The Decision 

Bill Gates died in a car accident. He found himself at the Pearly Gate, being sized up by God...

"Well, Bill, I'm really confused on this call. I'm not sure whether to send you to Heaven or Hell. After all, you enormously helped society by putting a computer in almost every home in the world, and yet you created that ghastly Windows 95. I'm going to do something I've never done before. In your case, I'm going to let you decide where you want to go!"

Bill replied, "Well, thanks, God. What's the difference between the two?"

God said, "I'm willing to let you visit both places briefly if it will help you make a decision."

"Fine, but where should I go first?"

God said, "I'm going to leave that up to you."

Bill said, "OK, then, let's try Hell first." So Bill went to Hell.

It was a beautiful, clean, sandy beach with clear waters. There were thousands of beautiful women running around, playing in the water, laughing and frolicking about. The sun was shining, the temperature was perfect. Bill was very pleased.

"This is great!" he told God. "If this is Hell, I Really want to see Heaven!"

"Fine," said God, and off they went.

Heaven was a high place in the clouds, with angels drifting about playing harps and singing. It was nice but not as enticing Hell. Bill thought for a quick minute and rendered his decision.

"Hmm, I think I prefer Hell" he told God.

"Fine," retorted God, "as you desire." So Bill Gates went to Hell.

Two weeks later, God decided to check up on the late billionaire to see how he was doing in Hell.

When God arrived in Hell, he found Bill shackled to a wall, screaming amongst the hot flames in a dark cave. He was being burned and tortured by demons. "How's everything going, Bill?" God asked.

Bill responded -- his voice full of anguish and disappointment, "This is awful, this is not what I expected. I can't believe this happened. What happened to that other place with the beaches and the beautiful women playing in the water?"

God said "That was the screen saver," have a nice day!

Origin of the Internet 

An old, bearded shepherd with a crooked staff walked up to a stone pulpit and said, "And lo, it came to pass that the trader by the name of Abraham.Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot."

And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she had been called Amazon Dot Com. And she said unto Abraham, her husband, "Why dost thou travel far, from town to town, with thy goods when thou can trade without ever leaving thy tent?"

And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said, "How, dear? And Dot replied, "I will place drums in all the towns (and drums in between the towns) to send messages saying what you have for sale and they will reply, telling you which hath the best price. And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)."

Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. And the drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had, at the top price, without ever moving from his tent. But this success did arouse envy. A man named Maccabia did secret himself inside Abraham's drum and was accused of insider trading.

And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums, that no one noticed the real riches were going to the drum maker, one Brother William of Gates, who bought up every drum company in the land. And, indeed, he did insist on making drums that would work only if you bought Brother Gates' drumsticks.

And Dot said, "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others. And, as Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or as it came to be known, "eBay", he said, "We need a name that reflects what we are," and Dot replied, Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators."

"Whoopee!", said Abraham.

"No, YAHOO!" said Dot Com... and that is how it all began.

It wasn't Al Gore after all.

MICROSOFT VS. GM 

At a computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated "If GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 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:

For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, start it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
Only one person at a time could use the car unless you bought "CarNT," but then you would have to buy more seats.
Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive- but would run on only five percent of the roads.
The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light.
New seats would force everyone to have the same sized butt.
The airbag system would ask "are you sure" before deploying.
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.
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 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.
Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate the same as in the old car.
You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

Make $$$$ With Your Computer! 

Are you interested in making $$$$ fast? Here's an incredibly simple way to do it, and there is nothing to buy, no investment to make, no money to lose! Try it now! Follow this simple procedure:

                       1) Hold down the shift key.
                       2) Hit the "4" key four times.


Dr. Seuss Does Computers 
(with apologies to Dr. Seuss)

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,
And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,
Then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash!

If the label on the cable on the table at your house,
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol
That's repeatedly rejected by your printer down the hall,

And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of Gauss,
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
'Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!

When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,
And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary RISC,
Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM.
Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your mom!



You Have Just Been Infested With the Amish Virus.  

A devastaing horse and buggy worm. Since we have no electricity or computers, you are on the honor system. Please delete all files on your hard drive. Then forward this message to everyone in your address book.

