Computer Humor

Once upon a midnight dreary,
Fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bedsheets,
Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets;
Having reached the bottom line
I took a floppy from the drawer.
Typing with a steady hand,
I then invoked the SAVE command
But got instead a reprimand: it read
"Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

Was this some occult illusion?
Some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices Solomon himself had never faced before.
Carefully I weighed the options.
These three seemed to be the top ones.
Clearly, now I must adopt one. Choose:
"Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

With my fingers pale and trembling
Slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee
Finally I pressed a key ----
But on the screen what did I see? Again:
"Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

I tried to catch the chips off-guard---
I pressed again but twice as hard
Luck was just not in the cards. I saw what I had seen before.
Now I typed in desperation,
Trying random combinations.
Still there came the incantation. Choose:
"Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

There I sat, distraught,
exhausted by my own machine accosted
Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor.
And then I saw an awful sight:
A bold and blinding flash of light---
A lightning bolt had cut the night and shook me to my very core.
I saw the screen collapse and die;
"No, No, my database", I cried.
I thought I heard a voice reply,
"You'll see your data
NEVERMORE!"

To this day I do not know
The place to which lost data goes.
I bet it goes to heaven where the angels have it stored.
But as for productivity, well
I fear that it goes straight to hell.
And that's the tale I have to tell. Your choice:
"Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about
who was better on his computer. They had been going at it for days, and
God was tired of hearing all of the bickering. Finally God said, "Cool
it, I am going to set up a test that will run two hours and I will judge
who does the better job."

So down Satan and Jesus sat at the keyboards and typed
away. They moused. They did spreadsheets. They wrote reports.
They sent faxes. They sent e-mail.
They sent out e-mail with attachments.
They downloaded. They did some genealogy reports.
They made cards. They did every known job.

But ten minutes before their time was up, lightning
suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, the rain poured and, of
course, the electricity went off.

Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every
curse word known in the underworld. Jesus just sighed. The electricity
finally flickered back on, and each of them restarted their computers.

Satan started searching frantically, screaming "It's
gone! It's all gone! I lost everything when the power went out!"

Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of
his files from the past two hours. Satan observed this and became irate.
"Wait! He cheated, how did he do it?"

God shrugged and said, "Jesus saves."

There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his desire
to become a great writer.

When asked to define "great" he said, "I want to write stuff that
the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a
truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl
in pain and anger!"

Costello: I just got my first computer.
Abbott:   That's great, Lou. What did you get?

Costello: A Pentium II-266, with 40 Megs of RAM, a 2.1 Gig hard drive,
         and a 24X CD-ROM.
Abbott:   That's terrific, Lou.

Costello: But I don't know what any of it means!
Abbott:   You will in time.

Costello: That's exactly why I'm here to see you.
Abbott:   Oh?

Costello: I heard that you're a real computer expert.
Abbott:   Well, I don't know . . .

Costello: Yes-sir-ee. You know your stuff. And you're going to train me.
Abbott:   Really?

Costello: Uh huh. And I am here for my first lesson.
Abbott:   O.K. Lou. What do want to know?

Costello: I am having no problem turning it on, but I heard that you
          should be very careful how you turn it off.
Abbott:   That's true.

Costello: So, here I am working on my new computer and I want to turn
              it off. What do I do?
Abbott:   Well, first you press the Start button, and then . . .

Costello: No, I told you I want to turn it off.
Abbott:   I know, you press the Start button . . .

Costello: Wait a second. I want to turn it Off. I know how to start it.
          So tell me what to do.
Abbott:   I did.

Costello: When?
Abbott:   When I told you to press the Start button.

Costello: Why should I press the Start button?
Abbott:   To shut off the computer.

Costello: I press Start to stop?
Abbott:   Well, Start doesn't actually stop the computer.

Costello: I knew it! So what do I press?
Abbott:   Start.

Costello: Start what?
Abbott:   Start button.

Costello: Start button to do what?
Abbott:   Shut down.

Costello: You don't have to get rude!
Abbott:   No, no, no! That's not what I meant.

Costello: Then say what you mean.
Abbott:   To shut down the computer, press . . .

Costello: Don't say, "Start!"
Abbott:   Then what do you want me to say?

Costello: Look, if I want to turn off the computer, I am willing to
          press the Stop button, the End button and Cease and Desist
   button, but no one in their right mind presses the Start to
   Stop.
Abbott:   But that's what you do.

Costello: And you probably Go at Stop signs, and Stop at Green lights.
Abbott:   Don't be ridiculous.

Costello: I'm being ridiculous? Well, I think it's about time we
   started this conversation.
Abbott:   What are you talking about?

Costello: I am starting this conversation right now. Good-bye.

Amish Virus

You have just received the Amish Virus.
Since we do not have electricity nor computers, you are on the honor system.
Please delete all of your files.

Thank thee.

An English teacher was explaining to his students the concept of gender association in the English
language. He stated how hurricanes at one time were given only feminine names and how ships and planes were
usually referred to as "she."

One of the students raised their hand and asked, "What gender is a computer?" The teacher wasn't certain
which it was, so he divided the class into two groups, males in one, females in the other, and asked them
to decide if a computer should be masculine or feminine. Both groups were asked to give strong reasons
for their recommendation.

The group of women concluded that computers should be referred to in the masculine gender because:

1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.
2. They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.
3. They are supposed to help you solve your
problems, but half the time they are the problem.
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize if you had waited a little longer,
you could have had a better model.

The men, on the other hand, decided that computers should be referred to in the feminine gender
most definitely because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.
2. The native language they use to communicate with
other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
3. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck
on accessories for it.

5. The message "Bad Command or File Name" is about as informative as "If
you don't know why I'm mad at you, then I'm certainly not going to tell
you".

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX) Bill Gates reportedly compared the
computer industry with the auto industry and stated: "If GM kept up with
technology like the computer industry has, we would be driving $25 cars
that got 1000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release
stating: "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be
driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to
buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and
you would just accept this, restart and drive on.

4. Occasionally, excecuting a maneuver such as a left turn would cause
your car to shut down and refuse to start, in which case you would have
to reinstall the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought
"Car95" or "carNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.

6. Apple would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five
times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on 5% of
the roads.

7. The oil, water, temperature and alternator warning lights would be
replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before deploying.

10. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door
handle, turned the key, and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

ll. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of
Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither
need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would
immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more.
Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice
Department.

12. Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to
learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would
operate in the same manner as the old car.

13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.

1. You wake up at 3 am to go to the bathroom and stop to check your
e-mail on the way back to bed.
2. You name your children eudora, aol and dotcom.
3. You turn off your modem and get this awful empty feeling, as if you
just pulled the plug on a loved one.
4. You spend half of the plane trip with your laptop on your lap... and
your child in the overhead compartment.
5. You decide to stay in college for an additional year or two, just
for the free internet access.
6. You start using smileys in your snail mail.
7. You find yourself typing "com" after every period when using a word
processor.com.
8. You refer to going to the bathroom as downloading.
9. You can't call your mother....she doesn't have a modem.
10. You check your e-mail, it says "no new messages"; so you check it
again.
11. You don't know what gender three of your closest friends are,
because they have neutral screen names and you never bothered to ask.
12. You move into a new house and decide to netscape before you
landscape.
13. You tell the cab driver you live at
http://1000.edison.garden/house/brick.html.
14. You start tilting you head sideways to smile.
15. After reading this message, you immediately e-mail it to a friend.