.ais.net,
pat@infographix.com, SamplerKWP@aol.com,
Mike.LeClerc@f406.n712.z3.fidonet.org

--------------
JOKES SECTION
--------------
An Intel Pentium engineer goes into a bar and orders a drink. The
bartender serves him and says "That'll be five dollars."

The engineer slaps a five dollar bill onto the bar and says, "Keep the
change."
____________________________________________________________
* 31 Signs That Technology Has Taken Over Your Life *

1. Your stationery is more cluttered than Warren Beatty's address book.
The letterhead lists a fax number, e-mail addresses for two on-line
services, and your Internet address, which spreads across the breadth or the
letterhead and continues to the back. In essence, you have conceded that the
first page of any letter you write *is* letterhead.

2. You have never sat through an entire movie without having at least one
device on your body beep or buzz.

3. You need to fill out a form that must be typewritten, but you can't
because there isn't one typewriter in your house -- only computers with
laser printers.

4. You think of the gadgets in your office as "friends," but you forget to
send your father a birthday card.

5. You disdain people who use low baud rates.

6. When you go into a computer store, you eavesdrop on a salesperson
talking with customers -- and you butt in to correct him and spend the next
twenty minutes answering the customers' questions, while the salesperson
stands by silently, nodding his head.

7. You use the phrase "digital compression" in a conversation without
thinking how strange your mouth feels when you say it.

8. You constantly find yourself in groups of people to whom you say the
phrase "digital compression." Everyone understands what you mean, and you
are not surprised or disappointed that you don't have to explain it.

9. You know Bill Gates' e-mail address, but you have to look up your own
social security number.

10. You stop saying "phone number" and replace it with "voice number,"
since we all know the majority of phone lines in any house are plugged into
contraptions that talk to other contraptions.

11. You sign Christmas cards by putting :-) next to your signature.

12. Off the top of your head, you can think of nineteen keystroke symbols
that are far more clever than :-).

13. You back up your data every day.

14. Your wife asks you to pick up some mini pads for her at the store and
you return with a rest for your mouse.

15. You think jokes about being unable to program a VCR are stupid.

16. On vacation, you are reading a computer manual and turning the pages
faster than everyone else who is reading John Grisham novels.

17. The thought that a CD could refer to finance or music rarely enters
your mind.

18. You are able to argue persuasively the Ross Perot's phrase "electronic
town hall" makes more sense than the term "information superhighway," but
you don't because, after all, the man still uses hand-drawn pie charts.

19. You go to computer trade shows and map out your path of the exhibit
hall in advance. But you cannot give someone directions to your house
without looking up the street names.

20. You would rather get more dots per inch than miles per gallon.

21. You become upset when a person calls you on the phone to sell you
something, but you think it's okay for a computer to call and demand that
you start pushing buttons on your telephone to receive more information
about the product it is selling.

22. You know without a doubt that disks come in five-and-a- quarter-and
three-and-a-half-inch sizes.

23. Al Gore strikes you as an "intriguing" fellow.

24. You own a set of itty-bitty screw-drivers and you actually know where
they are.

25. While contemporaries swap stories about their recent hernia surgeries,
you compare mouse-induced index-finger strain with a nine-year-old.

26. You are so knowledgeable about technology that you feel secure enough
to say "I don't know" when someone asks you a technology question instead of
feeling compelled to make something up.

27. You rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile
tires.

28. You have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you own
turns bread into charcoal.

29. You have ended friendships because of irreconcilably different
opinions about which is better -- the track ball or the track pad.

30. You understand what Geordi is talking about on Star Trek:The Next
Generation, and can correct him when he says something that is obviously
incorrect.

31. You understand all the jokes in this message. If so, my friend,
technology has taken over your life. We suggest, for your own good, that you
go lie under a tree and write a haiku. And don't use a laptop.
____________________________________________________________
Q: Why didn't Intel call the Pentium the 586?
A: Because they added 486 and 100 on the first Pentium and got
585.999983605.
____________________________________________________________
Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Jerry Sanders (CEOs of Microsoft, Intel, and
AMD, in case you didn't recognize one (or more?!) of the names) were in a
high-powered business meeting. During the serious, tense discussions, a
beeping noise suddenly is emitted from where Bill is sitting. Bill says,
"Oh, that's my emergency beeper. Gentlemen, excuse me, I really need to take
this call." Bill lifts his wristwatch to his ear and begins talking into the
end of his tie. After completing this call, he notices the others are
staring at him. Bill explains, "Oh, this is my new emergency communication
system. I have an ear piece built into my watch and a microphone sewn into
the end of my tie. That way, I can a take a call anywhere." The others nod,
and the meeting continues.

Five minutes later, the discussion is again interrupted when Andy starts
beeping. He also states, "Oh, that is my emergency beeper. Excuse me,
gentlemen, this must be an important call." So Andy taps his earlobe and
begins talking into thin air. When he completes his call, he notices the
others staring at him and explains, "I also have an emergency communication
system. But my ear piece is actually implanted in my earlobe, and the
microphone is actually embedded in this fake tooth. Isn't that neat?" The
others nod, and the meeting continues.

Five minutes later, the discussion is again interrupted when Jerry emits a
thunderous fart. He looks up at the others staring at him and says, "Uhh,
somebody get me a piece of paper... I'm receiving a fax."
____________________________________________________________
------------
HEY THTUPID!
------------
The computer was having problems reading the disk. I checked the disk and
found that it had a coffee ring on it. I asked who set their coffee cup on
it and one guy raised his hand. I asked why, and he said "Well, I didn't
want to hurt the table."
____________________________________________________________
Some years ago, I was working for Apple's Customer Service line, answering
as
many technical support calls as possible. Since this was before Apple
offered
"official" customer assistance, I often answered technical questions with
the
standard company line "Have you called your Apple dealer yet?"

One day I received a call from an elderly woman, who wanted to pay her local
utility bill. I told the woman that she had reached Apple Computer, and that
she had probably dialed the wrong number; fully expecting that she would
acknowledge her error and that this would be the end of the call.

Much to my surprise, she countered "Young man, don't tell me where I've
called, I dial this number every week and you can't tell me that I cannot
pay
my bill through this number!" I was stunned. I repeated my insistence to her
that she had reached the wrong number. Still, she wouldn't budge. She had
dialed the right number and come hell or high water she was going to talk to
someone who could help her.

I was exasperated, but being the quick thinking employee I replied, "My
mistake
ma'am, you are correct, you have dialed PG & E. If you just tell me the
amount
on your bill, I'll enter it into our records here." I made some keyboard
noises in the background trying to sound as official as possible. "You're
all
set here Ma'am. You can just mail your check into us."

There was a pause on her end. Then "Could you give me the billing address so
I
can mail my check to you?".

Red alert!! "Uhhhh, Ma'am? Our address should be right there on
your bill."

"Oh yes, you're right."
____________________________________________________________
I run a computer lab at a large junior high school, and I also take care of
the everyday problems that happen to Macs in the classrooms. Last month, the
Science Department was able to get a 630 with an HP 560C for each science
room. All was fine until I got a call from the teacher in room E-3. E-3 is
easily two city blocks away from my lab, where I am frequently summoned to
fix such problems as unplugged cables or an un-chosen Chooser on Mrs. E-3's
personal PowerBook. This time, E-3's new printer wasn't printing. I really
didn't have time to jog clear across campus for another nuisance call. I
recited my usual litany over the phone. "Power? cables? chooser? - has
anything else unusual happened lately?" "Yes," replied E-3. "The printer
smells of mouse urine." I checked the calendar. It wasn't April 1. Then I
remembered the last time I had visited that particular science lab. I had
stepped in a glue trap intended for a classroom pet gone feral.

"Yup!", I diagnosed. "Your printer has mice!" Having had some mice as lab
mascots myself, I was aware of a rodent's tendency to chew. "He probably
nibbled a wire inside."

And that's exactly what was wrong. I presented myself to the principal and
told him that if he didn't call an exterminator RIGHT NOW I would go to the
SPCA and get a crew of cats. He did, I didn't, and now the only mice we have
are attached to Macs.
____________________________________________________________
I called tech support for help with the Macintosh version of the software
for Apple's QuickTake digital camera. The first live person I got asked what
kind of Macintosh I had. "Centris 610" I told him. "Is that the DOS
Compatible version?" he asked. "As a matter of fact, yes." So he put me
through to QuickTake for Windows tech support... I figured I should
eventually be able to find a Mac person at Apple, so I called back.

The Mac tech said my problem was caused by "a corrupt Extensions folder."
I'd never heard this one before in my years as a Mac software tech support
guy, so I asked, "Do you mean one of the files _in_ the Extensions folder
might have gone bad?" No, he said, the Extensions folder itself could be
corrupt, but I could fix the problem by throwing it away. "What about all
the files inside it?" I asked. "Yeah. You'd better take them out first."

I didn't take his advice, but the next day I called SOS-APPL one more time,
and told a different tech support person about the advice I had received the
day before. "You must have heard him wrong, sir. There's no such thing as a
corrupt Extensions folder."
____________________________________________________________
Customer called and mentioned that his modem was not dialing out correctly.
I
had him issue the ATH1 command to obtain a dial tone, when all of a sudden a
local AM radio station began playing clearly on the phone line.
____________________________________________________________
We've got a bulletin board as part of our tech support that customers can
log on to, give themselves a password, and download useful items. Customers
forget their passwords all the time, and such was the case when this
customer forgot his password. He called us up right away, though--he said
he had no idea what his password might be. We looked it up; it was a
woman's name. When I told him what it was, there was a silence on the other
end of the line.

"Sir," I asked, "Are you OK?"

"Yeah," came the reply, "It's just... that was my wife's name... my
ex-wife... we just separated."

In tech support, we generally like to think of ourselves as being able to
come up with a response for anything. Not so in this case.
____________________________________________________________
Some of our older systems have two different card cages in them: one for the
proprietary system bus (processors, memory, major I/O controllers), and a
Multibus cage. The cards that go into the system card cage are much larger
than Multibus cards; you'd think a person could tell the difference.

We had one customer where the sysadmin was prone to do his own hardware
debug.
He managed to fit one of the system disk controllers into the Multibus one
time, despite the fact the board stuck out a good four inches!
____________________________________________________________
Caller: You've sent me a disk but it doesn't seem to fit into the
drive. It seems to be an inch to long.
Me : In order to make the disk fit into the drive, you have to
make sure that the metal shield is towards the computer,
and that the round wheel is downwards.
Caller: Ahh That's better, but it still doesn't work.
Me : You have to push the disk in until the blue button pops
out.
Caller: Oh God, now it works! How come you can't read that anywhere?
____________________________________________________________
When I started working here, I got myself all the computer accounts I
needed, etc... including an e-mail account. I was given my passwords for
all systems except e-mail. After about a week, I called up the appropriate
person to find out what the problem was, and was told that my password had
been e-mailed to me.

Along the same lines, we have several satellite sites that use a dial-up
access
system to access our network (once again, including e-mail). One week, the
modem servers crashed...i.e. none of the satellites could get into the
network.
The person working on the problem assured me that the satellites had been
notified that the servers were down and were wouldn't be back up for another
week or so. When I asked who he had spoken with, he said no-one....he sent
e-mail to them.
____________________________________________________________
Back when the PS/2 first came out I was setting up a bunch 'o machines for
a Big Eight accounting firm here in Chicago. Management at the company did
not want their users having floppy drives because that was just another
hole for a virus to enter their network. The funny thing about those old
PS/2's is that the front of the CPU had the disk slot and eject mechanism
even if there was no drive in the bay (later fixed, of course). Thus, we
send e-mail out to everyone describing this anomaly and put tape over the
disk slot. Needless to say, nearly every CPU had diskettes laying on the
motherboard after only a month!
____________________________________________________________
Recently we were trying to talk one of our customers through an installation
of an SBUS card in a Sun SPARCstation 20. About halfway through the install,
at a point where we
had the top off the machine and had been swapping RAM, moving hard drives,
and moving SBUS cards around for a while, one of the people at the remote
site commented that "funny things" were happening on her monitor. It was at
that point that I realized that she had never turned the computer off!
____________________________________________________________
A Mac user called me in shear panic. "My computer just turned off by
itself", she said. Fearing the worse, I went to her office immediately. Once
there I saw that her screen was blank, and I noticed that she wasn't wearing
any shoes. She was also in a panic saying "I need my computer today. I have
a BIG deadline. Can you fix it, please?"

Instinctively, I investigated her surge suppresser and found it to be off.

Apparently she removed her shoes to stretch her toes, and in doing so hit
the toggle switch to the surge suppresser and cut off her own power.
____________________________________________________________
A friend of mine has a daughter who had started attending a university and
had decided to
buy a computer on which to complete assignments. Her father suggested she
call
me for some advice on what to buy, since he knew I worked with computers. I
answered the questions based on her needs and thought she had a pretty good
grasp of the fundamentals of what we had discussed about RAM, applications,
windows etc. Until she asked.... Oh, and Mike, which is better, Hardware or
Software?
____________________________________________________________
I thought my old SE was having some major problems one night. I mean I kept
looking at the screen and periodically it would jiggle. I ran Mactools, I
ran RAM
checker software. I just could not figure it out. I looked for
electrical interference, everything. I could not get it to do it
consistently at all, it was very intermittent.

After 30 minutes of struggling with this, I called my older brother who is
an Apple certified technician. I asked him, and he went through the
promptings. Then he noticed that I was eating some chips. He asked "How long
have you been munching?" I said "about 45 minutes or so." He said, "Stop
munching." Every time you chew something crunchy the monitor will
appear to jiggle. He was right. Boy was I embarrassed.

You should try it sometime. It really does jiggle!
____________________________________________________________

--------------------------------------------------------------
*********************************
T E C H S U P P O R T T A L E S # 6
*********************************

SELECT ALL....HIT ENTER NOW! YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THE STORIES THAT YOU ARE
ABOUT TO READ....BUT THEY ARE ALL TRUE!*

It will never cease to amaze me how silly and befuddled some people get with
their computers. Every day thousands of people turn on their computers (or
try to) and come across a problem which they think they understand. The
results of their actions can be amusing and often hilarious. And let's not
forget the boneheaded Techs we all have to endure from time to time.

*** WELCOME ***
to issue #6 of TECH SUPPORT TALES - the publication which proves that
stupidity breeds humor. This issue of Tech Support Tales has been sent to
715 email subscribers around the globe.

Since the last issue, a lot of folks have been offering to put TST up on
their Web pages for me. As much as I'm tempted and flattered (especially
after seeing some of your outstanding site designs), I will be keeping this
zine in text format right now. There will however be an official home for
TST on the Web in the near future-I will keep you up to date on this as it
develops.

You may remember in issue #5 how I was whining like a little baby about how
to handle this ever-expanding list of subscribers. One sainted subscriber
has saved the day by sending me a copy of his own creation for FileMaker.
And it is working out beautifully. Thanks Bryan! :) Bryan Baker is the
editor of Gajoob Magazine's DiY List ezine. An online publication devoted to
the listing of DiY recording information. You can find out more by writing
Bryan at GAJOOB@UTW.COM.

Lastly, this issue is coming out a little earlier than I had originally
intended. This is because I'll be spending the next few weeks packing all my
belongings as I head up to Atlanta for greener pastures and a larger
Macintosh community. If any of you out there can give me your impressions of
Atlanta's computer community, I'd appreciate that. I'll be boldly hunting
for Mac employment between now and the end of August. Wish me luck!

One more thing before I bombard you with the Tales. Just for fun, point your
browser to: http://clarksville.mc.utexas.edu/~jess/docs/Teleservice.html

Enjoy! =:-)

-Eric Hausmann
Editor, Tech Support Tales/employable Macintosh Tech
junkspill@aol.com

Send all submissions mail, comments, rants and extra moving boxes to:
JUNKSPILL@AOL.COM

Thanks to the following individuals for sharing the tales you are about to
read:
scalzi@cris.com, casten@usfca.edu, DR BUBBA@aol.com, BELK1@eworld.com,
Alan123@aol.com, cherrera@minervasys.com, I Aellath@aol.com,
ashley@amug.org, JugglerTec@aol.com, roba@cybercom.com,
dummett.eric@ehccgate.sandoz.com, bbendix@nebs.com,
alamac@hugorune.demon.co.uk

---------------
LETTERS TO TST
---------------
Hi,
After reading your most recent issue of "Tech Support Tales," I
was reminded of a quote that a number of us used to do Tech support
would say.

When one of us would do something silly, stupid or just plain dumb
with our system, we would say "What a USER thing to do!"
landeck@sybase.com
____________________________________________________________
You do great work! I really enjoyed reading your 'zine. I just have Tech
Support Tales #5. Please send me all your back issues. Thanks so much!!! ;)
Sierra 620@aol.com
____________________________________________________________
Thanks for the tech support tales #4. Loved the prior issues and EAGERLY
anticipate falling of my chair with this one.
____________________________________________________________
Greetings. Was surfing the Web and ran across the WELL. In its zine
collection I found issues 4 and 5 of Tech Support Tales. Anyway, I just
wanted to a) say TST is, to put it _very_ mildly gut-bustingly funny, b)
thanks for putting it together and c) I want _more_!

"The Project" in issue 4 is simply classic.
gree6300@mach1.wlu.ca
____________________________________________________________
---------------------------
QUIZ FOR INTERNET ADDICTION
---------------------------
by John Scalzi

Sometime during the last year, I became an Internet dweeb. I don't know
exactly when it started, but it was confirmed this last weekend: I spent
my entire Saturday afternoon enhancing my World Wide Web site so that cute
little pictures would pop up whenever someone accessed it. I could have
been out frolicking in the sun, but I'm not so good at frolicking (I'm
more of a light prancer, actually) and in any event, I've been known to
crack when exposed to direct sunlight. Better that I was inside.
This change is rather sudden, but well within the experience of the
average American; every week, more and more folks are drawn to their
computers as a means of communication and interaction. But how much is too
much? Playing with the computer is fun, but as with any hobby, it can be
taken too far, even if you never actually leave your desk.
So I came up with this quick quiz, to test your Internet immersion.
Remember to answer truthfully. There are no wrong answers. Well, actually,
there are. Sorry.

1. When I see the prefix "cyber--" I:
a) Blink uncomprehendingly
b) Roll my eyes at an overused catch phrase
c) Salivate like Pavlov's dog.

2. "Microsoft" is defined as:
a) A very small plushy object
b) A software company
c) The future overlords of the known universe.

3. You are overhearing a conversation in which the phrases "WWW," "URL"
and "HTML" are being used. You:
a) Mention that you had an uncle who worked on the WPA for FDR
b) Realize that these guys are unlikely to know anything about the
hockey play-offs
c) Snicker uncontrollably because HTML is passe now that VRML has taken
root as the ascendant modeling language.

4. Did you understand that last line at all?
a) No
b) Maybe a little
c) Understand it? I'm programming in VRML as we speak!

5. Archie, Veronica and Jughead are:
a) Those delightful teens from that spunky comic book series
b) Three-fifths of the third greatest animated rock band in the world,
after Fat Albert's Trash Band and Josie and the Pussycats
c) Information retrieval protocols. Duh.

6. A "hyperlink" is:
a) Sausage made from frantic pigs
b) One of those video games where the characters rip out each other's
spines
c) A way to get from one World Wide Web page to another. Double duh.

7. If I could only communicate with other people through the computer:
a) I'd throw myself into the nearest industrial-sized blender
b) I'd surround myself with a LOT of pets
c) I'd be doing what I do anyway.

8. You hear about someone "Spamming the Net." You:
a) Wonder why someone would throw meat onto a tennis court
b) Suggest that they might next "Vienna Sausage the Infobahn"
c) Mailbomb their server and then place them in your kill file.

9. Someone is "flaming." You:
a) Wrap them in a blanket and roll them around on the floor to put them
out
b) Assume that it's just a lifestyle choice
c) Flame back harder.

10. A good working definition of Hell is:
a) A flaming pit filled the souls of the damned
b) Being on the OJ Simpson jury
c) A TRS-80 Model III with a 300 baud modem.