We Thank thee Sincerely,
The Amish


A COMPUTER'S GENDER 

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 feminine names and how ships and planes were usually referred to as "she." One of the students raised her 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 and females in the other, and asked them to decide if a computer should be masculine or feminine. Both groups were asked to give four reasons for their recommendation.

The group of women concluded that computers should be referred to as 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 they are clueless.
3. They are supposed to solve your problems, but half the time, they are the problem.
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have had a better model.

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



Technical Difficulties 

Dear Tech Support:

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed that the new program began making unexpected changes to the accounting modules, limiting access to flower and jewelry applications that had operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0. In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.9 but installed undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0 and NBA 3.0. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs and House Cleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I've tried running Nagging
5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

Desperate

==========================================

Dear Desperate,

Keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an entertainment package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system. Try to enter the command: C:/I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME and install Tears 6.2. Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications: Guilty 3.0 and Flowers 7.0. But remember, overuse can cause Husband 1.0 to default to GrumpySilence 2.5, or Overworking 7.0. Overworking 7.0 is a very bad program that will create Snoring Loudly.wav wave files. DO NOT install MotherInLaw 1.0 or try to reinstall another Boyfriend program. These are not supported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. Consider buying additional software to improve performance. I personally recommend HotFood 3.0 and Lingerie 5.3.

Tech Support



COMPUTER PRAYER 

Dear Lord:

Every evening
As I'm lying here in bed
This tiny little prayer
Keeps running through my head! .

God bless my mom and dad
And bless my little pup
And look out for my sister
When things aren't looking up.

And God, there's one more thing
I wish that you could do
Hope you don't mind me asking
But please bless my computer too?

Now I know that's not normal
To bless a mother board
But just listen for a second
While I explain to you 'My Lord'.

You see, that little metal box
Holds more to me than odds & ends
Inside those small compartments
Rest a hundred of my 'BEST FRIENDS'.
I know for sure they like me
By the kindness that they give
And this little scrap of metal
Is how I travel to where they live.

By faith is how I know them
Much the same as you
I share in what life brings them
From that our friendship grew.

PLEASE, Take an extra minute
From your duties up above
To bless this scrap of metal
That's filled with so much love!

WARNING!
Bad Times Virus 

If you receive an e-mail entitled "Badtimes," delete it
immediately. Do not open it. Apparently this one is pretty nasty.

It will not only erase everything on your hard drive, but it will also delete anything on disks within 20 feet of your computer.

It demagnetizes the strips on ALL of your credit cards.

It reprograms your ATM access code, screws up the tracking on your VCR and uses subspace field harmonics to scratch any CD's you attempt to play.

It will program your phone auto dial to call only your mother-in-law's number.

This virus will mix antifreeze into your fish tank.

It will leave dirty socks on the coffee table when you are expecting company.

It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine, all the while dating your current boy/girlfriend behind your back.

It will cause you to run with scissors and throw things in a way that is only fun until someone loses an eye.

It will rewrite your backup files, changing all your active verbs to passive tense and incorporating undetectable misspellings which grossly change the interpretations of key sentences.

If the "Badtimes" message is opened in a Windows 3.5/95/98/2000/ME/XP environment, it will leave the toilet seat up and leave your hair dryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub.

It will not only remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows, it will also refill your skim milk with whole milk.

**WARN AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN.**

Proverbs For A New Millennium 

1. Home is where you hang your @.

2. The e-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail.

3. A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click.

4. You can't teach a new mouse old clicks.

5. Great groups from little icons grow.

6. Speak softly and carry a cellular phone.

7. Windows will never cease.

8. Virtual reality is its own reward.

9. Pentium wise, pen and paper foolish.

10. The modem is the message.

11. Too many clicks spoil the browse.

12. The geek shall inherit the earth.

13. There's no place like http://www.home.com

14. Don't byte off more than you can view.

15. Fax is stranger than fiction.

16. What boots up must come down.

17. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks.

What Was... 

A computer was something on TV
From a science fiction show of note
A window was something you hated to clean
And ram was the cousin of a goat.

Meg was the name of a girlfriend
And gig was a job for the nights
Now they all mean different things
And that really mega bytes.

