So you think you're computer-illiterate? Check out the following excerpts from a Wall Street Journal article by Jim Carlton -- Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in. Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn't read word processing files from his old diskettes. After trouble-shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was found that the customer labeled the diskettes then rolled them into the typewriter to type the labels. Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed copies of the floppies. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door to his room. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key. Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so a Dell tech suggested he go to the local Egghead. "Yeah, I got me a couple of friends,"the customer replied. When told Egghead was a software store, the man said, "Oh, I thought you meant for me to find a couple of geeks." Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually. A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was "bad and an invalid". The tech explained that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally. An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get her new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse. Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand-new computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in, and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked "What power switch?" Send this story to a friend 1 John Pernicky and friend Sal Hawkins, of the great state of Washington, decided to attend a local Metallica concert at the Amphitheater at George, Washington. Having no tickets (but 18 beers among them) they sat in the parking lot, and after finishing the beer, decided that it would be easy enough to hop over the nine-foot high fence and sneak into the show. The two friends pulled their pickup truck over to the fence and the plan was for John--100 pounds heavier than Sal-to hop over, and then assist his friend over the fence. Unfortunately for John, there was a 30 foot drop on the other side of the fence. Having heaved himself over, he found himself crashing through a tree. His fall was abruptly halted by a large branch which snagged him by his shorts. Dangling from the tree, with one arm broken, John looked down and saw a group of bushes below him. Figuring the bushes would break his fall, John removed his pocket knife and proceeded to cut away his shorts to free himself from the tree. When finally free, John crashed below into Holly bushes. The sharp leaves scratched his entire body and now being without his shorts, he was the unwilling victim of a holly branch penetrating his rectal cavity. To make matters worse, his pocket knife proceeded to fall with him and landed three inches into his left thigh. Seeing his friend in considerable pain and agony, Sal decided to throw him a rope and pull him to safety. However, weighing about 100 pounds less, he decided the best course of action would be to tie the rope to the pickup truck. This is when things went from bad to worse. In his drunken state, Sal put the truck into the wrong gear,pressed on the gas, and crashed through the fence, landing on and killing his friend. Sal was thrown from the truck, suffered massive internal injuries and also died at the scene. Police arrived to find a pickup truck with its driver thrown 100 feet from the vehicle and upon moving the truck, a half naked man, with numerous scratches, a holly stick up his rectum, a knife in his thigh, and a pair of shorts dangling from the tree branches 25 feet in the air. Send this story to a friend 2 From a radio program, a true report of a happening in Michigan, USA. A guy buys a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee for $30,000 and has $400+ monthly payments. He and a friend go duck hunting and of course all the lakes are frozen. These two Atomic Brains go to the lake with the guns, the dog, the beer and of course the new vehicle. They drive out onto the lake ice and get ready. Now, they want to make some kind of a natural landing area for the ducks, something for the decoys to float on. In order to make a hole large enough to look like something a wandering duck would fly down and land on, it is going to take a little more effort than an ice hole drill. Out of the back of the new Grand Cherokee comes a stick of dynamite with a short, 40-second fuse. Now these two Rocket Scientists do take into consideration that if they place the stick of dynamite on the ice at a location far from where they are standing (and the new Grand Cherokee), they don't want to take the risk of slipping on the ice when they run from the burning fuse and possibly go up in smoke with the resulting blast. So, they decide to light this 40-second fuse and throw the dynamite. Remember a couple of paragraphs back when I mentioned the vehicle, the beer,the guns and the dog? Yes, the dog: A highly trained Black Lab used for retrieving, especially things thrown by the owner. You guessed it, the dog takes off at a high rate of doggy speed on the ice and captures the stick of dynamite with the burning 40-second fuse about the time it hits the ice. The two men yell, scream, wave arms and wonder what to do now. The dog, cheered on, keeps coming. One of the guys grabs the shotgun and shoots the dog. The shotgun is loaded with 8 duck shot, hardly big enough to stop a Black Lab. The dog stops for a moment,slightly confused but continues on. Another shot and this time the dog, still standing, becomes really confused & of course scared,thinking these two Nobel Prize winners have gone insane. He takes off to find cover, (with the now really short fuse burning on the stick of dynamite).... under the brand new Cherokee. BOOM ! Dog and Cherokee are blown to bits and sink to the bottom of the lake in a very large hole, leaving the two candidates for Co-leaders of the Known Universe standing there with this "I can't believe this happened" look on their faces. The insurance company says that sinking a vehicle in a lake by illegal use of explosives is not covered. He had yet to make the first of those $400+ a month payments. Send this story to a friend 3