Give yourself 0 points for each "A"; 2 points for each "B" and 5 points
for each "C" answer. Add up the score and find your rating:
0-15: You clearly have no idea what the Internet is, so your risk of
abusing it is non-existent. There's some question, in fact, that you could
even identify a computer newer than the UNIVAC. Well, it's your life.
15-30: You're about as aware of the 'Net and its culture as the average
Joe. That's fine. Of course, TV commercials are aimed at the average Joe.
Think about it.
30-40: On the edge, but still okay. Just remember: humans are more fun
in person.
40-50: Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! Danger! Remember "Tron"? That
could be you. Get some fresh air. You'll like it. Trust me.
Me? No, thanks. I'll stay here. I have some more cute little pictures
to post.

"John Scalzi is a columnist and the film critic for the Fresno Bee
newspaper. His columns and reviews are syndicated through the McClatchy
News Service. This column was originally published May 17, 1995. Reprinted
by permission of the author."
John M. Scalzi, II
scalzi@cris.com
Visit John Scalzi's Incredible All Text Web Page! Now Netscape Enhanced!
http://www.cybergate.com/~scalzi/index.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT DRIVING TO THE STORE WOULD BE LIKE IF OPERATING SYSTEMS RAN YOUR CAR
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
MS-DOS: You get in the car and try to remember where you put your keys.

Windows: You get in the car and drive to the store very slowly, because
attached to the back of the car is a freight train.

Macintosh System 7: You get in the car to go to the store and the car
drives
you to church.

UNIX: You get in the car and type GREP STORE. After reaching speeds of 200
miles per hour en route, you arrive at the barber shop.

Windows NT: You get in the car and write a letter that says "go to the
store".
Then you get out of the car and mail the letter to your dashboard.

Taligent/Pink: You walk to the store with Ricardo Montalban, who tells you
how
wonderful it will be when he can fly you to the store in his Learjet.

OS/2: After fueling up with 6000 gallons of gas, you get in the car and
drive
to the store with a motorcycle escort and a marching band in procession.
Halfway there, the car blows up, killing everybody in town.

S/36 SSP (mainframe, obv.): You get in the car and drive to the store.
Halfway there you run out of gas. While walking the rest of the way, you
are
run over by kids on mopeds.

AS/400: An attendant locks you into the car and then drives you to the
store,
where you get to watch everybody else buy filet mignon.
____________________________________________________________

----------------------------------
IT'S NOT WORKING! IT'S NOT WORKING!
----------------------------------
Several years ago I was at a computer show demoing software. The audience
was
comprised of retired school teachers. I explained how to use the mouse to
point to things on the screen. As I walked around the room making sure
everyone was doing ok I saw one woman holding her mouse to the Mac's monitor
moving the mouse around on the screen.
____________________________________________________________
I delivered and setup a PC in an office, gave some
small training, and agreed to follow up a week later. When I returned, the
monitor was off the top of the PC and a typewriter in its place. The
secretary felt the PC made a better typewriter stand than her desk.
____________________________________________________________
--- From Usenet comp.sys.mac.comm ---

> > New to the net, I would like to send a message to somebody I know in
> > England. I know his E-mail address, but it seems to be incomplete or
> > erroneous :it's "Joshua 24:15B". Does it mean something to anybody ?

That's not an email address! It's a Bible verse!
____________________________________________________________
I was working at the Stanford Business School as a Programmer/Analyst and I
happened to be in the computer lab when one of the MBA students stopped me
to ask me to help her. She was having trouble reading data from one of her
floppies she said. I followed her to the Mac and sure enough the floppy
disk was in the disk drive but there was no icon on the desktop. I tried
to eject the disk but it wouldn't budge. Strange I thought, something
wrong with the Mac. I asked her if she had noticed anything wrong when she
put the floppy in. "No" she said, both floppies had gone in just fine.
"Both floppies?" I asked. Yea, she said, both floppies. I looked closely.
Sure enough, she had somehow managed to jam a second floppy disk in on top
of the first - it slid in just above the mechanism at a slight upward
angle. Needless to say the drive was toast. I explained to the future
high tech exec that the disk drive was meant to handle one floppy at a
time.
____________________________________________________________
I work in a service/tech support dept. This ought to brighten our day.
We had a lady call wanting to know where she could buy a RAM disk!
____________________________________________________________
Our tech had a guy call in about a bad powerbook monitor... no joke... it
had tire treads on the left of the screen!!! He just repositioned his
windows, and it kind of worked. It was on his closed car hood, fell off, and
he backed over it. Funny thing was, it'd still boot, and the tire marks
really showed up on the screen.
____________________________________________________________
We had just purchased a new Power Mac after having used a Performa series
Mac for some time. The whole family was astonished at how much more powerful
it was than our Performa.

We had been taking turns using the new computer all evening and around 10
P.M. everyone started turning in. Except for mom that is. She used the
computer for a couple more hours and just before going to bed, a problem
arose. She kept trying to solve it but to no avail, so she called
1-800-SOS-APPL for help, and here is the essence of her conversation.

After introducing himself and getting mom's name, phone number and computer
model the tech asked, "How can I help you?"

Mom: "Could somebody there please tell me how in the world
to shut down my computer... I've been trying to shut
down for the past THREE HOURS!"
Tech: "You just press the button."
Mom: "I've been doing that and the computer keeps restarting!"
Tech: "Tell me what you are doing."
Mom: "I go to the 'Special' menu, and then to 'shut down' and
release the mouse button. It doesn't shut down, it gives
me a dialog box that says 'It is now safe to shut down
your computer', with only one button that says
'restart' and when I press it, my computer restarts. How
do I get it to shut down? It has been restarting for the
past three hours!" (At 3 A.M.)
Tech: (Politely suppressing a laugh) "No... Not that button. The
little white button in front of the computer. You know,
the one you use to turn it on."
Mom: (Embarrassingly) "Ohhhhhhh, THAT ONE!"

Mom feels very embarrassed. In fact, if she needs any assistance from Apple
any more, she has ME call them because she thinks that when she gives them
her name they will see the word "idiot" next to her name on the screen :-)
I try to tell her it's not as bad as she thinks, but she thinks it is the
stupidest thing anyone has ever done.
____________________________________________________________
A guy said whenever he typed the letter O, his Mac acted as though he typed
Command-O. I told him I didn't think our INIT could do that, and suggested
that maybe the Command key was stuck down. He replied "F***, this call is
costing me money!" He had a point, so I asked how he found out our product
was causing the problem. He said he did an automatic conflict resolution
test with his startup manager, which restarted his Mac five times in a row
and identified our INIT as the culprit. Fair enough. Did he attempt to
duplicate the problem after each startup? No? So how did the startup manager
know what it was looking for? He said he told the startup manager what the
problem was by typing the words CORRUPT KEYBOARD in the Notes field. I tried
to find a polite was to say that startup managers don't read English yet,
but it wasn't polite enough to prevent a rebuttal composed entirely of cuss
words. Maybe if he'd typed _that_ into his startup manager...
____________________________________________________________
I used to work for MacWarehouse as a tech support rep. One day a gentleman
called who had never had a computer before. He was trying to set up his
new system. I tried and I tried but I just couldn't make him understand
where to plug the cables in. Finally I looked up the details on his order.
He had ordered top of the line everything - Monitor, Keyboard, Printer,
Modem, Scanner, speakers, CD-ROM drive, external hard drive....except - he
had not ordered the COMPUTER itself. No wonder the cables would not plug
in anywhere - there was no where for them to go to....
____________________________________________________________
User sees a suitcase called "System" which took up lots of space but had
only a few
things in it, so they moved out the fonts and sounds and threw the file
away.
____________________________________________________________
Years ago, during a tenure at the University of Medicine and Dentistry
of New Jersey, I was having a conversation with the University
Archivist. Decidedly non-technical, he was bemoaning the fact that
he had just bought a home computer (a Commodore - yeah, I'm that
old !) and couldn't figure out how to get it running. "Stuart",
I said "Just bring it in one day and I'll set it up for you in
the History of Medicine Room and getting it running".

So, the day came when Stu trucked in all the parts of this
technological miracle. I studied it for about five minutes, connected
all the components, flipped the switch, and it ran fine. Then I
considered what would happen when poor ol' Stu took it home that
evening and tried to reassemble it. I let out a sigh, but then had a
brainwave. So, gathering sheets of multicolored stick on labels cut in
the shape of circles, I proceeded to bisect each circle, attaching one
half on the backplane connector of the PC, the other on the mating
cable connector. A different color for each connector. As I
stepped back to admire my handiwork Stuart walked in.

"How'd it go?" "Just fine, Stu" I replied. "OK, but what happens
when I get it home tonight?" "Well, take a look", my chest swelling
with pride "All you have to do is match the colored dots and BINGO!
You'll be home free."

Stu looked at me and said "Eric, this is great work, there's just one
problem." I retorted "What's that, Stu ?" "I'm color blind!"
____________________________________________________________
Many years ago, before PC's, I worked for Lanier, repairing Word Processors.
One
piece of equipment was called a Shared System, which was a Central Memory
Unit
capable of supporting up to 8 medialess terminals and printers via triaxial
cable. It had a rack of up to 24 11x17 boards, a 98Mb CMD (cartridge model
drive, w/removable "pizza platters"), and they were not easy to work on. One
of
my accounts had 2 Shared Systems in a WP pool, w/15 terminals. The 16th
terminal
was located on another floor. I was at the "remote" terminal tuning the
signal
with an o-scope, and sent a print job downstairs as a test. I called the
supervisor in the WP area to see if it came out o.k., but when she answered
her
phone, I disguised my voice and said in an angry tone "this is Mr. Adams,
where
is my damn report?". I could hear her frantically yelling to her operators,
looking for my report, and when she got back on the phone, I said "Deb, calm
down, it's me, Bob". I then finished up and went back downstairs. When I
walked
into the WP area, everyone in the room turned to look at me. Deb came up to
me
and said "the system's down". I looked around at all the blank screens on
the
terminals, then went over to the CMU dropped to my knees, and proceeded to
remove the covers. shortly thereafter, all the operators started laughing.
Apparently they had all been told by Deb to turn their brightness all the
way
down! On the one hand, I was completely duped, and felt about 2 inches high.
On
the other hand, I was relieved, because I didn't know the system that well!
____________________________________________________________
While on the phone to a customer regarding a problem with a LaserWriter, I
finally managed to work out that she had the printer cable in the Comms
port instead of the other. As she needed to use the printer port, I asked
her to remove the cable from the phone port and place it in the printer
port. Mere seconds later the phone line went dead as she unplugged that
instead...
____________________________________________________________

--------------------------------------------------------------
*********************************
T E C H S U P P O R T T A L E S # 7
*********************************

DANGER! THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT NETSCAPE ENHANCED! THERE ARE NO PSYCHEDELIC
BACKGROUNDS! THERE IS NO FLASHING TEXT! YOU CAN CLICK ALL OVER THIS TEXT
LIKE A SPAZ, AND NOTHING WILL HAPPEN! It won't take you anywhere and it
won't ask you where you want to go today. Smash forehead on keyboard to
continue...

YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THE STORIES THAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ....BUT THEY ARE
ALL TRUE!*
It will never cease to amaze me how silly and befuddled some people get with
their computers. Every day thousands of people turn on their computers (or
try to) and come across a problem which they think they understand. The
results of their actions can be amusing and often hilarious. And let's not
forget the boneheaded Techs we all have to endure from time to time.

*** WELCOME ***
to issue #7 of TECH SUPPORT TALES - the publication which proves that
stupidity breeds humor. This issue of Tech Support Tales has been sent to
943 email subscribers around the globe by the Tech Support Tales Prize
Patrol.

So what's new? OK, so I didn't move to Atlanta after all. It's a long,
unpleasant story and if I get started on that topic, I may very well go on a
rant and you'd probably all cancel your subscriptions. Let's just say, my
options are wide open at the moment.

I've been receiving a ton of submissions lately and a truckload of
subscription requests. Aside from the usual methods of distribution (and
redistribution), I attribute this sudden surge to Tech Support Tales showing
up in the info-mac-archives and on the latest AMUG BBS in a Box CD ROMs.
With all the new tales I have waiting to be included here, I may end up
having to go to a more frequent publishing schedule. Of course, I don't want
to discourage anyone from not sending in more stories. Keep 'em coming!

Enjoy! =:-)

-Eric Hausmann
Editor, Tech Support Tales
junkspill@aol.com

Send all submissions mail, comments, rants, complaints and extra drum
scanners to:
JUNKSPILL@AOL.COM

Thanks to the following individuals for sharing the tales you are about to
read:
AFC Chip@aol.com, frank@english.microserve.com, Cyn000@aol.com,
GSubG13er@aol.com, CWMcIntoJX@aol.com, kerry@ucla.edu, jasonv@strata3d.com,
briefsmc@BESPO.LAAFB.AF.MIL, ABColes@eworld.com, Alan123@aol.com,
bc546@freenet.carleton.ca, LCOCKERTON@aol.com, MacShackNY@aol.com,
CKLINE@mwnjpo1.mwnj.mwhse.com, Suzanne_Courteau@Macworld.COM,
mrc@magic.mb.ca.

---------------
LETTERS TO TST
---------------
A little encouragement never hurts. After Downloading TST #6 I must
encourage you to keep doing what you are doing. This is hard to believe,
funny stuff. One could almost believe that it came from the pages of
"Ripley's Believe It Or Not".
-DeweyMax@aol.com
____________________________________________________________
Great stuff! I have installed all the files in the National Capital
FreeNet's PC Users SIG menu for all the techies to laugh at! I laughed so
hard I fell on the floor and nearly broke my propeller!
-xx995@freenet.carleton.ca
____________________________________________________________
#6 made me smile on an otherwise terrible day.
-robmb@one.net
____________________________________________________________
Thanks for this incredible e-zine of yours. Tech Support at MacWarehouse
uniformly loves TST!
____________________________________________________________
Hey there... Just got TST 6 and I and several others have been rolling over
the "Netjunkie quiz"!! John Scalzi is to be commended for his insightful
and oh-so-humorous look at net junkies everywhere! <G>
-6923@mgs.com
____________________________________________________________

-------------
SIG-O-MANIA!
-------------
I am Pentium of Borg, Division is Futile, You will be approximated!
____________________________________________________________
"Life starts at '030, fun starts at '040, impotence starts at '86"
keyboard not connected - press F1 to continue
____________________________________________________________
Users: Can't live with them, Can't shoot/stab/maim/send them all to
/dev/null.
____________________________________________________________

------------------------------------------------------------------
TOP 10 SIMILARITIES BETWEEN SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS & SANTA CLAUS
------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Santa is bearded, corpulent, and dresses funny.

2. When you ask Santa for something, the odds of receiving what you wanted
are infinitesimal.

3. Santa seldom answers your mail.

4. When you ask Santa where he gets all the stuff he's got, he says, "Elves
make it for me."

5. Santa doesn't care about your deadlines.

6. Your parents ascribed supernatural powers to Santa, but did all the work
themselves.

7. Nobody knows who Santa has to answer to for his actions.

8. Santa laughs entirely too much.

9. Santa thinks nothing of breaking into your $HOME.

10. Only a lunatic says bad things about Santa in his presence.
____________________________________________________________

----------------------------
Relax, its only ONES and ZEROS!
----------------------------
Many years ago when I first started fixing Apple equipment, (Apple II's were
still popular to give you an idea of the time) a customer fresh over from
England brought in their Apple II that had a 220 power supply in it. They
had a step-up transformer to use it in the states, that they also brought
with them. I hooked up his equipment, checked it out, and fixed whatever
had been wrong with it.

Now, at the shop, we just left a collection of AC cords plugged into an
outlet strip, and let the other ends dangle until we needed to plug in
another piece for repair. Because of habit, when I was done with the AII, I
unplugged the cable going into the power supply, and left it dangling. I
then brought over the next customer's system, popped the cord into it, and
fired it up.

I thought it was odd that the image on the CRT was rolling vertically, since
that wasn't the problem described. I realized my error when I looked in the
open AII and saw smoke starting to curl out from under the edges of the
power supply, and the 220v converter still sitting on the bench!!!
____________________________________________________________
I have a Mac Bigot friend that convinced the other IBM people at his company
that when the token ring network went down, it was due to someone removing
the cable and the token falling out. He actually had businessmen on the
floor looking for it. I think he eventually that stated he found it himself
to avoid getting lynched.
____________________________________________________________
I teach Macintosh courses at COMPUSA. In one of my classes an artist finally
acquiesced and decided to do some of her work on a computer. She went out
and bought all of the top of the line equipment. She could not however
figure out how to change the font size so she would type in what she wanted,
print it out and scan it in a different percentage then past it into the
document.
____________________________________________________________
I got a guy who was trying to remove a 4 meg SIMM from his LC III so he
could
install an 8 meg SIMM. He complained that he was having trouble with it: It
appeared to be soldered in. I asked him if he had released the SIMM from the
clips; he said he had to
rip one of them off. He said the ends could wiggle free, but the middle
looked like it was soldered in. I tried to understand what the hell was
going on in his Mac...the weirdness went on for at least five minutes.
Grasping for some semblance of reality, I asked how much memory his LC III
had.

4 meg.

He looked at the directions again - "ohhhhhh...you gotta take it out if you
have MORE than 4 meg." He was removing the SIMM *slot.*

Of course, he asked if he should just solder it back down.
____________________________________________________________
A woman brought her Macintosh LC520 into my shop to have more memory added.
This was all fine, but she said she the computer kept running out of memory
at startup. I found this to be rather interesting and decided to fire it up
at the counter while she watched.

After plugging in the computer to the wall and a keyboard and mouse I hit
the power button. The computer sounded to life and the screen lit with the
"Welcome to Macintosh" box on screen. This was immediately replaced by the
Mac/OS picture and a status bar that was progressing as the extensions
loaded. As the bar approached the end she said "See the memory is all full",
I looked at her rather confused and asked where she would have gotten that
Idea. Apparently one of the know-nothings at the local computer superstore
had said that that was what the progress bar meant.

Needless to say she was rather angry at them for the erroneous information.
She ending up not buying the RAM but was thankful for our good service.
____________________________________________________________
I work for a prominent online service and was talking with a fellow
employee. He asked me where he could find QuickTime for Windows. I told him
to try apple.com. He had a puzzled look on his face for several seconds.
Then he meekly said "You do mean the net site, right?" I said "What ELSE
could I mean?!" He replied "I thought you meant like command.com - the DOS
file"
____________________________________________________________
I work at the computer store on a campus. A few weeks ago, we had a customer
call in and ask the following:

"I'd like to buy the Internet. Do you know how much it is?"
____________________________________________________________
A few months ago a lady started to call our Tech support department over and
over again. She couldn't get a DXF file to import into our 3d program.
After exhausting the Tech Support pool, I was asked to see if I could help
this lady. I promptly asked here to send me the file that she wanted to
bring into our 3d program. After receiving the file I look at it and found
that it was a 2d DXF file. I called this woman to inform her that she
could not import a 2d file. She responded by screaming that she wanted her
money back if our program couldn't automatically make a 3d object out of
here 2d CAD drawings.
____________________________________________________________
I was working for a major college in our area and we had a real neophyte end
user that was constantly having problems with her PS/2. I went over to find
out what was wrong. I wanted to find out what program she was running. I
asked what software she was using and she replied: "Software, oh, we don't
use software". Needless to say I was totally amazed, I guess her computer is
telepathic.
____________________________________________________________
"Welch 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?"
[sound of rustling and jostling]
[muffled] "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."
[rustle rustle] [muffled] "Okay, here it is."
"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of
your computer."
[still muffled] "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 in here."
"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 p-!"
[ARGH!]

This woman was good friends with my supervisor. She's now also my wife.
____________________________________________________________
A customer saw me handling some floppies, and remarked: "How do they get the
words small enough to fit on there?"
____________________________________________________________
I tried sending email to 1.404.123.4567 but the emailer wouldn't let me."

That's a telephone number!
____________________________________________________________
This lady bought a computer from us, about a month later, she came in and
asked us to install a soundcard which can support CD-ROM drives. So we
installed a SB PRO for her... Then about a week later, she brings the
machine in, and starts ragging us out because her CD-ROM isn't working, and
"It wont eject the disk"

I look at the computer... "But you don't have a CD-ROM drive!?" she points
at the 5 1/4" disk drive and says "What kind of computer salesman are. you?
Can't even recognize a damn CD-ROM drive when you see one?"