An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A cursor used profanity
A keyboard was a piano.

Memory was something that you lost with age
A CD was a bank account
And if you had a 3-in. floppy
It just wasn't talked about.

Compress was something you did to the garbage
Not something you did to a file
And if you unzipped anything in public
You'd be in jail for awhile.

Log on was adding wood to the fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a backup happened to your commode.

Cut you did with a pocket knife
Paste you did with glue
A web was a spider's home
And a virus was the flu.

I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash
But when it happens they wish they were dead.

~Author unknown



The Final E-mail Chain Letter 

I was on my way to the post office to pick up my case of free M&Ms, (sent to me because I forwarded their e-mail to five other people, celebrating the fact that the year 2000 is "MM" in Roman numerals), when I ran into a friend whose neighbor, a young man, was home recovering from having been served a rat in his Bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken -- which is predictable, since as everyone knows, there's no actual chicken in Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is why the government made them change their name to KFC.

Anyway, one day this guy went to sleep and when he awoke he was in his bathtub and it was full of ice and he was sore all over and when he got out of the tub he realized that HIS KIDNEYS HAD BEEN STOLEN. He saw a note on his mirror that said, "Call 911!" but he was afraid to use his phone because it was connected to his computer, and there was a virus on his computer that would destroy his hard drive if he opened e-mail entitled "Join the crew!"

He knew it wasn't a hoax because he himself was a computer programmer who was working on software to prevent a global disaster in which all the computers get together and distribute the $250.00 Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe under the leadership of Bill Gates. (It's true -- I read it all last week in a mass e-mail from BILL GATES HIMSELF, who was also promising me a free Disney World vacation and $5,000 if I would forward the e-mail to everyone I know.)

The poor man then tried to call 911 from a pay phone to report his missing kidneys, but a voice on the line first asked him to press #90, which unwittingly gave the bandit full access to the phone line at the guy's expense. Then reaching into the coin-return slot he got jabbed with an HIV-infected needle around which was wrapped around a note that said, "Welcome to the world of AIDS." Luckily he was only a few blocks from the hospital--the one where that little boy who is dying of cancer is, the one whose last wish is for everyone in the world to send him an e-mail and the American Cancer Society has agreed to pay him a nickel for every e-mail he receives.

I sent him two e-mails and one of them was a bunch of x's and o's in the shape of an angel (if you get it and forward it to more than 10 people, you will have good luck but for 10 people you will only have OK luck and if you send it to fewer than 10 people you will have BAD LUCK FOR SEVEN YEARS). So anyway the poor guy tried to drive himself to the hospital, but on the way he noticed another car driving without its lights on. To be helpful, he  flashed his lights at him and was promptly shot as part of a gang initiation.

Send THIS to all your friends and you will receive 4 green M&Ms, if you don't, the owner of Proctor and Gamble will report you to his Satanist friends and you will have more bad luck: You will get cancer from the Sodium Laureth Sulfate in your shampoo, your wife will develop breast cancer from using the antiperspirant which clogs the pores under your arms, and the government will put a tax on your e-mails forever. I know this is all true 'cause I read it on the Internet.

Computer Literacy 

You probably have no idea just how computer literate you have become, unless you are given a direct comparison with others who are perhaps, "not quite" as computer literate as you are. Here are some shining examples:

1. Compaq is considering changing the command "Press any key" to "Press the Enter key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any key is".

2. A Dell customer called to say he could not get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it front of the monitor and pressing the "Send" key.

3. A Gateway 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 diskettes.

4. Another Gateway support person had a caller complain that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The dust cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.

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

6. A Gateway technician spoke to a customer who was enraged because the computer had told him he was "bad and an invalid". The  technician explained that the computer's 'bad command" and "invalid" entry responses should not be taken personally.

7. An exasperated caller to Dell could not get her new computer to turn on. After making sure the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response was " I pushed on the foot pedal and nothing happened". The foot pedal turned out to be the mouse.

8. A customer called Compaq to say her brand new computer would not 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?".