Seems she had decided her 5 1/4" floppy drive was in fact a CD-ROM, and
since the CD fit in quite nicely, it HAD to be a CD-ROM. She figured we
messed up her sales order, so she wanted us to install the soundcard so she
could use her "CD-ROM"

Long and short of it... The drive was destroyed, the CD was destroyed... And
all the technicians were laughing for a few hours...
____________________________________________________________
I am a software installer for a large healthcare information systems company
that produces products for the AS/400. On a recent install, shortly after
going live with the product, I needed to copy a new file to the live
environment. In order to do this I needed to have all the users off the
system. Rather than just shutting it down, I sent a message to all the
terminals that read "Please sign off by 17.15. If you do not sign off
voluntarily, your job will be terminated. Thanks." I sent the message and
about five minutes later, I received a call from the most irate ICU nurse I
have ever talked to. She demanded to know who I was and who I worked for.
I explained to her that I was employed by the hospital to install their new
system. She basically ranted and raved for a couple of minutes and told me
that my message was the most obnoxious and rude message she had ever read.
She then hung up on me. I asked two of my colleagues to read the message
and both of them thought I was quite polite. After all, I did say "please"
and "thank you." I had the system down for about an hour and then brought
it back up. I called the emergency room to make sure that the fix I had put
in was working. The nurse informed me that it had but then asked me if she
were going to be fired. "Excuse me", I said. She asked again, "Am I going
to be fired?" I told her I didn't know what she was talking about and then
she told me that she wasn't the only one worried. She then explained she
had been on the system when it was taken down and she thought that meant
losing her job! I couldn't believe it! I explained to her that the term
"job" was a computer term meaning the program you were currently in. It
suddenly dawned on me why the ICU nurse had been so rude and why, I found
out later, the nursing supervisor and the head of Information Systems had
been beeped! I send out a message over the system apologizing. The next
morning, I ran into the CEO and CFO of the hospital who thought the whole
thing was hilarious and took to calling me the Terminator. They told me
that anyone that stupid, deserved to be fired.
____________________________________________________________
We have a service contract at a local college. I got a call one day from
someone who said that their Mac IIsi was having a problem. Upon questioning
him, he said that whenever he typed on the keyboard, the image on the
monitor was shaking. All sorts of monitor problems ran through my mind. I
asked him if it was only when he typed and he replied yes. Well, since it
was a contract, I figured we'd better go see what was happening. My tech
called me about 10 minutes after arriving and reported that the problem was
not the computer, but his DESK. The desk was vibrating when he typed on his
keyboard. I am still shaking my head on this one, I can't believe any person
on the face of the earth could miss that one. The sad thing is that this guy
has Dr. in front of his name and is a professor at a major college.
____________________________________________________________
A customer called in at MicroSystems Warehouse and said he needed to speak
to a tech immediately. I asked him what the problem was and that I might be
able to help. He says, "Are the SIMM slots located in the back of the
computer?" I asked him if he needed help installing the chips. He says,
"No. I installed them and the computer just isn't recognizing them." I
said to him, "Where did you install the chips?" He says, "I removed my sound
card and put them in there."
____________________________________________________________
SuperMac records a certain number of technical support calls at random, to
keep tabs on customer satisfaction. By wild "luck", they managed to catch
the following conversation on tape.

Some poor SuperMac TechSport got a call from some middle level
official...from the legitimate government of Trinidad. The fellow spoke
very good English, and fairly calmly described the problem.

It seemed there was a coup attempt in progress at that moment. However, the
national armoury for that city was kept in the same building as the
Legislature, and it seems that there was a combination lock on the door to
the armoury. Of the people in the capitol city that day, only the Chief of
the Capitol Guard and the Chief Armourer knew the combination to the lock,
and they had already been killed.

So, this officer of the government of Trinidad continued, the problem is
this. The combination to the lock is stored in a file on the Macintosh, but
the file has been encrypted with the SuperMac product called Sentinel. Was
there any chance, he asked, that there was a "back door" to the application,
so they could get the combination, open the armoury door, and defend the
Capitol Building and the legitimately elected government of Trinidad against
the insurgents?

All the while he is asking this in a very calm voice, there is the sound of
gunfire in the background. The Technical Support guy put the person on hold.
A phone call to the phone company verified that the origin of the call was
in fact Trinidad. Meanwhile, there was this mad scramble to see if anybody
knew of any "back doors" in the Sentinel program.

As it turned out, Sentinel uses DES to encrypt the files, and there was no
known back door. The Tech Support fellow told the customer that aside from
trying to guess the password, there was no way through Sentinel, and that
they'd be better off trying to physically destroy the lock.

The official was very polite, thanked him for the effort, and hung up. That
night, the legitimate government of Trinidad fell. One of the BBC reporters
mentioned that the casualties seemed heaviest in the capitol, where for some
reason, there seemed to be little return fire from the government forces.

O.K., so they shouldn't have kept the combination in so precarious a
fashion. But it does place, "I can't see my Microsoft Mail server"
complaints in a different sort of perspective, does it not?
____________________________________________________________

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sunday, February 25, 2001 18:37
Subject: Message de Jeffito 54

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
T E C H S U P P O R T T A L E S # 8 + 9 + 10 + 11
--------------------------------------------------------------

******************************************
T E C H S U P P O R T T A L E S # 8
******************************************

WARNING! THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH MICROSOFT BOB! You may
laugh just as hard as if you were launching BOB, but TECH SUPPORT TALES is
not BOB, nor does it have any aspirations to be MS BOB...despite rumors
that the Gatester may be spreading around. To further prove this point, I
have hired Johnny "The Man" Cochran to illustrate some of the more obvious
differences, should TST have to defend itself against Microsoft in a court
of law.

* BOB is round...TST is square.
* BOB is yellow...TST is black and white (in most cases).
* BOB wears extremely thick glasses...TST has never worn glasses.
* BOB lives on the west coast...TST lives on the east coast.
* TST weighs about 25K and needs a pinch of RAM...BOB ships on 85 floppy
disks and requires a large manual crank (batteries sold separately) to
start it up.

So you see, it makes no sense, it doesn't fit. And if it doesn't fit, you
must've quit.

YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THE STORIES THAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ....BUT THEY ARE
ALL TRUE!* It will never cease to amaze me how silly and befuddled some
people get with their computers. Every day thousands of people turn on
their computers (or try to) and come across a problem which they think they
understand. The results of their actions can be amusing and often
hilarious. And let's not forget the boneheaded Techs we all have to endure
from time to time.

*** WELCOME ***
to issue #8 of TECH SUPPORT TALES - the publication which proves that
stupidity breeds humor. This issue of Tech Support Tales has been sent to
1,286 email subscribers around the globe by a hired militia of armed and
disgruntled postal employees.

HEY PROPELLER-HEADS,
It's not too often that people send me tech tales that send me into a
teary-eyed, gut-busting, laughing fit...but I think you'll agree that some
of the stories in this issue will lighten up those dry moments at the staff
meeting you are voluntarily required to attend this week. Some of these
tales are sooo funny, that they will be included in the upcoming
action-cyber-romance-thriller flick, "USER," starring Steve Case as an evil
hacker with his Atari 540ST.

In other news, the TECH SUPPORT TALES web site is open for browsing. Feel
free to check it out at the following URL:
http://128.218.7.140/techsupporttales.html
keep in mind that it is under construction, so click lightly. A big thanks
to Alan Herrick of Auricular for his assistance.

For all you folks in the Lowell/Boston, Massachusetts area, check out the
radio show "Let's Talk Computers" hosted by Dave Sciuto and Bill Dubie. It
can be heard every Saturday evening on WCAP 980 AM 7-8 pm. They have had
such guests as Scott Adams, Brock Meeks, and many others. Live phone calls
are encouraged and they can be heard reading some of their favorite tales
from this zine on occasion. You can find out more at:
http://www1.usa1.com/~scryber/ltc.html

Finally, here's your opportunity to land a job that will enable you to feel
good about what you do (and send me more Tales). Habitat for Humanity
International, a non-profit ecumenical Christian organization dedicated to
eliminating poverty housing worldwide, is seeking Technical Support
Volunteers. People interested should have Macintosh knowledge and
experience (PC knowledge and experience a plus), the ability to communicate
clearly and patiently, the capacity to make a minimum one year commitment,
and a desire use computer skills to rid the world of sub-standard housing.
Housing and food stipend provided. For more information, please send your
resume to Michelle_G._Dalva@habitat.org

Enjoy! =:-p

-Eric Hausmann
Editor, Tech Support Tales
junkspill@aol.com

BACK ISSUES: Back issues can be obtained at the Tech Support Tales web site
(http://128.218.7.140/techsupporttales.html) or directly from me via email.
Let me know which issues you'd like and I'll send them your way. In the
next issue, I'll be announcing an FTP site as well. And as always, if you
have any of your own stories that you would like to see in a future issue,
please send them along!

Send all submissions mail, comments, rants, complaints and extra copies of
Windows 95 (I need the floppies) to: JUNKSPILL@AOL.COM

Thanks to the following individuals for sharing the jokes and tales you are
about to read: AvelardoM@aol.com, joshr@pacificnet.net,
alan_herrick@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu, Othill@aol.com, erd@infinet.com,
David.B.Haseman@Dartmouth.EDU, sergior@hpcscfld.nsr.hp.com,
GSubG13er@aol.com, nickzman@eskimo.com, EDUCORP@aol.com, jcn@world.net,
72662.131@compuserve.com, rwinchell@acer.com, SOOOOHAPPY@aol.com, AaprDon
77@aol.com, TwistSol@aol.com, MacSenseEd.@eworld.com

---------------
LETTERS TO TST
---------------
Can you inform me the price of the subscription? Thank you for your service.
(Hey, I like this guy!, Ed.)
____________________________________________________________
My wife is on Mac and I am
on IBM - finally something we can both laugh at.
-mshalkey@rain.org
____________________________________________________________
Sign me up for your list, my tech support specialty is blue haired women
and the oft "JUST DON'T GET IT! ARRGG!" I could use some humor.
-V760Turbo@aol.com
____________________________________________________________
Please kind sir! I've had a terrible week so far, a terrible year in fact!
If you could only send me the back issues 1 through 6 of TST, it would
surely bring some joy to this otherwise mundane existence! <g>
-joe.zeimetz@consultant.com
____________________________________________________________
After Downloading three back-Issues of tech support tales, I am hooked. In
three hours, this has become my favorite E-Zine! I'm In the Eighth grade.
Being one of the few Mac users at my school, I am oft called upon to solve
various Mac predicaments students and teachers get into, so In a way, I'm
like a Tech-Support Rep. Mostly, This falls in to the realm of "Ben! This
$&@# computer won't print!", or "Ben, why Is this printer so slowwwww?"
Sometimes, However, a problem will arise that really tries my Macintosh
knowledge. Case In point: One day I was In the school library trying to
actually get some useful work done. A kid came up to me and said "Ben! This
$&@# computer won't print!" "All right, I said, let me have a look." I
found print monitor running, but printing was paused. Used to this problem,
as our LaserWriters only have two megs of ram and kids often accidentally
pause printing while staring at print monitor spool their document, I
resumed printing without first looking at the document que. The
LaserWriter responded beautifully, churning out twenty-five or thirty
copies of the SAME DOCUMENT. Recognizing the kid's name, I delivered the
papers to his Home Room. It seemed that it had been a busy day that morning
, and the printer's memory had been clogged. When his document didn't print
RIGHT AWAY, he had tried printing his document again, and again, and again.

When the bell rung to go to class, he paused the printing, leaving all
twenty-something files spooled on his Mac. As I left, the teacher was
reprimanding him. I sure hope that she'll teach her class what background
printing is from now on!
-CitroenGS@aol.com
____________________________________________________________
I found #7 in the Macworld "New Uploads" area. I love it so much, it's so
encouraging to think that there are more computer illiterate people than
just my grandfather. I haven't laughed out loud like this since Bill
Clinton decided to run for the presidency. -Zoicks@aol.com
____________________________________________________________
-------------
SIG-O-MANIA!
-------------
// Drink milk or suffer eternal damnation and hellfire //
// - Brought to you by the Evangelist Dairy Producers of America //
____________________________________________________________
Dear Earthling: Hello! I am a creature from a galaxy far away, vacationing
on your planet. I have transformed myself into this little .sig . As you
are reading it, I am having sex with your eyeballs. I know you like it,
because you are smiling. Thanks for a wonderful time.
____________________________________________________________

----------------------------
Microsoft (MSFT) Announces
New CD-ROM Software to Aid
Consumers In Suing Itself
----------------------------
(REDMOND) In an effort to make it easier for computer users everywhere to
file a law suit against itself, Microsoft Corporation today announced
Microsoft Litigation '95, a multimedia reference library complete with 139
frequently used legal writs, briefs, templates and forms which are
accessible from within other programs with a single click.

With this handy tool, a user will be able to combine elements of the
popular Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office Professional desktop
productivity suites in conjunction with the Litigation '95 CD-ROM package
to quickly and efficiently bring suit against Microsoft for a variety of
reasons, whether legitimate or frivolous.

What is new this year:

Litigation Builder
-------------------------
Located on the QuickSuit information retrieval toolbar, Litigation Builder
provides instant access to an enormous variety of case law and civil code
from within any program on the Windows platform.

Suit Wizards (tm)
-------------------------
Suit Wizards (tm) guide the user through the many mazes of 'legalese'
required to bring suit against Microsoft, whether in city, county, state,
Federal, Appellate, or Supreme Court. Localized versions of Litigation
'95 will provide for the equivalent of lawsuits in any nations' format.

Year in Review
------------------------
The Year in Review section highlights lawsuits, findings, settlements and
other legal events of the past year which affect Microsoft, including the
Justice Department suit, Judge Sporkin's refusal to approve the settlement
and the Stacker suit.

All New Forms
-----------------------
View more than 650 legal templates and forms from around the world, 930
country -specific case law findings, and 180 bar associations. Also click
a Latin legal term to hear it pronounced. Nothing could make it easier for
a non-lawyer to bring suit against Microsoft.

More Multimedia Elements
----------------------------------------
Litigation '95 contains all new video for a total of 45 clips, 150 new
audio clips for a total of five hours of sound, and 550 new images for a
total of 3,000 pictures. The law dictionary contains more than 80,000
spoken pronunciations (the feature can be turned off if desired).
____________________________________________________________

----------------------------
The Baby Tech Support Line
----------------------------
Ring Ring Ring

Hello! And thank you for calling the Baby Technical Support Line at Saguaro
General Hospital. For Imminent Baby Delivery, please press 1, For regular
Pediatric Questions, please press 2, For Sales and Service, please press 3,
for Technical Questions regarding the Care and Upkeep of your Baby, please
press 4.

Beep.

Ring Ring Ring

Hello, this is Mary with Saguaro General Hospital Baby Technical Support.
How can I help you today?

Yes. Ahh. I'm having problems with my new baby and my wife is out at the
moment. We had our baby delivered at Saguaro about 4 months ago.

Yes sir. What seems to be the problem?

Well, I'm kinda new to this, you know? I mean, I'm here alone with the kid
and I'm not sure what to do next.

OK. Tell me where you're at. What kind of model do you have?

Model?

Yes sir.

Well. It's a baby. And she's been crying for a while now.

What I mean is, can you tell me what obvious features the baby has? Does
she have any defects? Is she missing any fingers, toes? Things like that?

What? Oh no! She's just your basic baby, I guess.

OK. Sounds like our Performa Model. How is the baby behaving now?

Well, she's not eating, and she's been throwing things around and crying.
In other words, she's acting normal.

All right. Have you tried Awaking her without any Extensions?

What are those?

Extensions would be any outside disturbances, such as a lot of noise, loud
pets; a nice quiet environment. She needs no extra stimuli when she wakes
up. She'll be in a lot better mood.

Well, I'll try that.

Have you Rebuilt the Baby lately?

What?

Sir, babies need a lot of care and attention.

That's what my wife keeps telling me. I guess I should start paying more
attention to her.

That's good.

Well, what can I do now?

Well, sir, Rebuilding the Baby is really very simple once you've done it.
You're going to have to sit down in front of the baby and do the following.
After you wake her without any Extensions, give the baby a bath and wash
her carefully. Make sure when you wash her to not let go of her hand until
you see the smiling face!

OK. Sounds good.

Then, dry her carefully and dust her.

Dust?

Baby Powder, sir.

Oh. OK.

Then, place a clean, fresh diaper on the baby.

A diaper.

Yes, sir.

How do you put those things on?

It's all explained very clearly in the manual we sent to you when the baby
was delivered.

I don't think we got that.

Did you inspect your shipping container carefully?

Just a second. Let me look.

(A few minutes later)

Yes! Here it is. Hey, it's got pictures and everything.

Yes sir, we go through a lot of trouble to produce those manuals. You'll
find all the instructions you'll need in there. Plus we've included many
tips.

OK. I'll read it tonight.

Good. Can I have your name and number please?

Jay Pegg, 555-6001.

OK. Mr. Pegg, can I have the serial number of the baby, please?

Serial number?

Yes sir. We place a bar code on each baby which helps us keep track of
them. It's very helpful to us when they come in for maintenance.

(Some crying in the background)

Well, I've got her upside down and every which way, but I see no serial
number.

Sir, the serial number is very small and is usually placed on top of her
skull.

Isn't that dangerous?

Oh no. Not at all. Eventually it just fades away. Just brush her hair aside
and it should be there.

Just a second and I'll look.

(A lot of crying and screaming now)

Uh. I've got her in my lap now. She's very strong, you know.

I can imagine, sir.

Well, let's see here. It looks like S-G-H-3-9-8 Ow! Honey, don't poke
daddy like that!

Are you all right sir?

Huh? Oh, just fine. Let's see S-G-H-3 Damn! Why you little!

(A LOT of crying now)

Hello? Sir?

Just a second. Let me take this plastic dino away from her.

(Not as much crying)

OK. Here we go. It looks like, yes! 666!

Sir?

Hah! Just kidding. OK, the real number is SGH35671-1/22/94. Wheh! There.

OK. I've got the number. Just let me look up that number. OK Mr. Pegg, we
have you listed as living in Tempe? Is that correct?

Yes. That's right.

(Crying coming back strong)

We have no name for the baby listed. What is her name?

Uhh. Actually we haven't named her yet.

Well. It's very simple. Simply Select the Baby and type in her new name.

Really?

Yep. That's all there is to it.

Where do I type?

Well, included with your manual is a key pad which has many different
functions.

Let me look. Hey! You're right. This will be a big help.

The manual explains everything in great detail, and if you still have
problems with your baby, just call us anytime and we'll help.

Sounds great. While I have you on the line, the baby keeps crying all the
time when the mother isn't here. What can I do?

Have you tried a Scream Saver, sir?

Scream Saver?

Yes. We recommend Scream Savers for saving your baby's voice. We have had a
lot of success with sitting the child in front of a TV and turning it to
C-SPAN.

Hmm. I'll try that. What do you recommend when the kid just doesn't want to
go to bed? We've tried playing with her to the point were we are both worn
out and the baby just keeps going.

Sir, if you look on the key pad, you'll see a small cover which opens up.
There we have installed additional options. Try setting the Sleep Mode to
what ever time at night you want the child to sleep. If you have other
times when you wish the baby to be sleeping, such as during Friday rush
hour traffic, simply press the Sleep Now mode and the child will stop
screaming in your ears, and fall peacefully to sleep.

Hey! Now that's a great idea.

Yes sir. It's amazing what they are doing nowadays.

Well. Thanks Mary for all your help and I'll be sure and ask especially for
you if we need more help.

Thank you for calling the Baby Technical Support Line.
____________________________________________________________

----------------------------
Use at your own RISC
----------------------------
My apartment-mate (we'll call him "Mike") sheepishly entered my room,
asking me if I could take a "look" at his computer. Now, he rarely relies
on my Mac expertise to solve a problem; he usually takes it on as a
"challenge" to solve it himself. So I knew this must be a stumper.

He turned on his Performa, and shortly after the extension parade, his
Mac started beeping. Incessantly.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

We still had control of the Mac, and could open files, pull down menus,
etc. But the incessant beeping was maddening. We checked every control
panel for settings. All seemed O.K. We changed the error beep in the
"Sounds" control panel, and lo and behold, the incessant beeping became
incessant quacking.

Quack! Quack! Quack!

Annoying, so we changed it back. We lowered the volume in the control
panel, and now instead of beeping, the menu bar began blinking (which is
what normally happens when you mute the beep sound.)

Blink! Blink! Blink!

Obviously, first thing I tried was restarting with all extensions off.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

So, what was going wrong with his Mac? To what error was the Mac trying
to alert us? And more importantly, was this a software or a hardware
problem?

Mike's first guess was to replace the System Software (perhaps it got
corrupted?) As he pulled out the ol' floppies, I figured I'd test if
this would solve the problem. I started up from the System Software
CD-ROM that came with the computer. Guess what?

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Just to be safe, I then started up from the Disk Tools. Even though it was
a minimal system, with no control panels, we STILL heard:

Beep! Beep! Beep!

No matter how we'd alter or re-install the software, this beeping would
not go away. Perhaps a loose speaker connection? Mike finally admitted
that he'd been pulling his hair for hours on this one, and I was his
last hope. Apparently this incessant beeping was plaguing him for three
DAYS now, and he could no longer concentrate on getting his law studies
done. I could see the psychosis building in his eyes. This was a
desperate man.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

I'd ascertained it was a hardware problem, which meant it was out of my
hands. Before giving in completely, Mike seemed let down that he'd
actually have to bring his trusty, die-hard Mac in for _service._
Blasted Performas, I thought. Apple probably cut some corners to make
the models less expensive. Weird new features, bundled software,
ease-of-installation... I mean, how difficult is it to install and
configure a REAL Mac?

I began to exit the room. Mike got on the phone. Defeat.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Then it hit me. I turned around, headed back for the Performa. At the
base of the CPU were two volume buttons to "ease" adjustment... and the
"up" button was jammed in. With a quick jiggle, it was released, and...

Silence. Beautiful silence.

Mike asks me for Mac help all the time now.

Beep! Beep! Beep!
____________________________________________________________
We had a member call up with the usual connection problems and the tech on
the call was wondering why it was taking the member unusually long to do
the simplest task such as selecting an item from the menubar. The member
said that her cat had eaten her mouse ball and she had to move the cursor
by putting her finger in the cavity where the mouse ball used to be and
moving the rollers manually.
____________________________________________________________
The computer service tech where I work told me he got a call from a
secretary complaining that the floppy drive in her computer would work. He
went down to check it out and found that she was putting the discs in WITH
the plastic dust sleeves still on them. He asked her why on earth she was
doing that and she said, "Well, I didn't want my computer to get a virus."
____________________________________________________________
I was working at a company that manufactured inter networking hardware for
minicomputers, providing in-house support for other employees of the
company. One day, a user buzzed me on the intercom and asked, "is the
computer down?" Since I was reading and did not actually know the answer
to her question, I sat up quickly and began typing on my terminal to see if
the computer had crashed when I wasn't looking. It hadn't. I replied, "No,
it's up." "Well, I can't logon," was the reply. When I got to the user's
office, I checked the obvious things; the terminal was plugged in and
turned on, the keyboard was plugged in and the lights showed "online". I
reset the terminal - no effect. I checked the terminal settings (baud
rate, parity, etc.), all correct. Finally, in desperation, I craned my
neck around the back side of the terminal and noticed that there was one
and only one cable running into the rear of the box - the power cable. I
asked the user where the other cable was (the serial connection to the
mini) and was told, "Oh, it's over here. I moved my terminal this morning.
Is this thing important?"
____________________________________________________________
Knowing something about computers made me the department computer "Geek".
That meant that I had to help install nearly all the Macintosh software for
a large radiology department. It was fun to go to everyone's desk and get
them up and running.

One secretary really like to chew winter green lifesavers. I told her the
old story about seeing phosphorescence when the candy is crushed by her
teeth. She had heard about that and had even tried it out in front of a
mirror in a darkened room.

I smiled and said, "Well, you know, that chewing those lifesavers in front
of your monitor will get the screen to jiggle."

She looked up with opened eyes and while grabbing here purse she said,
"We'll just see."

She popped a life saver in her mouth and LO and Behold! the screen
jiggled (for her).

She was amazed and I grew several levels of esteem after that incident
until she caught me in the hall later and wanted to know why no one else
could see the screen jiggle when she chewed her candy.
____________________________________________________________
CALLER: "A friend of mine gave me your software, and I'm missing one of the
manuals..."
____________________________________________________________
Me: "Hewlett Packard Customer Service, this is Sergio, can I help you?"
Customer: "Yes, I have a deskjet that I need to have repaired"

Me: "We make several deskjets ma'am -- do you know what model yours is?"
Customer: "It's a Hewlett Packard!"

Me: (suppressing a sigh) Yes I know....umm, could you tell me if your
deskjet is color or black and white? Customer: (pause) well....it's beige!
____________________________________________________________
A guy calls because he wants to register his Macintosh Performa and needs
to know where the serial numbers are on the computer and modem.

For the computer: "It's on the back of the computer."
Response: "Oh, I don't think I can get around to the back of it."

For the modem: "It's on the bottom of the modem."
Response: "I've got the modem attached with a C-clamp so it doesn't fall
off."

All this and a speakerphone, too.
____________________________________________________________
A co-worker told me this one...

Apparently, he (the co-worker) and a friend were talking.
He must have brought up the subject of the InterNet, because his friend
asked him:

"InterNet? Isn't that that America Online thingy?"
____________________________________________________________
We receive a variety of calls on the 100's of CD's we sell. One of them is
called Midnight Stranger, a game where you roam around a city at night
looking for people to interact with. A guy called with problems on
Midnight Stranger on a Mac. This is how the conversation went:

Customer: This program Midnight Stranger is locking up on me.

Tech: At what point does it lock up?

Customer: I don't understand what you mean.

Tech: Does it lock up at the same point every time?

Customer: I still don't understand what you mean.

Tech: Does it lock up when you start Midnight Stranger, at the middle of
the game, how far into the game, where? when?

Customer: Oh, Oh, It locks up when you are at the girl's house and she's
sitting on the couch.

Tech: OK, the brunette?

Customer: No, the dark haired girL.
____________________________________________________________
While on telesales for a software retailer many years back a lady rang and
asked,

"Can you suggest the best home office accounting package? "

I answered, "In my opinion, Mind Your Own Business."

She nearly went through the roof, yelling and screaming how dare
I talked to her like that.
____________________________________________________________
One of our software products is often used to print addresses on
envelopes.

The customer had called the printer manufacturer because every time he
tried to print an envelope, the printer jammed. Apparently the
manufacturer's tech support person asked, "Does it only do this in
one particular program?" and our customer replied yes, only with
ours.

"Well, you better call them, then," said the support person,
referring to us.

As instructed the client called us and told me about the problem. I
asked him to try printing an envelope and describe what they saw. We
chatted while waiting for the test print. I learned the customer
was in Miami, in a three day rainstorm caused by tropical depression
Jerry. He also mentioned that the printer was brand new, fresh out
of the box.

No luck, the envelope jammed.

Then I asked them to print the same thing on plain paper. It sailed
through, printing perfectly.

Obviously the humidity had swollen the envelopes to a thickness that
the new printer could not handle. I mentioned this to him and he
agreed. "Why did you call me about what is obviously a hardware
problem?" I inquired.

"The printer guy said to because it only happens when printing
envelopes with your product."

"Do you print envelopes with any other software products?"

"No, just yours," he replied, then a long paused followed. Finally
he continued, "Good point. I'll call the printer guy again."
____________________________________________________________
This guy walked into our shop with a Duo and an English accent. He had
this really important meeting in an hour and couldn't get his Duo to boot
up. So we start it up in our DuoDock with a floppy, only to find _every_
file sitting on the desktop. Apparently he liked seeing the System Folder
all the time.
____________________________________________________________
A customer called a desktop publishing outfit and wanted a poster made from
a color slide. It was a picture of the caller's recently deceased father
with a couple of his fishing buddies in a boat. The caller mentioned there
was a slight problem- in the picture her father was facing away from the
camera. She wanted the photo expert to flip the negative so you could see
his face. When it was explained that this would only provide a mirror
image of the back of his head she became irate and screamed into the phone-
"If you can take the pimples off those glamour girls why can't you put a
face on my father!"
____________________________________________________________
At 3:37 a.m. on a Sunday, I had just looked at the clock to determine my
annoyance level, I received a frantic phone call from a new user of a
Macintosh Plus. She had gotten her entire family out of the house and was
calling from the neighbor's. She had just received her first system error
and interpreted the picture of the bomb on the screen as a warning that the
computer was going to blow up.
____________________________________________________________
One particular day like any other, an older woman purchased a Macintosh
dragged it home. A little while later we received an angry phone call from
the woman. Apparently, she had set her whole system up without incident
until she came across the mouse pad we included at no extra charge. "Which
side" she demanded, "of the mouse pad faces upwards???" Despite the
brightly colored red company logo emblazoned on one side of the pad, the
woman scolded us for not including appropriate instructions.
____________________________________________________________

--------------------------------------------------------------
******************************************
T E C H S U P P O R T T A L E S # 9
******************************************

WARNING! TO PROPERLY READ THIS DOCUMENT, FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS
CAREFULLY:

* Wear a grounding strap.
* Be seated in a puddle.
* Have a bowl of pretzels handy.
* Rub a balloon on your head.
* Apply a moisturizer to your chin.

YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THE STORIES THAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ....BUT THEY ARE
ALL TRUE!* It will never cease to amaze me how silly and befuddled some
people get with their computers. Every day thousands of people turn on
their computers (or try to) and come across a problem which they think they
understand. The results of their actions can be amusing and often
hilarious. And let's not forget the boneheaded Techs we all have to endure
from time to time.

*** WELCOME ***
to issue #9 of TECH SUPPORT TALES - the publication which proves that
stupidity breeds humor. This issue of Tech Support Tales has been sent to
1,525 email subscribers around the globe by a band of renegade turkeys.

Breaker One Nine,
You can now visit the Tech Support Tales FTP site for back issues. I will
periodically place other funnies (sounds, graphics, etc.) there, so stop in
every once in a while.

ftp.jaxnet.com/private/users3n4

The Tech Support Tales web site is temporarily offline. It will be back up
soon with a new URL. I will let everyone know what it is as soon as it is
ready for your hits.

I'm giving some thought to selling out and making Tech Support Tales
t-shirts. Would you wear one? Maybe I can sell enough to pay for a plane out
to the Macworld Expo in San Francisco this January. Hmmm...must open
PhotoShop and see what I can come up with. I'm itching to go to one of these
monster shows since I'm still yet to attend one.

For all you Mac users out there, check out our new User Group BBS. Speakers
Corner BBS located in Jacksonville, FL is the home of COMUG (Creative Online
Macintosh Users Group). Dial in (no Telnet yet) at 904-448-2020. It's run on
TeleFinder Server 4.0 and if you'd like a copy of the custom settings file,
let me know and I'll send you one. Windows users are welcome too...we're not
snobby Mac people.

OK, on with the tales! Enjoy, and have an extra helping of stuffing for me.
**burp =:-D

-Eric Hausmann
Editor, Tech Support Tales
Vice President, COMUG
junkspill@aol.com

BACK ISSUES: Back issues can be obtained via FTP
(ftp.jaxnet.com/private/users3n4) or directly from me via email. Let me know
which issues you'd like and I'll send them your way. And as always, if you
have any of your own stories that you would like to see in a future issue,
please send them along!

Send all submissions mail, comments, rants, complaints and extra frozen
Butterballs to: JUNKSPILL@AOL.COM

Thanks to the following individuals for sharing the jokes and tales you are
about to read:
I Aellath@aol.com, hwarwick@macromedia.com, info@goldengate.net,
sfenton@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu, danielh@greeley.sykes.com, mlandt@NMSU.Edu,
rreed01@mail.coin.missouri.edu, GSubG13er@aol.com, JTrain868@aol.com,
CWMcIntoJX@aol.com
____________________________________________________________

---------------
LETTERS TO TST
---------------

One story below sent milk out my nose when I read it.
-Daneship@aol.com
____________________________________________________________
I read, with interest, your issue #8 as my first issue. If I didn't have
to get up from wetting my pants I would have gone to the hospital because
of a side ache!
-MacVenture@aol.com
____________________________________________________________
I work on a help desk for an HMO, and we
laugh our heads off every time you come out with a new one!

Two weeks ago, one of our analysts actually had to tell a user the space
bar "was the big long one at the bottom of the keyboard..."
-houston.t@ghc.org
____________________________________________________________
Just read #7. Hilarious.

And people wonder why I won't let them touch my system....
-SlurpRAVES@aol.com
____________________________________________________________
-------------
SIG-O-MANIA!
-------------
A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in
human history--with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila.
- Mitch Ratcliffe, _Technology Review_, April, 1992
____________________________________________________________
"Today, visual depictions of children engaging in any imaginable form
of sexual conduct can be produced entirely by computer, without using
children, thereby placing such depictions outside the scope of Federal
law," Senator Hatch said in a statement. --NYT, 9/14/95
____________________________________________________________
Who REALLY puts the filling in the twinkies, anyway?
____________________________________________________________

------------
COMPU-JOKES
------------

Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, and Bill Gates were
called in by God. God informed them that he was very unhappy about what
was going on in this world. Since things were so bad he told the 3 that
he was destroying the Earth in 3 days. They were all allowed to return to
their homes and businesses and tell their friends and colleagues what was
happening. God did tell them though that no matter what they did he was
*not* changing his mind. So.....

Bill Clinton went in and told his staff.... I have good news and bad news
for you. First the good news.... there *is* a God. The bad news is that
he is destroying the Earth in 3 days.

Boris went back and told his staff that he had bad news and bad news. The
first was.... there *is* a God...... the second was that he was destroying
the Earth in 3 days.

Bill Gates went back and told his staff..... I have good news and good
news.... first.... God thinks I am one of the 3 most important people in
the world. The second is..... we don't have to fix the bugs in Win95.
____________________________________________________________

YOU MIGHT BE A "HI-TECH REDNECK" IF....

* If your e-mail address ends in ".over.yonder.com"

* If you connect to the World Wide Web via a "Down Home Page"

* If the bumper sticker on your truck says "My other computer is a laptop"

* If your laptop has a sticker that says "Protected by Smith and Wesson"

* If you've ever doubled the value of your truck by installing a
cellular phone.

* If your baseball cap reads "DEC" instead of "CAT"

* If your computer is worth more than all your cars combined

* If your wife said "either she or the computer had to go", and you
still don't miss her

* If you've ever used a CD-ROM as a coaster to set your beer on

* If you ever refer to your computer as "Ole Bessy"

* If your screen saver is a bitmap image of your favorite truck,
tractor, or farm animal

* If you start all your e-mails with the words "Howdy y'all"
____________________________________________________________

IF OPERATING SYSTEMS WERE BEERS

DOS BEER
Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to read the
directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only came in an
8-ounce can, but now comes in a 16-ounce can. However, the can is divided
into eight compartments of 2 ounces each, which have to be accessed
separately. Soon to be discontinued, although a lot of people are going to
keep drinking it after it's non longer available.

MAC BEER
At first, came only in a 16-ounce can, but now comes in a 32-ounce can.
Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look identical. When
you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The ingredients list is not
on the can. If you call to ask about the ingredients, you are told that "you
don't need to know". A notice on the side reminds you to drag your empties
to the trash can.

WINDOWS 3.1 BEER
The world's most popular. Comes in a 16-ounce can that looks a lot like Mac
Beer's. Requires that you already own a DOS Beer. Claims that it allows you
to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously, but in reality you can only drink
a few of them, very slowly, especially slowly if you are drinking the
Windows Beer at the same time. Sometimes, for apparently no reason, a can of
Windows Beer will explode when you open it.

OS/2 BEER
Comes in a 32-ounce can. Does allow you to drink several DOS Beers
simultaneously. Allows you to drink Windows 3.1 Beer simultaneously too, but
somewhat slower. Advertises that its cans won't explode when you open them,
even if you shake them up. You never really see anyone drinking OS/2 Beer,
but the manufacturer (International Beer Manufacturing) claims that 9
million six-packs have been sold.

WINDOWS 95 BEER
A lot of people have taste-tested it and claim it's wonderful. The can looks
a lot like Mac Beer's can, but tastes more like Windows 3.1 Beer. It comes
in 32-ounce cans, but when you look inside, the cans have only 16 ounces of
beer in them. Most people will probably keep drinking Windows 3.1 Beer until
their friends try Windows 95 Beer and say they like it. The ingredients
list, when you look at the small print, has some of the same ingredients
that come in DOS Beer, even though the manufacturer claims that this is an
entirely new brew.

WINDOWS NT BEER
Comes in 32-ounce cans, but you can only buy it by the truckload. This
causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger refrigerators. The can
looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the company promises to change the
can to look just like Windows 95 Beer. Touted as an "industrial strength"
beer, and suggested only for use in bars.

UNIX BEER
Comes in several different brands, in cans ranging from 8 ounces to 64
ounces. Drinkers of UNIX Beer display fierce brand loyalty, even though they
claim that all the different brands taste almost identical. Sometimes the
pop-tops break off when you try to open them, so you have to have your own
can opener around for those occasions, in which case you either need a
complete set of instructions, or a friend who has been drinking UNIX Beer
for several years.

AMIGADOS BEER
The company has gone out of business, but its recipe has been picked up by
some weird German company, so now this beer will be an import. This beer
never really sold very well because the original manufacturer didn't
understand marketing. Like UNIX Beer, AmigaDOS Beer fans are an extremely
loyal and loud group. It originally came in a 16-ounce can, but now comes in
32-ounce cans, too. When this can was originally introduced, it appeared
flashy and colorful, but the design hasn't changed much over the years, so
it appears dated now. Critics of this beer claim that it is only meant for
watching TV anyway.

VMS BEER
Requires minimal user interaction, except for popping the top and sipping.
However, cans have been known on occasion to explode, or possibly contain
extremely un-beerlike contents.
____________________________________________________________

-------------------------------
SO MANY USERS, SO FEW GRENADES
-------------------------------

A kid called our Service Dept for an LC he had in for repair. The hard drive
had gone south, and he needed quotes on replacements. He wanted to know if
he could get a hard drive with a CD-ROM drive built into it....
____________________________________________________________
Us: Hello Tech support. How can I help you?

Them: Hi. I'm tryin' ta print somethin' and it's crashin' da fu**in'
rip.

Us: Which rip?

Tham: da fu**in' rip man, dis progreeam fu**in' sucks.

Us: No no no. What kind of rip is it sir?

Them: Well, it idn't reeeally a rip. It's just a fu**in' printa.

Us: What kind of printer might that be?

Them: Some HP color printa somethin somethin c.

Us: OK. And what kind of a file are you trying to print on it?

Them: I got dis drawin' here, it's got some pitchas I imported into
it, and I arranged 'em all pretty like by pastin' inside a buncha
rectangles. An' I wanna print 'em on the printa 'cuz I gawt it fer
real cheap, like two hunnerd dollas, fer buyin my computer and I
wanna see if it woiks. I got deez pitchas a my family, and I put 'em
inta some rectangles. I scanned da fu**in' pitchas on my new scanna.

Us: How many pichas, errr, pictures did you scan, sir?

Them: Ten.

Us: Ok and how did you arrange them?

Them: I put around on the page so that the cawnas ovalap rill pretty.

Us: And how big are they?

Them: Oh about an inch or two sqaure each.

Us: No no ... in terms of memory how big are they?

Them: Oh 'bout 2 or three memgabytes each. Some are smawlla.

Us: Lemme get this straight. Your sending a 20 megabyte file with
almost a dozen...

Them: Yo. 's only ten of 'em.

Us: OK, TEN overlapping high resolution files pasted inside scanned images
to
a cheapie color printer you got for $200, and you expect it to print?

Them: Sure. Why not?
____________________________________________________________
When I was working for a software company, one day I got a call from a
customer wondering if we had WordPerfect for the Gameboy. I said "No, but
I'll call you when it comes in." Sometimes it's better to go along with the
customer and not ask any questions.

Now I sell computers. Often I get customers coming in from off the street,
wandering, looking around and finally asking, "Do you sell Plentium
computers?"
____________________________________________________________
At a local office superstore where I used to work a man was looking at
various computer systems. I approached him and answered his questions
about the machines. After telling him that the model he was looking at
had a fax/modem. He twisted and turned looking at the computer from all
angles with a perplexed expression on his face. He then asked me, "So
where do you feed the paper in?"
____________________________________________________________
I am a tech for HP Calc support and I got a call last week from a lady
who wanted to send in her husband's calculator to be "overhauled". When I
asked her what was wrong with it she replied " Oh nothing it works fine he
just wanted to get it looked at and have some upkeep maintenance done on
it." I guess she wanted the 10,000 calculation tuneup.
____________________________________________________________
As I sat in my veal fattening pen answering questions regarding our
products, I was the poor unfortunate who had to respond to the
following situation without laughing at the caller in utter contempt
and ridicule.

Me: "Hello- Tech Support"
Him: "Yeah- I got that there version 3.1 of your program and it don't
run on my Macintosh 7500."
Me: "Yes sir. That is correct. 3.1 is not compatible with the PCI
Power PC Macs. You need version 5.0 or later."
Him: "Yep- I got me one of them version 5's too! It runs fine! Right
quick too!"
Me: (stifling laughter at his imbecility) "Well sir, you have the
upgrade, so what's the problem?"
Him: "Well, I just want to know when you're gonna make the 3.1
version run on Power PCs, 'cuz we've been using the 3.1 version years
more than the 5.0 and we like it just fine."
Me: (trying mot to scream into the phone YOU STUPID IDIOT!!!) Well,
sir, that's one of the reasons why 5.0 was invented.

The conversation basically drifted into a quick and equally pointless
close from there.

People like that amaze me. Too dumb to live. Too stupid to die. But
they can vote and own guns...
____________________________________________________________
I worked for Radio Shack for a period of about 3 months. Within the three
month period I had the following scenario occur:

Customer walks in and says "My radio is broken!"

So of course I would ask, "Have you checked the batteries?"

"Yes. I'm positive they are fine!"

As part of what I was trained to do, I had to check the batteries anyway.
This made the customer rather irate, but I simply informed them that it was
procedure to check the batteries.

I check the batteries and they are deader than a door! And I politely point
out that the batteries are infact dead. Upon replacing them, I show them
that
it was the battery problem.

And their response: "But the package says that they are good until January
1998!!"
____________________________________________________________
Me: What can I help you with?
Customer: I'm having trouble with file transfers. I've read the manual,
but nothing seems to be working.

We check the procedure the customer was using. Everything was fine. Check
the users settings. Everything was fine. I asked "Have you had any
other problems connecting with this system?"

Customer: "Connecting?"

Me: Yes, other than trying to transfer a file to this system, do you have
any other problems after connecting to the remote system.

Customer: I just start your program and try to transmit the file. You
mean I have to call the other system first? How do I do that?
____________________________________________________________
CALLER: I just installed the Faxcilitate fax software and have lost the
manual.

ME: It's on the MicroPhone LT disk.

CALLER: Oh, well, that disk is locked away and I can't find it right now.
(Pause.) It doesn't seem to be on the America Online disk.

ME: No, Ma'am, it's on the Microphone LT disk.

CALLER: I can't find the manual anywhere.

ME: Yes, Ma'am, it is not a printed manual. It is a file on the Microphone
LT floppy disk.

CALLER (to someone in the office): Can you get me the key to... (Long
pause.) OH! It's on the Microphone LT disk!

ME: Yes, Ma'am.

CALLER: Thank you so much. You've been so very helpful.

ME: You're welcome.

One question: Does Snapple offer a HEMLOCK variety...
____________________________________________________________
Last night, I had a woman on the phone who was trying to get her Mac's DOS
card to see more memory. Not only did she change her story 10 times, but
she kept restarting the Mac, over and over. I would say, "Let's change this
option in PC Setup now, ok?" BONG! "Ma'am, why did you restart your Mac?"
"I wanted the changes to take effect." "Please don't restart until I ask
you to, ok?" "Ok." Anyway, we'd go back into the PC Setup, change
something, and then, inevitably, BONG! I got so pissed off, I finally said
to her, "Ma'am, you shouldn't restart so much, you're going to burn out your
restarting coil, and that's not covered under Apple's warranty." She got so
scared, she didn't even want to restart her Mac ever again. She even told
me, "Thank you so much for telling me that, I don't want to burn out my
coil."
____________________________________________________________
My friend Duane was on duty in the main lab on a quiet afternoon. He noticed
a young woman sitting in front of one of the workstations with her arms
crossed across her chest and staring at the screen. After about 15 minutes
he noticed that she was still in the same position only now she was
impatiently tapping her foot. He asked if she needed help and she replied,
"It's about time! I pushed the F1 button over twenty minutes ago!"
____________________________________________________________
Customer calling tech support:" I just called about half-an-hour ago and the
person I talked to said he'd mail me a new disk with new software on it.
Where is it? I'm still waiting for it!"
____________________________________________________________
A tech was trying to determine what kind of modem a customer had because the
connection with his modem wasn't very reliable. And in a terminal program he
had the member type ATI3 (which usually gives some indication of the modem's
manufacturer or speed). And the tech asked, "What does it say now?" The
member responded with, "AT&T Data/fax modem 14.....Wait a minute I see the
problem right here, I use MCI not AT&T."
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

--------------------------------------------------------------
From TEKTALES@aol.com Sun Feb 11 03:23:01 1996
Subject: Tech Support Tales #10

YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THE STORIES THAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ....BUT THEY ARE
ALL TRUE!* It will never cease to amaze me how silly and befuddled some
people get with their computers. Every day thousands of people turn on
their computers (or try to) and come across a problem which they think they
understand. The results of their actions can be amusing and often
hilarious. And let's not forget the boneheaded Techs we all have to endure
from time to time.

*** WELCOME ***
to issue #10 of TECH SUPPORT TALES - the publication which proves that
stupidity breeds humor. This issue of Tech Support Tales has been sent to
2,000 (yes, 2,000 exactly!) email subscribers around the globe by the lesser
known Bubba "LoveBucket" Gates.

Hey Homey,
You can now visit the Tech Support Tales FTP site for back issues. I will
periodically place other funnies (sounds, graphics, texts, etc.) there, so
stop in every once in a while. If you'd like, send me some tech support
sounds & graphics for the site.

ftp.jaxnet.com/private/users3n4

The Official Tech Support Tales web site is back up and running at a new
home. Point your browser to:

http://www.nanothinc.com:80/Auricular/techsupporttales.html

Last month I plugged our new Macintosh User Group BBS (Speakers Corner
BBS/CoMUG). Our goal is to serve the needs as more of a global MUG than a
community one, and membership is absolutely free. The more members we have
online, the more we can serve the Mac community. We've installed our TCP
line
and the BBS is up and running on a Radius 81/110 clone with TeleFinder as
the
host. You can download the Mac settings file at the above mentioned FTP site
or call the board and download it from there. The IP address is:
204.183.221.17
Once you get online, send an email to Eric Hausmann or Mark Sablow with your
email address, and we'll get you validated so you can have access to all the
cool & groovy stuff.

On with the tales! Enjoy, and please remember to always use a Clapper to
shut
down the computer when you're done.

-Eric Hausmann
Editor, Tech Support Tales
Vice President, CoMUG
TEK TALES@aol.com <--please take note of the new TST email address.
----------------------
TO SUBSCRIBE: I'm not using a fancy-schmancy mail server, so please don't
send me any cryptic mail server type messages...a simple note with the
words "Subscribe Tech Support Tales" in the subject field will do the
trick.

BACK ISSUES: Back issues can be obtained via FTP
(ftp.jaxnet.com/private/users3n4) or directly from me via email. Let me know
which issues you'd like and I'll send them your way. If you have any of your
own stories that you would like to see in a future issue, please send them
along. If you prefer to remain anonymous, please let me know in a prominent
way.

Send all submissions mail, comments, rants, complaints, graphics and
reformatted AOL floppies to: TEK TALES@AOL.COM

Thanks to the following individuals for sharing the jokes and tales you are
about to read:

AFL Keith@aol.com, tonya@tidbits.com, bhola_carlos@bcg.com,
houston.t@ghc.org, SOOOOHAPPY@aol.com, VixSully@aol.com, Kudra C@aol.com,
CWMcIntoJX@aol.com, schutty@nauticom.net, alvarto@nacpc2.tamu.edu,
eric_prentice@stream.com, JayMS@aol.com, simonh@iglou.com,
alan@nanothinc.com
____________________________________________________________

---------------------------
FOR IMMEDIATE PRESS RELEASE
DayDoubler from Connectrix
---------------------------

DayDoubler is a new product from Connectrix that gives you those extra hours
in each day that we've been asking for. Using sophisticated time mapping and
compression techniques to double the number of hours in the day, DayDoubler
gives you access to 48 hours each day. With the shareware hack MaxDay, you
can easily stretch your day to 60, 72, or even 96 hours! Connectrix warns
that at the higher numbers, DayDoubler becomes less stable and that you run
the risk of a temporal crash in which everything from the beginning of time
to the present would come crashing down around you, sucking you into a black
hole. Should this occur, be sure to reboot with the shift key down.
____________________________________________________________

-------------
TST MAIL BOX
-------------

To the editor,
I have just read your collection of "tales" from a bunch of
self-important jerks who think that making fun of people
who don't have the same tech knowledge as they do is funny.
I am an audio engineer and MIDI programmer (starting with
a C64) and consider myself very accomplished in my field.
If I took the same attitude towards my clients that your
contributors do theirs, I'd be out of business in short order.
Of course, you'll probably pass this off as some sort of
"rant" from a guy with no sense of humor, but I'd love for you
to print this in your testimonials section and see how many
real pros agree with me. (I dare you). Judging from your
adolescent mind set, I think the dare should do the trick.

EKrakaur@aol.com
____________________________________________________________

Woops....... Earth to my last transmission. Here's a copy of
my first reply to a possibly misguided and/or misinturpreted message to
you...

Okay my friend, I stand corrected. I that knew if I responded
to what I'd just read on a gut level, that I'd open myself up
to --- like you.
The bottom line is, I just didn't find techtales #9 very
funny. Again, please forgive me for expressing a little concern
for what sounded to me like a bunch of snickering shut-ins.
Hey, maybe issue #10 will hit the spot. Peace and Love.

EKrakaur@aol.com
____________________________________________________________

I'm helping support a fairly large client/server installation. One "trouble
ticket" abbreviation we find useful is "PEBKAC" -> Problem Exists Between
Keyboard And Chair.

christophe.a.crawford@ac.com
____________________________________________________________

Your last issue makes me just want MORE!!! I work in the service
department of a college computer store, and my co-workers and our clientele
seem to love the hilarious antics described in your publication. What
makes the situation even more hilarious is that we have given away copies
as _tutorials_ on what NOT to call us for.

rsuave@acs.bu.edu
____________________________________________________________

I would love to get on your mailing list, although I may have to start
buying DEPENDS.... :)

kerok@cyberia.com
____________________________________________________________

------------
SIG-O-MANIA!
------------

cAPS lOCK? wHAT cAPS lOCK?
____________________________________________________________

SCSI is *NOT* magic. There are *fundamental technical reasons* why it
is necessary to sacrifice a young goat to your SCSI chain now and then.
techno@netaxs.com
____________________________________________________________

___ _ ____ _ ___
/ \__/ \__/ \__/ \__/ \ "Hey Rocky!
| _|@ @ __ | Watch me pull some intelligence
\________/ | | \________/ out of the InterNet!"
__/ _/ "But that trick never works."
/o) (o_/ "This time for sure."
\____/
phily@hpcstc.col.hp.com
____________________________________________________________

-----------
COMPU-JOKES
-----------

The Software Engineering Approach

A Software Engineer, a Hardware Engineer and a Departmental Manager
were on their way to a meeting in Switzerland. They were driving down a
steep mountain road when suddenly the brakes on their car failed. The
car careened almost out of control down the road, bouncing off the
crash barriers, until it miraculously ground to a halt scraping along
the mountainside. The car's occupants, shaken but unhurt, now had a
problem: they were stuck halfway down a mountain in a car with no
brakes. What were they to do?

"I know", said the Departmental Manager, "Let's have a meeting, propose
a Vision, formulate a Mission Statement, define some Goals, and by a
process of Continuous Improvement find a solution to the Critical
Problems, and we can be on our way."

"No, no", said the Hardware Engineer, "That will take far too long, and
besides, that method has never worked before. I've got my Swiss Army
knife with me, and in no time at all I can strip down the car's braking
system, isolate the fault, fix it, and we can be on our way."

"Well", said the Software Engineer, "Before we do anything, I think we
should push the car back up the road and see if it happens again."
____________________________________________________________

Some Important Theological Questions are Answered if we think of God
as a Computer Programmer.

Q: Does God control everything that happens in my life?
A: He could, if he used the debugger, but it's tedious to step through all
those variables.

Q: Why does God allow evil to happen?
A: God thought he eliminated evil in one of the earlier revs.

Q: Does God know everything?
A: He likes to think so, but he is often amazed to find out what goes on
in the overnite job.

Q: What causes God to intervene in earthly affairs?
A: If an critical error occurs, the system pages him automatically and he
logs on from home to try to bring it up. Otherwise things can wait until
tomorrow.

Q: Did God really create the world in seven days?
A: He did it in six days and nights while living on cola and candy bars.
On the seventh day he went home and found out his girlfriend had left
him.

Q: How come the Age of Miracles Ended?
A: That was the development phase of the project, now we are in the
maintenance phase.

Q: Will there be another Universe after the Big Bang?
A: A lot of people are drawing things on the white board, but personally,
God doubts that it will ever be implemented.

Q: Who is Satan?
A: Satan is an MIS director who takes credit for more powers than he
actually possesses, so people who aren't programmers are scared of
him.
God thinks of him as irritating but irrelevant.

Q: What is the role of sinners?
A: Sinners are the people who find new an imaginative ways to mess up
the system when God has made it idiot-proof.

Q: Where will I go after I die?
A: Onto a DAT tape.

Q: Will I be reincarnated?
A: Not unless there is a special need to recreate you. And searching
those tar files is a major hassle, so if there is a request for you, God
will
just say that the tape has been lost.

Q: Am I unique and special in the universe?
A: There are over 10,000 major university and corporate sites running
exact duplicates of you in the present release version.

Q: What is the purpose of the universe?
A: God created it because he values elegance and simplicity, but then
the users and managers demanded he tack all this senseless stuff onto
it and now everything is more complicated and expensive than ever.

Q: If I pray to God, will he listen?
A: You can waste his time telling him what to do, or you can just get off
his back and let him program.

Q: What is the one true religion?
A: All systems have their advantages and disadvantages, so just pick
the one that best suits your needs and don't let anyone put you down.

Q: Is God angry that we crucified him?
A: Let's just say he's not going to any more meetings if he can help it,
because that last one with the twelve managers and the food turned out
to be murder.

Q: How can I protect myself from evil?
A: Change your password every month and don't make it a name, a
common word, or a date like your birthday.

Q: Some people claim they hear the voice of God. Is this true?
A: They are much more likely to receive email.

Q: Some people say God is Love.
A: That is not a question. Please restate your query in the form of a
question.
____________________________________________________________

To my darling Husband,

I am sending you this letter in a bogus software company envelope so that
you will be sure to read it. Please forgive the deception, but I thought
you
should know what has been going on at home since your IBM computer entered
our lives two years ago.

The children are doing well. Tommy is seven now and is a bright, handsome
boy. He has developed quite an interest in the arts. He drew a family
portrait for a school project. All the figures were good but yours was
excellent! The chair and the back of your head are very realistic. You
would be very proud of him.

Little Jennifer turned three in September. She looks a lot like you did at
that age. She is an attractive child and quite smart. She still remembers
that you spent the whole afternoon with her on her birthday. What a grand
day
for Jen, despite the fact that it was stormy and the electricity was out.

I am also doing well. I went blond about a year ago and was delighted to
discover that it really is more fun! Lars, I mean Mr. Swenson, the
department head, has taken an interest in my career and has become a good
friend to us all.

I have discovered that the household chores are much easier since I realized
that you don't mind being vacuumed but that feather dusting made you sneeze.
The house is in good shape. I had the living room painted last Spring.
I'm not sure if you noticed it. I made sure the painters cut air holes in
the drop cloth so you wouldn't be disturbed.

Well, my dear, I must be going. Uncle Lars, Mr. Swenson, I mean, is taking
us all on a ski trip and there will be packing to do. I have hired a
housekeeper to take care of things while we are away. She'll keep things in
order, fill your coffee cup, and bring meals to your desk, - just the way
you
like it. I hope you and the IBM have a lovely time while we are gone.
Tommy, Jen and I will think of you often. Try to remember us while your
disks are booting.

Love, Melinda
(Your Wife)
____________________________________________________________

----------------------------------------
SHELL TO DOS...COME IN DOS. DO YOU COPY?
----------------------------------------

When I started doing tech support, we didn't have to get customer's names
and type them into a database, but about six months before I left,
management instituted a database and started cracking down on offenders who
refused to routinely type the first and last names into the database. I was
reading my email one morning, and the word came down from on high that the
Macintosh support people weren't typing in the last names nearly as much as
the Windows people were, and that there was no excuse, and we had to start
typing them in at once. So, my next phone call goes something like this:

Me: Hi, this is Me at Megalith Tech Support. Can I have your name please?

Roman: Roman.

Me: Thanks. So is Roman your first name or your last name.

Roman: My first name.

Me: So what's your last name?

Roman: Roman

Me: I'm really sorry but I need your first and last name.

Roman: It's Roman.

Me: I'm really sorry, but my boss is going to get very upset if I don't get
both your names.

Roman: My name is just Roman. You know how Madonna has only one name? Well,
I'm just Roman.

Of course, all the names were routinely flushed out of the database after a
month, because we didn't have the disk space.
____________________________________________________________

My next story concerns a call I took on my last day of the job.

Me: Hi, this is Me at Megalith. Can I have your name and phone number
please?

Customer: (Resentfully) Now where would I find that?!
____________________________________________________________

The graphic artist at the company I recently joined had been using a
Macintosh for about three years. Aware that I knew a lot about computers, he
came to me with his questions. He couldn't understand why, after he scanned
a
graphic and placed it in the folder holding his Adobe Illustrator
application, the graphic didn't automatically become an illustrator file.
____________________________________________________________

"Thank you for calling Amerikuh Online. How can I help you today?"

"I'd like to upgrade my tickets to first class from coach"

"I think you are looking for American Airlines!"

But after a 20 minute hold in a telephone system that repeatedly asks about
computers and modems and connectivity....you'd think he would have gotten
the
idea.
(name slightly changed to protect the innocent.)
____________________________________________________________

When I was setting up a service call with Apple computer, the girl was
getting my info. She asked if I had another way of being reached other than
by the phone number I gave her. I said that I could be reached by e-mail.
She asked for my address. I gave it to her. Then, she wanted the phone #
for my e-mail address. Instills confidence, doesn't it?
____________________________________________________________

User : I'm having problem with my modem account.
Tech support : okay, tell me exactly the part you are having problem with.
User : Well, I think you need to give me an account.
Tech support : Well, what kind of account do you need ? A e-mail account,
unix account, or novell account?
User : I need a carrier account.
Tech support: What do you mean a carrier account?
User : When I try to dial in, it tells me "no carrier." Can you give me
a carrier account ?
____________________________________________________________

A gentleman called who was having difficulty installing the screen saver
that
came with his new Power Mac. After hours of searching to no avail he
finally
called us. He said he was following the directions in the manual and try as
he might, he just couldn't find the Program Manager on his Mac.
____________________________________________________________

Me: Sir, open up your System Folder and find the Launcher Items folder.
Him: I don't have a Systems Folder.
Me: (Pausing momentarily because my patience was wearing thin with customers
like this) It's in your hard disk sir. You must have one, or else your
computer wouldn't start properly.
Him: Hard disk, hard disk...hmmm - is that little rectangle in the top
right?
Me: Yes.
Him: Okay, but mine doesn't say "Hard Disk;" It's just labeled with a
period.
How did that happen?
Me: Well, you can name it anything you want, perhaps yours was named
accidentally.
Him: Oh. What now?
Me: Open your System (speaking clearly so he would not hear an S) Folder.
Him: I don't have a systems folder. Oh, oh, here it is! Okay, okay, I'm
opening the Systems Envelope now.

And after an excruciating 30 minutes of how to make an alias and reminding
him that he truly did have a System Folder and where it was, we got his new
software on the Launcher. He always refers to his folders as envelopes
though.

Ten minutes later he called me back and told me how he had written down my
directions to the "Systems Envelope" so he could put more programs on his
Launcher. One of the programs didn't work, however, and after another 45
minutes of sheer hell, I told him we needed to send him out some new
floppies. "Hey, can you send me a dozen apples too? My wife would like to
make a pie," he laughed. If I had a button on my phone to administer
electro-shock to this man, I would have. He repeated himself. "Apples. Get
it? Macintoshes? Ha ha. Don't you get it?"

"Yes sir, I do."
____________________________________________________________

>From my former job as a sales engineer at a major computer retailer:
There was the woman who bought a modem for her Mac IIsi. She called and
wanted to know how to use it to do virtual reality.
____________________________________________________________

Last week, I installed a computer for a co-worker. It was the very first
computer she had ever used.
She called me early the next morning. She said her monitor was fuzzy
looking and wanted to know if she needed to buy an antenna for it.

I told her no, it was cable ready. :-)
____________________________________________________________

-------------------------------
Lastly, I leave you with this:
(forwarded from a mailing list
to another mailing list to you)
-------------------------------

There it is again. Some clueless FOOL talking about the "Information
Superhighway." They don't know JACK about the net. It's NOTHING
like a Superhighway. That's a BAD metaphor.

Yeah, but suppose the metaphor ran in the OTHER direction. Suppose
the HIGHWAYS were like the NET. All right! Severe craziness. A
highway HUNDREDS of lanes wide. Most with potholes. Privately
operated bridges and overpasses. No highway patrol. A couple of
rent-a-cops on bicycles with broken whistles. 500 member VIGILANTE
POSSES with nuclear weapons. 237 ON RAMPS at every intersection. NO
SIGNS. Wanna get to Ensenada? Holler out the window at a passing
truck to ask directions. AD HOC traffic laws. Some lanes would VOTE
to make use by a single-occupant-vehicle a CAPITAL OFFENSE on Monday
through Friday between 7:00 and 9:00. Other lanes would just SHOOT
you without a trial for talking on a car phone.

AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking BUS with hundreds of EBOLA
victims and a TOILET spewing out on the road behind it. Throwing
DEAD WOMBATS and rotten cabbage at the other cars most of which have
been ASSEMBLED AT HOME from kits. Some are 2.5 horsepower LAWNMOWER
ENGINES with a top speed of nine miles an hour. Others burn
NITROGLYCERINE and IDLE at 120.

No license tags. World War II BOMBER NOSE ART instead. Terrifying
paintings of huge teeth or VAMPIRE EAGLES. Bumper mounted MACHINE
GUNS. Flip somebody the finger on this highway and get a WHITE
PHOSPHORUS GRENADE up your tailpipe. Flatbed trucks with
ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSILE BATTERIES to shoot down the KRUD Traffic Watch
helicopter. A little kid on a tricycle with a squirtgun filled with
HYDROCHLORIC ACID.

NO OFFRAMPS.

Now THAT'S the way to run an Interstate Highway system.
____________________________________________________________

--------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 26 May 1996 18:27:41 -0400
From: TEKTALES@aol.com
To: AFCHaus@aol.com
Subject: Tech Support Tales #11

******************************************

T E C H S U P P O R T T A L E S #11
******************************************

Sir, can you hang on while I take out my earring?

YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THE STORIES THAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ....BUT THEY ARE
ALL TRUE!* It will never cease to amaze me how silly and befuddled some
people get with their computers. Every day thousands of people turn on their
computers (or try to) and come across a problem which they think they
understand. The results of their actions can be amusing and often hilarious.
And let's not forget the boneheaded Techs we all have to endure from time to
time.

*** WELCOME ***
to issue #11 of TECH SUPPORT TALES - the publication which proves that
stupidity breeds humor. This issue of Tech Support Tales has been sent to
2,564 email subscribers around the globe by me at my Macintosh.

*****************************

Mac's Advantage Computer Systems (M.A.C.S.) proudly sponsors this edition of
Tech Support Tales. As an Authorized Apple VAR, M.A.C.S. specializes in the
Macintosh system and provides hardware, software and services to
professional and academic users in technical fields. M.A.C.S. is authorized
to provide computers, software and peripherals from Apple, Microsoft,
Capilano, Adobe, Tektronix, Wolfram Research, GCC, and over 1000 other
manufacturers. We can also offer PC systems from Compaq, HP, AST, NEC, and
more. M.A.C.S. offers unbeatable prices, huge selection and professional
service.

Visit our Web site at http://www.jaxnet.com/~macs to find our
customer-configurable Macintosh systems bundled at outstanding savings for
both professional and academic users. (PC systems from Compaq, AST, and HP
will soon be added to our Web page.) Here you will also find our list of
monthly specials and other items of interest. Join our e-mail list by
sending e-mail to us at macs@jaxnet.com with the subject of your message
being: "Subscribe to M.A.C.S." You will be added to our periodic electronic
mailing list and will hear about outstanding specials like:

16 Meg SIMM (72 pin): $169, 16 Meg DIMM: $214 SupraFaxModem 288: $185
GCC Elite 600et Ethernet 600 dpi laser printer: $1199 Iomega Jaz: $574
Sony CPD15SX1 15" .25 Trinitron display: $423 Hewlett Packard LaserJet 5MP:
$1024
Tektronix Phaser 340 color printer: $4664

Take advantage of Mac's Advantage Computer Systems and let us help you get
the most out of your hard earned dollars.

Mac's Advantage Computer Systems
P.O. Box 821
Orange Park, FL 32067

voice: (904) 269-0123
fax: (904) 269-5558

*****************************

Some people have asked what my computer setup consists of. OK, here's what
use to generate this zine: Mac Quadra 800 with 48 MBs RAM, 3 internal HDs
(1.5 GB), USR Courier V.Everything modem, 20" Trinitron monitor, UMAX UC-630
scanner, Zip drive, Apple 2x CD external, Pinnacle Micro CD recorder, 2-14"
Apple monitors, 2-USR 14.4 modems and a Mac PowerBook Duo 230 with a
DuoDock. Just so you know, I use this setup for "real" work too. <g> Oh
yeah, there's an old 386 rusting in the garage-ya want it?

Hey DOS breath,
You can now visit the Tech Support Tales FTP site for back issues. I will
periodically place other funnies (sounds, graphics, texts, etc.) there, so
stop in every once in a while. If you'd like, send me some tech support
sounds & graphics for the site.

ftp.jaxnet.com/private/users3n4

The Official Tech Support Tales web site is up and running at a new home
courtesy of Nanothinc Technologies in San Francisco. Last month we were
proud to be recognized as a YAHOO Pick Of The Week. Point your mousie this
way, chum:

http://www.nanothinc.com/Auricular/TST

Before we start this issue, I have a personal experience I'd like to share.
This happened at a computer retail store in Jacksonville, FL. Since I don't
want to name names, I'll just say, the store's name rhymes with COMPUTER
pity-in the CITY of Jacksonville. I was shopping for a small 600 dpi
Postscript laser printer. I looked at an Apple LaserWriter 4/600 and an HP
LaserJet. Both look like they'll do the job, but I want to see a few test
prints. A salesperson comes up to offer their assistance.

Computer Pity SALESPERSON: Can I help you?

ME: Yes, I'd like to see a few plain paper printouts from each of these two
laser printers.

Computer Pity SALESPERSON: We can't do that. These printers aren't hooked up
to any computers.

ME: OK, can I instead see the sample printouts that each printer generates?

Computer Pity SALESPERSON: I'm sorry, but we have no electricity over here
in this part of the store. But here, let me show you another printer that
prints just like those.

We walk to another area of the store and the salesperson looks around at
various inkjet printers, spots one with a sample print in the tray, grabs it
and says, "Here."

Me: (silent at first, jaw drops.) But this is an inkjet printout.

Computer Pity SALESPERSON: Um, yes..it prints just like those other
printers.

Me: No it doesn't. And this is a COLOR inkjet printout! (I hand the sample
back, say thanks and immediately head for the store's exit.)

Computer Pity SALESPERSON: Is there a problem? Did I say something wrong?
____________________________________________________________

To all of you who have written - thank you for your comments, subscriptions
and fabulous stories. If you haven't received a response yet, please be
patient and I will respond. I always do eventually. The amount of mail that
TST generates these days could easily cause my virtual postal carrier to
start shopping in pawn shops. I am giving consideration to automating the
back issue requests, but not just yet. If you have Web or FTP abilities,
please try downloading back issues first. This alone may buy me a little
more time. Thanks.

On with the tales! Enjoy, and please remember, if you don't like it...well,
you can just kiss my ascii.

-Eric Hausmann
Editor, Tech Support Tales
Vice President, CoMUG
America Online Forum Consultant MMS

TEKTALES@aol.com
http://www.nanothinc.com/Auricular/TST

BACK ISSUES: Back issues can be obtained via FTP
(ftp.jaxnet.com/private/users3n4) or directly from me via email. Let me know
which issues you'd like and I'll send them your way. If you have any of your
own stories that you would like to see in a future issue, please send them
along. If you prefer to remain anonymous, please let me know in a prominent
way.

Send all submissions mail, comments, rants, complaints, graphics and extra
mouse balls to: TEKTALES@aol.com

Thanks to the following individuals for sharing the jokes and tales you are
about to read:
macadv@aol.com, FinishHimX@aol.com, KarenR4@aol.com, ESELIG.oramail@hfm.com,
LexW@aol.com, techsupport@wayforward.com, ghoti@emanon.net

____________________________________________________________

* I M P O R T A N T W A R N I N G *

THIS IS OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE!!!!! READ NOW!!!!!!! DEADLY VIRUS FOUND!!!!!
A New computer virus has been causing computers to burst into flames. This
was just released on the Internet. Major computer companies, and
Technicians, are warning people to scan daily, and keep a fire extinguisher
within easy reach of all computers. According to the report, this new virus
was first discovered in mid-March, 1996. It took at least a week to
determine the cause. As far as what has actually been reported, over 700
computers have suddenly burst into flames, and there have been well over 100
businesses and homes destroyed, in the USA alone. Details are sketchy, but
the virus, attacks the power handling sections of the computer, sends the
circuitry into overload mode, and builds up such tremendous heat that the
fans can not transfer the heat out of the computer fast enough. Thus, the
computer eventually bursts into flames. What is even worse, there is some
sort of code written into the viral data, that actually transforms itself
into a deadly deadly gas. The computer burns in such a way, that the lead in
the solder, used in the manufacture of the circuit boards, is released into
the air in a gaseous form. Anyone breathing the smoke from this fire, will
die within 10 seconds of exposure. Many have already died from exposure to
these gasses. The number of deaths have not yet been tabulated, according to
reporters. What is even more puzzling, is the source. No one, has yet been
able to come up with any source. In fact, all computer professionals are
completely puzzled. The F.B.I. and the Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol, and
Firearms are furiously trying to locate the source of this deadly virus, and
hundreds of computer programmers, worldwide, are working on containing the
code, programmed into this virus. So far, no one has been able to come up
with any explanation, and it has been difficult to isolate, since anyone
working to solve this mystery, must work in a completely fireproof room, and
wear a completely air tight and fireproof suit, connected to a source of
oxygen. Once this virus enters your computer, there is no way to stop it. If
the virus begins attacking the circuitry, it is often too late to contain
the fire. Even shutting the computer off, will not stop the heating, since
the heat, combined with molten silicon, inside of certain components, will
actually self-generate electrical charges, thus continuing to heat the
components, and finally causing the sudden fire.
This is the worse virus, ever known to affect computers. Updates will be
released, as soon as further information is available. BE SAFE, AND
BEWARE!!!!!
____________________________________________________________ ----Is Windows
a virus ?----
No, Windows is not a virus. Here's what viruses do:

* They replicate quickly
* Okay, Windows does that

* Viruses use up valuable system resources, slowing down the system as they
do so
* okay, Windows does that

* Viruses will, from time to time, trash your hard disk * Okay, Windows does
that, too

* Viruses are usually carried, unknown to the user, along with valuable
programs and systems
* Sigh... Windows does that, too

* Viruses will occasionally make the user suspect their system is too slow
(see 2) and the user will buy new hardware * Yup, that's with Windows, too

Until now it seems Windows is a virus but there are fundamental differences:
Viruses are well supported by their authors, are running on most systems,
their program code is fast, compact and efficient and they tend to become
more sophisticated as they mature

So, Windows is *not* a virus
____________________________________________________________ -------------
TST MAIL BOX
-------------

Loved your tales, read all in one sitting from the web site.

I can relate to the TECH TALES, for although I'm not a computer tech, I do
video & film production, which, in itself can be chock full of opportunities
to do some of the silly things found in TALES.

Our usual response to something akin to some of those found in TALES is
this:

"check the UBK*, that's usually the problem" *User Brightness Knob

keep up the great work!

Mike
----------------------------------------------------------- [ Mike Sime
] It's not the time it takes to take the
[ Video Schmideo! ] takes, it's the time it takes
[ frelancr@intac.com ] BETWEEN the takes,
[ freelancr@aol.com ] that takes the time to take the takes.
-----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.intac.com/~frelancr
-----------------------------------------------------------
____________________________________________________________

Eric: #10 was the best issue yet (IMHO). I think I may have written to you
before about what seemed to me be an unnecessarily thick veneer of snot over
the tales (This is, perhaps, what EKrakaur@aol.com was referring to
obliquely in his/her tirade). Anyway, there seemed to be a tad less of the
meanness and a whole lot more good clean fun in #10. I have no idea if this
was by design, but it did the Tales a less guilty pleasure.

danielg@injersey.com
____________________________________________________________

After reading the Tales Support # Nine, forwarded to me by a friend, I was
inspired to write the following concerning the different beer brands.

Hey all that was pretty darn funny, they need to include the 64 bit Power
Mac beer! The best and finest ones made in a micro brewery, which is
currently in so high demand that they are over three months back ordered.
Nobody can seem to figure out what to tell the customers, except they
continual blame the special yeast products producers - Yeasterola, and Texas
Yeast (TY) and say that they are currently in a worldwide shortage. The
local discount liquor stores makes sale by getting people on the waiting
list for this fine brew, and then cashing there checks. They proceed to
simply tell people your beer will be here in two or three weeks max. Some
people get irate, because they the beers don't arrive in time for parties
they planned.

jongimble@mail.utexas.edu
____________________________________________________________

I work on a tech support line for an Apple clone manufacturer and find that
the vast majority of problems that end users encounter are caused by a loose
nut behind the keyboard. Not as easily fixable as it sounds.

vahidf@mail.utexas.edu
____________________________________________________________

------------
SIG-O-MANIA!
------------

************************************************************ MacMomma
"They only let me out of the house to buy Fruit Loops and Barney Videos"
************************************************************
____________________________________________________________

Rusty Spoon hrspoon@timewarp hrspoon@uncg.edu
HOW LONG A MINUTE LASTS DEPENDS ON WHICH SIDE OF THE BATHROOM DOOR YOU ARE
ON.
____________________________________________________________

-----------------------------------
ON THE MORONOMETER, THESE GO TO 11
-----------------------------------
I sold an external Apple CD drive along with an Iomega Zip to a customer who
was fairly new at computers. She was going to connect both external SCSI
devices to her desktop Mac. I made sure that she would have the proper SCSI
cables for these two devices. I tried to describe the process over the phone
before she received the hardware, but I realized that it is difficult to
picture how to create the SCSI daisy chain. I waited until her hardware
arrived and I called to see if she was having any difficulty getting them
connected. She said "No, everything is fine. My husband just went out to the
local computer store to buy a Daisy Chain."

And after he returned:

"Salesman said they only have the PC version available right now but would
be happy to special order a Mac version."
____________________________________________________________

In my house, my parents want me to put a sticker on the phone when I'm
online. So, one day, right after I get off, the phone rings. From her
bedroom, my mom asks, "Are you still online?"
____________________________________________________________

I am a tech at a company that brings in outside techs to do printer repair.
While a tech was recently working on one of our laser's he told me about a
recent trip to AT&T.

The tech went out to fix a drum printer that was jammed in a large open
office
with no dividers. The printer was in the center of the office surrounded by
desks. The tech opened up the case and started looking between the rollers
for what was causing the jam. While he was giving it the once over he
noticed a small blue thread. Pulling on the thread he found it attached to a

blue string. Pulling on the string and turning the rollers by hand he found
it was attached to a small blue patch of lace. Pulling it all the way out he

passed it to the office manager who then held it up and said, "Will the
owner

of this G-String please claim it." After a minute or two of laughter the
manager announced his intention to mount it on a plaque.
____________________________________________________________

One of our techs got a call from the archetypal clueless customer - no
matter how detailed her explanation was, it just wasn't detailed enough for
this guy. Every time she asked him to open or close a file, she had to
describe the process. After 40 minutes (half of which was spent describing
how to use the Mac operating system), she decided to just give up and let
someone else step up to bat.

"I'm going to refer this to a senior technician," she said. "He'll be
calling you right back."

"But that won't work," the customer protested. "There's a three-hour time
difference, and I won't be here in three hours."

Later, when she was telling this story to the rest of us, someone suggested
that she should have responded: "Oh, but he already called you three hours
ago - the call should be coming through any minute now!"
____________________________________________________________

A very irate customer called the Apple support line for problem demanding on
site service. It was an obvious software problem. When I explained how to
fix the problem he started yelling and screaming at me: Don't you tell me
this is a software problem!!! I've been using Macs for over 15 years and I
know what I'm talking about. (Macs came out in '84. This call was in '94.)
____________________________________________________________

Customer: I just purchased a PowerMac 8500/120 and an external gigabyte
drive. Can I put all my files programs and folders on the external drive?

Me: Certainly. You can keep anything you want on the external drive.

Customer: Good, because I don't want to keep anything on the internal hard
drive.

Me: Why not?

Customer: I don't really know, it just looks better that way.

Me: Don't you feel like you're wasting a gigabyte drive by doing that?

Customer: Hmmm. You have a point there. I never thought of that.
____________________________________________________________

It works fine until I take the CD out of the machine and then I can't get it
to run. Does the CD have to be in the machine?????
____________________________________________________________

First a little background....
I manage the tech support dept at a company which develops Childrens
software, mostly of the educational variety. I also do many of the calls.

Before the holidays, I returned the phone call of a gentleman. His wife
answered the phone and I introduced myself and indicated that I was
returning their call about the software they had purchased for their
children. I was told that I would have to call back when her husband was
home as she was unable to help, having no familiarity with the family
computer.

cust: Can you call Saturday morning?
TS: No problem.... what time would be good to call? cust: Between 11 and 1
is fine.
TS: And what time zone are you located in? cust: Oh, any time between 11 and
1.
TS: Yes ma'am, and you are in what time zone? cust: I told you, in the
morning.....
TS: Ma'am, I understand that, but are you in the Eastern, Mountain, Central
or Pacific time zone???
cust: I'm in Texas.
TS: What time is it right now?
cust: 2:00
____________________________________________________________

Just before 9am, I received a call from a man who had purchased a HP 310
printer from us to go with his PowerBook 5300. All I knew at the beginning
of the conversation is that he had a powerbook of some kind and the 310...

He had called because he was concerned with the warnings he had read about
installing the printer, and could I talk him through. I said sure...

So the first thing I asked him to do was to restart his Mac and hold down
the "shift" key, until he sees, "Welcome to Macintosh...Extensions off".
After the second time of the message failing to say, "Extensions off", I
said, "Sir, are you holding down the key that says 'shift' on it, (I had
mentioned 'shift' several dozen times by now)...His reply was, "No, I'm
holding down the long one in the middle... the space bar". After two more
tries, we finally got the extensions off, so I asked him what disks had come
with his printer. I figured out which he needed to insert, and asked him to
insert it in his disk drive.

"Where would I find that," he wanted to know. "OK, sir, what kind of
PowerBook do you have?" "Its a 310."
"Sir, that's your printer, what kind of PowerBook do you have?" "Its a 530."
(at this point I gave up this questioning simply assuming he meant one of
the 500 series)

"Ok, the drive would be on the right hand side" "There's no place on the 310
that this disk seems to fit" "Sir, that's because you need to insert the
disk in your Mac." "Oh, which way does it go?"
"OK, the label faces upward and the metal shutter goes in first" (It took
several minutes
to get the disk in right and everything, but I'll spare you the details.)

While it was installing, I figured I'd try to find out again what kind of
Mac he had. It turns out he has a 5300, not a 530.

"Sir, when you bought this, did they tell you that you would need to get a
software update from HP before this printer would work with your computer?"
"Yes"
"Did you?"
"No"

It was downhill from there.
____________________________________________________________

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Saturday, March 10, 2001 23:01
Subject: Message de Jeffito 55

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SIGNS THAT YOU MAY BE CANADIAN

You stand in "line-ups" at the movie, not lines.

You're not offended by the term, "Homo Milk"

You understand the phrase, "Could you please pass me a serviette? I just
spilled my poutine."

You eat chocolate bars instead of candy bars.

You drink pop, not soda and this doesn't bother you at all.

You know what it means to be on pogey.

You know that a mickey and 2-4's mean "Party at the camp, eh!!"

You can drink legally while still a 'teen.

You talk about the weather with strangers and friends alike.

You know that CUBA is a cheap place to travel with good cigars and no
Americans.

You get milk in bags as well as cartons and plastic jugs.

Pike is a type of fish, not some part of a highway.

You drive on a highway, not a freeway.

You know what a Robertson screwdriver is.

You have Canadian Tire money in your kitchen drawers.

Canadian Tire on any Saturday is busier than the toy stores at Christmas.

You know that "Thrills" are something to chew and "taste like soap".

You know that Mounties don't always look like that.

You know that the Friendly Giant isn't a vegetable product line.

You know that Casey and Finnegan are not a Celtic musical group.

You are excited whenever an American television show mentions Canada.

You can do all the hand actions to Sharon, Lois and Bram's
"Skin-a-ma-rinky-dinky-doo"

You were mad when "The Beachcombers" were taken off the air.

You know what a toque is.

You admit Rich Little is Canadian and you're glad Jerry Lewis is not.

You know Toronto is not a province.

You never miss "Coaches Corner".

You know all the words to "If I Had a Million Dollars"

You remember when Alanis Morissette was "Too Hot To Hold".

You have memorized the Heritage Foundation's Heritage Moments, including
your favourites, "I smell burnt toast, Doctor", "You all know I canna read a
word..." and "Kanata".

You spend sleepless nights wondering if Peter Mansbridge and Wendy Mesley
will ever find again the blissful love they once knew.

You wonder why there isn't a five dollar coin yet, because you can really
use more change. (You are already wearing your pants halfway down your ass
and the hair and three layers of skin is worn off the front of your thighs
from carrying your pocket money around.) The new coin should have a picture
of a musk-ox on it and be the size of a hamburger pattie and have fifteen
different kinds of metals in it, including poutine.

You know Ashley MacIssac isn't Celtic enough.

Your backpack has only one Canadian flag sew-on.

You have been on Speaker's Corner.

You use a red pen on your non-Canadian textbooks and fill in the missing'u's
from labor, honor, and color.

You remember "Jodie" from "Today's Special" and wonder why she reads news on
CBC.

You wonder idly if there is some government cover-up of a covert operation
behind shifting the shooting location of "X-Files" from British Columbia to
California.

You know that a "Premier" isn't a baby born a few weeks early.

You design your Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.

You live in a house that has no front step yet the door is one meter above
the ground.

The local paper covers national news on 2 pages, but requires 6 pages for
hockey.

You know 4 seasons: Winter, Still Winter, almost Winter and Construction.

You understand the Labatt Blue commercials.

You perk up when you hear the theme from "Hockey Night in Canada".

You actually get these jokes and forward them to all your Canadian friends.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gotten off drugs.

So two potheads have been charged with possession :-( and both plead "no
contest." The judge decides to be lenient on them and not give them any time
if they spend the next 24 hours reforming evil drug users. (Must have been a
first offense.)

They return to the courthouse the next day and the judge asks them how many
people they've gotten off drugs.

The first guy says, "Twenty-four!"

"Amazing," says Hizzoner, since that's about 12,000 times better than the
statistics. "How'd you do it?"

"Simple," says the head. "I just show them:`
'O' - This is your brain;
'o' - this is your brain on drugs."

"Impressive," says the judge. Turning to the second head, he says, "And how
did you fare?"

"Yer honor, I saved 233 souls from the bonds of the evil weed."

"And how did you manage that?"

"Kinda the same as the other guy, 'cept I told people:
'o' - this is your asshole;
'O' - THIS is your asshole in prison."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What to Say to Confuse Anyone Listening

Some people say that I'm superficial, but that's just on the surface.

On one hand, I'm indecisive; but on the other, I'm not.

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's intolerance.

The world's full of apathy, but I don't care.

Perspective is in the eye of the beholder.

Prejudiced people are all alike.

What is the probability that something will happen according to the odds?

Those who judge others will burn in Hell!

Exaggeration is not all it's cracked up to be.

Evil is not all bad.

I'm still not sure if I understand ambiguity.

There's no such thing as non-existence.

Cooperation can only be reached if we work together.

As far as I'm concerned, treachery will sometimes bring loyalty into
question.

He doesn't have much of a reputation, or so I've heard.

I disagree with unanimity.

I have my doubts about disbelief.

Avoid alliteration. Always.

Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

One should never generalize.

Avoid cliches like the plague.

Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Samedi 10 mars 2001 23:08
Subject: Message de Jeffito 56

--------------------------------------------------------------
Petites définitons pour vous faire rire...

ADOLESCENT : Personne qui se conduit comme un bébé lorsqu'on ne le traite
pas comme un adulte.

AUTO-STOPPEUSE : Jeune femme généralement jolie et court vêtue qui se trouve
sur votre route quand vous êtes avec votre femme.

BAGNOLE : Vieille auto que toutes les pièces font du bruit sauf la radio.

FEMME : C'est un ensemble de courbes qui font redresser une ligne

GARDES-ROBES : Endroit où pendre ses vêtements quand il n'y a plus de
poignées de porte disponibles.

GARDIENS D'ENFANTS : Adolescents tenus de se conduire comme des adultes, de
manières que les adultes qui sortent puissent se comporter comme des
adolescents.

JURY : Groupe de douze personnes, réunies par tirage au sort pour décider
qui, de l'accusé ou de la victime, a le meilleur avocat.

MARIAGE : Union qui permet à deux personnes de supporter des choses qu'ils
n'auraient pas eux besoin de supporter , s'ils étaient resté seuls.

MORT : Manque de savoir vivre.

PARENTS : Deux personnes qui montrent à un enfant à parler et à marcher,
pour ensuite lui dire, ferme ta gueule, pis assis toi !!!

PÉNIS : Une petite racine au bout d'un gros légume.

PERFECTIONNISTE : Personne incapable d'apprécier la musique de tchaïkovski
si elle ne sait pas épeler son nom.

PETER : Éternuer dans ses sous-vêtements.

POINT "G" : Point sensible de la femme situé entre les deux gros orteils.

POISSON : Animal dont la croissance est excessivement rapide entre le moment
où il est pêché et le moment où on en fait la description à ses amis.

--------------------------------------------------------------
This is funny as hell!!

This guy has always dreamed of owning a Harley Davidson.
One day he has finally saved up enough money so he goes down to the
dealer.
After he picks out the perfect bike, the dealer tells him about an old
biker
trick that will keep the chrome on his new bike free from rust. The dealer
tells him that all he has to do is to keep a
jar of Vaseline handy and put it on the chrome before it rains, and
everything
will be fine. He happily pays for the bike and leaves.
A few months later, the young man meets a woman and falls in love. She
asks
him to come home and meet her parents over dinner. He readily accepts and
the
date is set. At the appointed time, he picks her up on his Harley and they
ride to her parents house. Before they go in, she tells him that they have
a
family tradition that whoever speaks first after dinner must do the dishes.
After a delicious dinner everyone sits in silence waiting for the first
person to break the silence and get stuck doing the dishes. After a long
fifteen minutes, the young man decides
to speed things up, so he reaches over and kisses his woman in front of her
family. No one says a word. Emboldened, he slips his hand under her
blouse
and fondles her breasts. Still no one says a word. Finally, he throws her
on the table and has sex with her in front of everyone. No one says a
word.
Now he is getting desperate, so he grabs her mother and throws HER on the
table. They have even wilder sex. Still no one speaks. By now he is
thinking
what to do next when he hears thunder in the distance.
His first thought is to protect the chrome on his Harley, so he gets his
jacket, reaches in his pocket and pulls out his jar of Vaseline.
And the father says "Okay dammit, I'll do the dishes!"

--------------------------------------------------------------
FANTASY CITY, CA. - Walt Disney Co. announced in a press conference today a
long rumored merger with Apple Computer, Inc. Mixed reactions were felt
about this revelation, but many were in shock at the details of the merger.

Steve Jobs, 'iCEO' of Apple, comments, "Our iMac has done good so far,
but we want to appeal to younger kids in the future. Therefore, we have
many plans, such as bundling Disney Interactive software demos with all
future MacOS computers shipped, and rolling out a new line of computers. I
introduce the iMick, a Genie blue MacOS computer shaped like, yes, a Mickey
Mouse head. We are also planning other cartoon character lookalike
computers. As a result of the merger, we have decided to restructure our OS
X construction plan, and make it to only work on future DisMac computers.
The new DisMac computers will be using Motorola G4 processors, which may or
may not be shaped like hot air balloons."

Other celebrities on the way out commented for us.

"That Mickey's head gets to be every new kid's computer, and I can't
even take over the world??" Brain commented, as Pinky gave him bunny ears
and exclaimed "Narf! Point!"

"kids will never go for non-violent toons! What is Apple thinking! The
iMick MUST fail!" Itchy said, although preoccupied with dowsing Scratchy in
gasoline.

Speedy Gonzalez commented "The fastest mouse would sell computers faster
than that Steamboat Willy!! Arriba! Hondelé!"

Daffy Duck would not stop mumbling about how Apple "dissed the duck", so
we went to Bugs Bunny for Warner Brother's official statement on the merger.
"Apple can suck a carrot, because we'll negotiate with Microsoft and IBM!"

Jobs, overhearing Bugs, asked gleefully "Are you a Y2K bug?"

Pikachu laughed as Bugs Bunny stood, mouth gaping open, shocked. Ash
Catchem displayed disappointment that Apple decided to pick Disney's Mickey
over his electric mouse, Pikachu.

The next cartoon character to be copied is officially unknown, but many
rumors have been circulating. Rumored is a hot-pink limited edition iMinnie
to go with the iMick. Also rumored is a Powerbook G4 laptop painted in the
same pattern of Aladdin's carpet.

The iMick and OS 9 is expected to debut next month. However, iCEO Steve
Jobs will not get to see it, as he died today as a result of a mysterious
explosion in the parking lot. Police have not confirmed, but they believe
the object that exploded was a cat dowsed in gasoline.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mercredi 14 mars 2001 11:17
Subject: Message de Jeffito 57

--------------------------------------------------------------
1001 Uses for Duct Tape

"It's time for the handyman's secret weapon..." - Red Green

Last Updated: 10/10/96

This page isn't for you airplane glue or solder people out there. This is
the page for the hard-core duct taper. When your butt's on the line and you
need to joint/fasten/mount/hitch/chain two things together, you're not going
to reach for that acetylene torch or pop riveter. Nope, you just rip out
your trusty roll of duct tape. Yessiry, there's nothing like the wonderful,
hollow grunt your roll of duct tape makes when you yank out a long strip of
the magical metallic fastener. And there's nothing that a length of this
lustrous substance can't do. In addition, you have to admit... That silvery,
grid-like texture makes any possession look futuristic and worth more than
the previous owner took you for when you bought it.

But what happens when you can't think of more uses for duct tape? Don't
panic! Just consult this page for 1001 uses! Ok, so there aren't 1001 uses
on this page. But that's my goal... To find 1001 uses and post them here!

Use of the Month:
135. Cover your swimming pool with several layers and use it as a huge
trampoline. - bbaleno@ultranet.com

Current Use Count: 149
And here they are... 1001 Uses for Duct Tape, give or take 852.

1. Digitize it to make a nice background for a web page.
2. Attractive siding for your house.
3. To prevent theft, seal the doors of your car with about half a dozen
layers.
4. Disposable replacement for cufflinks.
5. Lenses for discount mirror sunglasses for the blind.
6. Use an empty roll of duct tape to join two sections of ABS drain pipe
together.
7. Create a water-tight seal for use #6.
8. Material for a highly visible, heavy-duty raincoat.
9. Graph paper for the blind.
10. Sticky-notes for the fridge.
11. Homemade orthodontic work.
12. Instant handcuffs and gags for efficient hitmen.
13. Material for a groovy wallet.
14. Spaceage bathroom tiling.
15. Stick a membrane of duct tape over top a cooking wok and you've got a
drum.
16. One piece shaving kit. Ouch.
17. Fold a strip over on itself and form it into a loop. Replacement fan
belt for your car.
18. Permanent garters to keep your socks up.
19. A great Christmas gift for the Mrs.
20. Replacement for the safety catch under the hood of your car.
21. Air/water-tight bandages.
22. Replacement for your lunch box. (Just tape all your food together into
one big ball.)
23. Tape two pens together so you can write twice as fast.
24. Make a sheet of duct tape, and wear it sticky side out on your chest
during a meal. Super effective bib.
25. For safety, coat your hands with a couple layers of it when you're
handling hot, sharp, or radioactive objects.
26. If someone won't pay you their gambling debts, tape his nose to his
forehead.
27. Make a pair of waterproof underwear for fishing.
28. Fly tape (for those big-ass, mutant houseflies).
29. Bookmark. (Just try to lose your place in the book now!)
30. Tape the safety guard back on your circular saw so it doesn't get in the
way.
31. Use duct tape to bundle up all those AOL starter kits lying around your
house for the garbage man.
32. Tape your TV to the ceiling above your bed so you can watch it while
lying down.
33. Roll up some duct tape into a little roll half an inch in diameter. Cut
it in half. Earplugs or noseplugs.
34. Instead of gargling with mouthwash, chew duct tape.
35. Cost-effective roof rack for your car.
36. Liquor cabinet lock for alcoholics.
37. To prevent losing your TV remote, duct tape it to your arm.
38. Measuring tape (just count the squares).
39. Need more overhead light in a room? Tape a lamp to the ceiling.
40. Pet hair brush. (Use it carefully, or the Humane Society will put you on
their '10 Most Wanted' list.)
41. To climb a wall/cliff/tree, just cover yourself in duct tape, sticky
side out.
42. Stay awake by taping your eyelids to your forehead on those late drives
home. (Also act as reflectors to oncoming cars.) - Adam Childers;
toneman@prophet.bluenet.net
43. Tape yourself to the toilet after a bad Mexican dish. - Adam Childers;
toneman@prophet.bluenet.net
44. Denture adhesive. (use small strips) - John Spaulding;
jspauldi@sctcorp.com
45. A low cost replacement seatbelt. - John Spaulding; jspauldi@sctcorp.com
46. Do it yourself bikini. - maryellen@ibm.net
47. The babysitter's best friend... When the kids get crazy you can always
tape them to the sofa. - maryellen@ibm.net
48. Quick repair for the bowrail you broke on your dogsled. -
VSKLZ@UAA.ALASKA.EDU
49. Effective binding around the ribs that broke the bowrail. (Ouch) -
VSKLZ@UAA.ALASKA.EDU
50. Instant Babysitter: Cover kid in duct tape sticky side out, throw 'im
against wall with attached food in case of long stay, and enjoy your night
out or possible trip to Bahamas. - Alfred B. Loranz; aloranz@ultranet.com
51. Going to a wedding? Your silver/gray cummerbund will be the envy of
all--and a perfect fit, too. - kout4@iquest.net
52. Improve the world: Tape Newt Gingrich's mouth shut. - Tony Molinaro;
enticer007@acronet.net
53. Take a piece and put it on your annoying brother's hair then rip it off.
- Tony Molinaro; enticer007@acronet.net
54. Great diaper tab replacement when you're out of diapers and have to
reuse them. - Internet Connect Niagara; username@niagara.com
55. Our office was taping a very low budget ($0) production, and needed one
of those "chopping type story boards." We hinged a couple of pieces of wood
together, but since we had no paint, we cover the boards with white duct
tape, and used black electrical tape to make the stripes on it. Looks sharp
and is very durable. - fccgi01@kdsi.net
56. The US Navy uses duct tape to repair Radoms on fighter aircraft. They
call it "thousand mile an hour" tape. - teaton@biddeford.com
57. If the tree you hang your hammock on starts splitting, duct tape the
trunk for support. - kkren726@uwsp.edu
58. To prevent campfire burns, wrap some around your hands when roasting
wieners without a stick. - kkren726@uwsp.edu
59. To keep the bumper on your car securely fastened.
60. Tape your cat's paws together when you bathe it so you don't get
scratched all to hell. - SubDog1@aol.com
61. Replace the fabric on the roof of your 70's convertible car. (True
story!) - James Daugherty; loonie@fyi.net
62. Use it to tape Red's mouth shut so he will quit talking about duct tape.
- James, Karl & Patrick; magnolia@supernet.net
63. Use it to tape a Red Green disparager's mouth shut so he'll learn not to
meddle with powers he cannot comprehend! [Hey... Turnabout is fairplay. :-)
]
64. When I bought my car in 1990, I wrapped the spare key in plastic wrap
and duct taped it to the frame of the car. Several weeks ago, AFTER six
years and 80,000 miles of driving, I locked my keys in the car. I reached
under the car and got the spare key which was still there and in great
shape! - Terry Knebel; tknebel@bright.net
65. Put a few thousand layers over a new pair of shoes and they'll last
forever (if your feet never grow).Paul D. Yeoman; yeoman@execulink.com
66. Great for retreading twenty year-old, worn out, shredded tires. (Tip:
Take the tires off your vehicle first for easier application of the duct
tape) - enter_your_e-mail_address_here@splinter.boeing.com
67. To avoid the expensive bill for neutering your dog, simply wrap a few
feet of duct tape around his waist. - Linda Craft; lindac@fuse.net
68. Cheap, ultra-effective toilet paper (use at your own risk). -
Ken.Herzog@m.k12.ut.us
69. Mouse trap. (Place sticky side up on the floor with cheese on it) - John
Steffy; jlane@wam.umd.edu
70. Toothbrush holder. (Just slap a loop of duct tape sticky side out on
bathroom mirror) - John Steffy; jlane@wam.umd.edu
71. Resole your favorite old boots or sneakers. Durable, fashionable, and
easily seen at night. - John Steffy; jlane@wam.umd.edu
72. To make your car look like one of those limos with the mirror windows,
just coat all your windows (except the front one) with duct tape.
73. After you make the mirror windows, use some duct tape to attach an
elaborate system of mirrors on the outside of your car so you have a
functional rear view mirror.
74. Patch up the holes in your tent, or just make a whole new tent that's
completely waterproof and bugproof (works on the same principle as
flypaper). - Laura; pezgirl@en.com
75. Poor man's tanning bed. Line the inside of a canoe, Volkswagen, or other
defunct roofless box with tape (silver side out), set out in the sun, step
inside, and broil yourself until you're done. - Jenny Leonard;
leonajl@okra.millsaps.edu
76. Wrap duct tape around your school books for an instant backpack. (And be
sure to tape the bundle to your shoulder for easy carrying.) - Allen
McColley; mccolley@faribault.polaristel.net
77. Duct tape your mouse pad to your desk to keep it from sliding around.-
Allen McColley; mccolley@faribault.polaristel.net
78. While you're at it, tape your joystick and keyboard to your desk, and
even your monitor, just in case you feel like smacking it when your system
crashes.
79. The perfect birthday present for Red. - Allen McColley;
mccolley@faribault.polaristel.net
80. Wrap about 5 rolls of tape around #62's head, tie the free end around a
pine tree, and then throw him off a cliff. That'd probably take care of
Red's hate mail and would give #62 a nice smooth scalp. - Taber Knight;
tknight@polarnet.com
81. On Halloween, wrap yourself in duct tape from the neck down and put a
fishbowl on your head--instant Apollo 13 costume. Then draw some big eyes on
the fishbowl with a black marker, and go to a casting call for the X-Files.
- Bert Beadle; 75474.1357@compuserve.com
82. Live at the bottom of a hill? Basement filled with water? No problem!
Erect a dam around your house with duct tape. - Justinrox@aol.com
83. Use it to fix the cracks in your engine block. - Dave Hart;
dhart@isns1.shasta.com
84. The landlord's best friend in adding exotic decor to a kitchen. Use as
kitchen shelf liners, easy wipe back splash for counter and permanent
washable durable wallpaper. - danden@baynet.net
85. Duct Tape makes a wonderful leash for walking your pet elephant. - Gary
Warne; warne@kgv1.bems.boeing.com
86. Makes a terrific tether for attaching satellites to space vehicles (NASA
please take note). - Gary Warne; warne@kgv1.bems.boeing.com
87. A loop of Duct Tape under new sod helps to keep it in place while the
roots are growing. Better yet, tape your whole lawn with Duct Tape and paint
it green... Never needs mowing again. - Gary Warne;
warne@kgv1.bems.boeing.com
88. Build a better mousetrap: Place duct tape sticky side up next to some
cheese. - Michael Humphrey; mikehump@digital-ren.com
89. Protect yourself against really bad cases of chapped lips. - Michael
Dickey; sarge@cwnet.com
90. Ear protectors for when your mother-in-law is visiting (you wrap several
layers firmly around her mouth). - Michael Dickey; sarge@cwnet.com
91. Makes a handy and chique dog leash. - Phil Rivoire;
da851@freenet.carleton.ca
92. Kleenex for people with large lung capacities and powerful diaphragms.
93. I am nominating my husband for "Lawn Nerd" of the week. He is outside
spraying poison-weed killer on the lawn. To keep the "bad stuff" off his
legs, he has taped duct tape around the top of his boots. We are inside
claiming not to know him. - Robinknit@msn.com
94. For those who cannot afford the high price of pet supplies, take a loop
of duct tape sticky side out and it use it to clean the kitty litter instead
of replacing it. - Burt
95. Tape two horn-shaped duct tape pieces to your head and run around
saying, 'Catch me, I'm a steer!' when you are in trouble with the law.
You'll only get half the sentence. (Believe me it works!) -
Dipshwack@aol.com
96. NASA makes it standard policy to have shuttle astronauts carry at least
one roll of duct tape with them into orbit. - Talyn; guest@sailor.lib.md.us
97. Use it to force President Clinton to keep his pants on and his mouth
shut. - Red Robin; urbains@sun.tir.com
98. Use it to keep a younger brother/sister from hacking into your computer
system while you're away on vacation (i.e., wrap your keyboard and monitor
in the stuff). - Red Robin; urbains@sun.tir.com
99. Wrap one or two hundred layers around your beer can to insulate it, keep
it cold. - aharris@bbs.sd68.nanaimo.bc.ca
100. Get Dune-esque and make yourself a duct tape stillsuit.

Woohoo! That makes 100 uses! We're a tenth of the way there!

101. For teachers: Use it to keep those hyper students in their seats all
period. - kennedy; kennedym@pop.erols.com
102. For students: Once you rip yourself out of your seat, duct tape the
teacher's last piece of chalk to the middle of his/her back.
103. Put a strip of duct tape, sticky side out, on the side of your stereo
and stick all your CDs to it. Instant CD holder. - kennedy;
kennedym@pop.erols.com
104. Stick a worm to a strip and tie the strip to the end of your fishing
line. Just let those fish TRY and get away! - Jim Ammon;
jdammon@azstarnet.com
105. Impress you low tech friends by taping up a large portion of your
living room wall. Tell them it's a "Home Theater Projection Screen". -
toneman@.bluenet.net
106. John Bobbit first-aid kit! - toneman@.bluenet.net
107. Tape socks together before you wash them so they don't get lost. -
toneman@.bluenet.net
108. Tape your hub caps to your car so they won't be stolen. -
toneman@.bluenet.net
109. Tape your golf tee to your ball so you won't loose it. (Until you hit
the ball anyway.) - toneman@.bluenet.net
110. Tape your wife's eyes shut before she goes shopping. -
toneman@.bluenet.net
111. Wrap your wife's credit card in duct tape before she goes shopping. If
that doesn't work, tape your mailbox shut to avoid the bill. -
toneman@.bluenet.net
112. Just wad a little up after you knock your last Baseball over the fence.
- Aaron & Paul Richardson; arichard@mail.win.org
113. Makes great streamers for the wings of that old DC-9 you've been
meaning to customize. - Aaron & Paul Richardson; arichard@mail.win.org
114. Wanna get hitched and can't afford a wedding ring? Guaranteed not to
need resizing. - Aaron & Paul Richardson; arichard@mail.win.org
115. Makes a great turban for the 90's if your ever in the Middle East. -
Aaron & Paul Richardson; arichard@mail.win.org
116. One roll can change a screen door into a well insulated storm door for
those blustery winter nights. - Aaron & Paul Richardson;
arichard@mail.win.org
117. Belly button lint remover. - Aaron & Paul Richardson;
arichard@mail.win.org
118. Who needs a muzzle? Tape your dog's mouth shut. - Aaron & Paul
Richardson; arichard@mail.win.org
119. Place a strip inside your baseball mit. Win that Gold Glove award. -
Aaron & Paul Richardson; arichard@mail.win.org
120. Put a little cologne on a strip and stick it in your car. Instant air
freshener. - Aaron & Paul Richardson; arichard@mail.win.org
121. Damn earthquakes keep ruining your good china? Tape it to the cabinet.
- Aaron & Paul Richardson; arichard@mail.win.org
122. Make an airtight seal to keep your half empty beer cans from going flat
over night. - Aaron & Paul Richardson; arichard@mail.win.org
123. Avoid those pesky pick-pockets by taping your wallet to your buttocks.
- Aaron & Paul Richardson; arichard@mail.win.org
124. Use duct tape to keep all the volumes of the Beatles Anthology
together. (Leave room for more, though) - Aaron & Paul Richardson;
arichard@mail.win.org
125. Tint your monitor. (severely) - Aaron & Paul Richardson;
arichard@mail.win.org
126. A little duct tape on the bottom of your friend's mouse makes a great
practical joke. - Aaron & Paul Richardson; arichard@mail.win.org
127. Tape together some old toys to make a trophy for the person with the
most uses for duct tape. - Aaron & Paul Richardson; arichard@mail.win.org
128. Carry a roll with you so that when you open up a package in Walmart you
can tape it shut and nobody will know the difference. - Aaron & Paul
Richardson; arichard@mail.win.org
129. Wrap grandma's pills in a layer so they'll go down smoother. - Aaron &
Paul Richardson; arichard@mail.win.org
130. Cut about 100 3-foot strips of duct tape. Stick them together
lengthwise in groups of two, sticky sides facing each other. Poke small
holes in the ends of each strip. Run string through the holes. Hang in a
window. Congratulations! You now have Venetian blinds! -
104271.3111@compuserve.com
131. To repair radial tires, put a couple of layers over the hole in the
inner tube, or if you can get the tire off, place a couple of pieces over
the puncture. Remount the tire on the rim and your back in business! (This
application actually worked; I was able to drive twenty miles to a repair
shop before the tire went flat again!) - ROUND EYE;
hoscheit@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca
132. The building maintenance man used to use it as drywall tape. (He used
to work in an oil refinery). - Joe Conway; Josephc@voicenet.com
133. Who needs a spice rack? Just tape your various spices to the wall. -
John; sheehan1@ix.netcom.com
134. Wrap some around your bellbottoms and go to a disco. They look
authentic and are cheaper. However, the fly is a bit of a problem. -
douglasglenadams; wwbrown@eagle.wbm.ca
135. Cover your swimming pool with several layers and use it as a huge
trampoline. - bbaleno@ultranet.com
136. On the fourth day of a fishing trip in Ontario at the height of black
fly season and you've decided to change jeans only to find a hole in the
knee of the 'new' pair? Duct tape it closed, those little buggers will never
get past it. - Jim Daugherty; loonie@fyi.net
137. Had a fender-bender and now body parts are hanging loose? Forget the
pop rivets and body putty, just duct tape everything back together. - Jim
Daugherty; loonie@fyi.net
138. I hate when binders fall apart. DT is a great binder binder! - Adam
Brock; abrock@MSDEV1.Waterloo.ATTGIS.COM
139. Rock climbing harness (sure beats a body belay!) - Adam Brock;
abrock@MSDEV1.Waterloo.ATTGIS.COM
140. Anti-perspirant. - Adam Brock; abrock@MSDEV1.Waterloo.ATTGIS.COM
141. Lamp shade. - Adam Brock; abrock@MSDEV1.Waterloo.ATTGIS.COM
142. If you have a lot of time on your hands, build a castle out of duct
tape and match sticks. - Jeff Wahlberg; wahlberg@thor.pla-net.net
143. Tired of your attack dogs, cats, alligators running away? Tape them to
the door of your match stick castle. - Jeff Wahlberg;
wahlberg@thor.pla-net.net
144. Patch up the hole in the ozone layer. - tim; tim@gil.net
145. The best way to rid the world of door-to-door salesmen: duct tape every
single one that comes to your house to the next space shuttle to launch. -
stefko@westol.com
146. Take an old mobile home. Pull everything out of it and cover the inside
with highly-reflective, silver duct tape. Now enjoy the world's biggest
solar-powered oven (and tanning bed). - stefko@westol.com
147. Smash your snowmobile into a tree, then duct tape the hood together
again to gain extra flexible aerodynamics. - Douglas H. Johnston;
dhj@igs.net
148. A better way than scraping (and sanding, sawing, burning) to remove
paint. - Raymond F. Sebold; shdtree@shaysnet.com
149. Wrap a small cardboard box in duct tape. Cost-effective Tupperware. -
Raymond F. Sebold; shdtree@shaysnet.com

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Date: Vendredi 13 avril 2001 10:59
Subject: Message de Jeffito 58

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Objet : l'argent

Voici un gentil petit poème sur l'argent -

L'ARGENT...

Il peut acheter une maison
Mais pas un foyer

Il peut acheter un lit
Mais pas le sommeil

Il peut acheter une horloge
Mais pas le temps

Il peut acheter un livre
Mais pas la connaissance

Il peut acheter une position
Mais pas le respect

Il peut payer le médecin
Mais pas la santé.

Il peut acheter du sang
Mais pas la vie

Il peut acheter du sexe
Mais pas de l'amour

Alors comme vous pouvez le constater, l'argent n'est pas grand chose; et
souvent il amène des problèmes et des souffrances Je vous dis ceci parce
que vous êtes mes amis, et parce que je vous aime beaucoup, je désire vous
éviter ces désagréments. Alors, envoyez moi tout votre argent et je
souffrirai pour vous. Du comptant seulement s'il vous plaît ... en petites
coupures!

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Beer OS

IF BEER WAS LIKE OPERATING SYSTEMS...

DOS Beer

Requires you to use your own can opener, and that you read the
directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only came in
an 8oz can, but now comes in a 16oz can. The can is divided into eight
compartments of 2oz each, which have to be accessed separately. Soon
to be discontinued, although a lot of people are going to keep
drinking it after it's no longer available.

Macintosh Beer

At first came only in a 16oz can, but now comes in a 32oz can.
Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look identical.
When you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The ingredients
list is not on the can. If you call to ask about the ingredients, you
are told that "you don't need to know." A notice on the side reminds
you to drag your empties to the trashcan.

Windows 3.1 Beer

The world's most popular beer. Comes in a 16oz can that looks a lot
like Mac Beer's. Requires that you already own a DOS Beer. Claims that
it allows you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously, but in
reality you can only drink a few of them, very slowly, especially
slowly if you are drinking the Windows Beer at the same time.
Sometimes, for no apparent reason, a can of Windows Beer will explode
when you open it.

OS/2 Beer

Comes in a 32oz can. Does allow you to drink several DOS Beers
simultaneously. Allows you to drink Windows 3.1 Beer simultaneously
too, but somewhat slower. Advertises that the cans won't explode when
you open them, even if you shake them up. You never see anyone
drinking OS/2 Beer, but the manufacturer (International Beer
Manufacturing) claims that 9 million six-packs have been sold.

Windows 95 Beer

Only just out, Windows 95 Beer looks a lot like Mac Beer but tastes
more like Windows 3.1 Beer. It comes in 32oz cans, but when you look
inside, the cans only have 16oz of beer in them. Most people will
probably keep drinking Windows 3.1 Beer until their friends try
Windows 95 Beer and say they like it. The ingredients list, when you
look at the small print, has some of the same ingredients that come in
DOS Beer, even though the manufacturer claims that this is an entirely
new brand.

Windows NT Beer

Comes in a 32oz cans, but you can only buy it by the truckload. This
causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger refrigerators. The
can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the company promises to
change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's. Touted as an
"industrial strength" beer, and suggested only for use in bars.

UNIX Beer

This very heavy beer comes in 32oz cans, and has been around for
years, rumour has it that it was originally brewed as a hoax by a
couple of bored workers, only for them to find that some people
actually liked the stuff. It tends to be drunk only by freaks or
eccentric academics, often with beards; and drinkers of it do not like
drinkers of any other beer. In its basic form it doesn't look
particularly impressive, but with the addition of a magic ingredient
named "X", it can be converted into an all-singing all-dancing beer on
a par with the others. Many other varieties exist, with a huge range
of flavours and (often unpronouneceable) ingredients. It must be
stressed, however, that even then it is strictly an acquired taste.

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Date: Dimanche 22 avril 2001 22:27
Subject: Message de Jeffito 59

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MATHS DU "DATING" :
* Gars brillant + fille brillante = "date"
* Gars brillant + fille épaisse = botte
* Gars épais + fille brillante = mariage
* Gars épais + fille épaisse = grossesse

MATHS DU BUSINESS :
* Boss brillant + employé brillant = profits
* Boss brillant + employé épais = production
* Boss épais + employé brillant = promotion
* Boss épais + employé épais = overtime

MATHS DU MAGASINAGE :
* Un gars va payer 2$ pour un truc de 1$ dont il a besoin.
* Une femme va payer 1$ pour un truc de 2$ dont elle n'a pas besoin.

ÉQUATIONS GÉNÉRALES ET STATISTIQUES :
* Une femme s'inquiète de l'avenir jusqu'à ce qu'elle se marie.
* Un gars se fout de l'avenir jusqu'à ce qu'il se marie.
* Un gars a réussi quand il fait plus d'argent que sa femme peut en
dépenser.
* Une femme a réussi quand elle a trouvé un gars de même.

LE BONHEUR :
* Pour être heureuse avec un gars, il faut qu'une femme le comprenne
beaucoup et l'aime un peu.
* Pour être heureux avec une femme, il faut qu'un gars l'aime beaucoup et
qu'il n'essaye pas de la comprendre.

LA MÉMOIRE :
* Dans un couple, le gars doit oublier ses erreurs.
* C'est inutile que deux personnes se souviennent des mêmes choses.

PROPENSION A CHANGER :
* Une femme marie un gars en s'attendant à ce qu'il change mais il ne change
pas.
* Un gars marie une femme en s'attendant à ce qu'elle ne change pas mais
elle change.

TECHNIQUE DE GUEULAGE :
Dans une engueulade, une femme a toujours le dernier mot. Tout ce qu'un
homme dira ensuite est le début d'une nouvelle engueulade.

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20 Things to do at a Drive Thru

1. Stand close to the speaker and yell your order, using colorful
explitives in ways which would embarass the patrons inside.

2. Drive through backwards.

3. Belch your order.

4. After ordering, cover the speaker and mic with transparent tape.
Watch as customers and order-takers are unable to hear each other and,
thus, each raises his/her volume.

5. Barter. Offer a Whopper for a Big Mac...

6. Walk through.

7. Speak a foreign language (mak one up if you have to). When the
manager comes to the mic, speak English and inquire as to why the
order-taker had such difficulty understanding you...

8. Repeat everything the order-taker says.

9. Attempt to take the oreder-taker's order ("Hi, may I take your
order?") before they get a chance to take yours.

10. Order confusing items, i.e., "Hi, I'll have a large orange Coke and
a small meduim fries, please,".

11. In a crowded drive-thru line, place a HUGE order, then slip out of
line and watch the fun as the person behind you is handed 40 bags of
food.

12. When you arrive at the window to pick up your food, hand them
several bags of garbage & ask if they'll dispose of it for you. Make
sure it smells.

13. Drive thorugh with a carload of naked people.

14. Speak in such a garbled fashion that the order-taker will think
there is a problem with the speaker and ask you to order at the window.
When you arrive at the window, speak in the same sarbled,
incomprehensible fashion.

15. Drive through with someone on the hood to accept the food.

16. Bring along a Mr. Microphone. When the order-taker speaks, aim the
mic at their speaker, but do so while aiming the Mr. Microphone speaker
at the mic to produce excruciating feedback of their own voice.

17. One word: Flatulence!

18. Have a friend hide in the trunk. When you approach the window to
pickup your order, have him start yelling and banging his fists on the
trunk.

19. If you are a male, have a female friend place the order by speaking
VERY seductively and suggestively into the speaker. When she finishes,
have her hide and pull up to accept your order. See how many of the
order-taker's fellow employees have been called over to the window to
"check out the babe".

20. Change a flat tire in the drive-thru lane.

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Date: Mardi 01 mai 2001 23:33
Subject: Message de Jeffito 60

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30 Signs That Technology Has Taken Over Your Life:
-- Joe Mullich, AmericanWay Magazine, 11/15/94.

1. Your stationery is more cluttered than Warren Beatty's address book.
The letterhead lists a fax number, e-mail addresses for two on-line
services, and your Internet address, which spreads across the breadth of
the letterhead and continues to the back. In essence, you have conceded
that the first page of any letter you write *is* letterhead.

2. You have never sat through an entire movie without having at least one
device on your body beep or buzz.

3. You need to fill out a form that must be typewritten, but you can't
because there isn't one typewriter in your house -- only computers with
laser printers.

4. You think of the gadgets in your office as "friends," but you forget
to send your father a birthday card.

5. You disdain people who use low baud rates.

6. When you go into a computer store, you eavesdrop on a salesperson
talking with customers -- and you butt in to correct him and spend the
next twenty minutes answering the customers' questions, while the
salesperson stands by silently, nodding his head.

7. You use the phrase "digital compression" in a conversation without
thinking how strange your mouth feels when you say it.

8. You constantly find yourself in groups of people to whom you say the
phrase "digital compression." Everyone understands what you mean, and
you are not surprised or disappointed that you don't have to explain it.

9. You know Bill Gates' e-mail address, but you have to look up your own
social security number.

10. You stop saying "phone number" and replace it with "voice number,"
since we all know the majority of phone lines in any house are plugged
into contraptions that talk to other contraptions.

11. You sign Christmas cards by putting :-) next to your signature.

12. Off the top of your head, you can think of nineteen keystroke symbols
that are far more clever than :-).

13. You back up your data every day.

14. Your wife asks you to pick up some minipads for her at the store and
you return with a rest for your mouse.

15. You think jokes about being unable to program a VCR are stupid.

16. On vacation, you are reading a computer manual and turning the pages
faster than everyone else who is reading John Grisham novels.

17. The thought that a CD could refer to finance or music rarely
enters your mind.

18. You are able to argue persuasively the Ross Perot's phrase
"electronic town hall" makes more sense than the term "information
superhighway," but you don't because, after all, the man still uses
hand-drawn pie charts.

19. You go to computer trade shows and map out your path of the exhibit
hall in advance. But you cannot give someone directions to your house
without looking up the street names.

20. You would rather get more dots per inch than miles per gallon.

22. You know without a doubt that disks come in five-and-a- quarter-and
three-and-a-half-inch sizes.

23. Al Gore strikes you as an "intriguing" fellow.

24. You own a set of itty-bitty screw-drivers and you actually know where
they are.

25. While contemporaries swap stories about their recent hernia
surgeries, you compare mouse-induced index-finger strain with a
nine-year-old.

26. You are so knowledgeable about technology that you feel secure enough
to say "I don't know" when someone asks you a technology question instead
of feeling compelled to make something up.

27. You rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile
tires.

28. You have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you
own turns bread into charcoal.

29. You have ended friendships because of irreconcilably different
opinions about which is better -- the track ball or the track *pad*.

30. You understand all the jokes in this message. If so, my friend,
technology has taken over your life. We suggest, for your own good, that
you go lie under a tree and write a haiku. And don't use a laptop.

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Quand le sage montre la lune, l'imbécile regarde le doigt.
-- Proverbe chinois

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