9. This guy calls to complain that he gets an "Access Denied" message every time he logs in. It turned out he was typing his user name and password in capital letters. The Tech Support; OK let's try once more, but use lower case letters. Customer "Uh, I  only have capital letters on my keyboard".

10. A true story from a Novell NetWire technician:  

Caller: "The cup holder on my PC is broken and I'm within my warranty period. How do I get it fixed
Tech: "I am sorry , but did you say a cup holder?"
Caller: "Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer".
Tech: "Please excuse me if I seemed a bit stumped, it's because I am. Did you receive this as part of a promotional, at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have a trademark on it?
Caller: "It came with my computer. I don't know anything about a promotional. It just has '32x' on it.

At this point the technician had to mute the caller, because he couldn't stand it. The caller had been using the drawer of the CD Rom drive as a cup holder and had snapped it off the drive!!

TOP TEN SIGNS THAT YOU KNOW IT'S TIME
TO JOIN E-MAILERS ANONYMOUS: 

10. You wake up at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom, and check your e-mail on the way back to bed.

9. Your firstborn is named dotcom.

8. You turn off your modem and are suddenly filled with a feeling of emptiness, as if you just pulled the plug on a loved one.

7. You spend half of a plane trip with you laptop in your lap...and your child in the overhead compartment.

6. You decide to stay in college for an additional year or two, just for the free Internet access.

5. You find yourself typing "com" after every period.com

4. You refer to going to the bathroom as downloading.

3. You move into a new home and decide to Netscape before you landscape.

2. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :o}

DRUM ROLL PLEASE...

AND THE NO. 1. SIGN THAT YOU KNOW IT'S TIME TO JOIN E-MAILERS ANONYMOUS:

1. Immediately after reading this list, you e-mail it to someone!

If There Had Been Computers In 1776 
Mr. Jefferson: Gentlemen, the summer grows hot, and it is essential that we complete this declaration of independence.

Mr. Franklin: Wait a minute, Thomas. I have to reboot here.

Mr. Jefferson: That's all right, Ben. We'll go on without you. Has everyone had a chance to look at the draft I posted yesterday?

Mr. Sherman: Not yet, Thomas, I've been having Notes replication problems.

Mr. Adams: Here, Roger, I brought a hard copy.

Mr. Sherman: Thanks. Saaaaay, nice font.

Mr. Adams: Do you like it? I downloaded it off Colonies Online just last week.

Mr. Jefferson: Gentlemen! There is work to be done. I fear our document will soon leak out.

Mr. Livingston: Too late, Thomas. There's already a bootleg circulating. I saw it posted on alt.georgeIII.loser last night.

Mr. Franklin: @#$$%^$# General Protection Fault!

Mr. Adams: Ben, you might try upgrading to Windows 75. It solved that problem for me.

Mr. Sherman: Thomas, the part here about the Acts of Pretended Legislation; have you considered using bullets to air out the text?

Mr. Jefferson: I can fix that easily enough. Drat! I've spilled candle wax on my keyboard again.

Mr. Adams: You know, Thomas, that wouldn't happen if you'd buy an active-matrix screen.

Mr. Franklin: Hard-disk failure?!? Aw, criminy!

Mr. Livingston: Are you sure it's "unalienable rights"? My spell checker recommends "unassailable".

Mr. Jefferson: Can we stick to the substance of the document, please? Shoot. Low battery. Anyone got a spare power cable?

Mr. Sherman: What have you got, a Toshiba? No, mine isn't compatible.

Mr. Franklin: Hello, PCs Philadelphia? What does it mean when the floppy drive buzzes? OK, I'll hold.....

Mr. Livingston: The "In Congress" part here at the top; have you thought about blowing that up really big and maybe centering it in 72 point Helvetica?

Mr. Jefferson: Not a bad idea. Aw, nuts! Word macro virus! I can't save the file.

Mr. Franklin: That's all right, Thomas. We can manage. Here, borrow my quill pen....

SIGNS THAT YOU ARE IN THE 21st CENTURY 

You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.

You chat several times a day with a stranger from South Africa, but you haven't spoken with your next-door neighbor yet this year.

You didn't give your valentine a card this year, but you posted one for your e-mail buddies via a web page.

You call your son's beeper to let him know it's time to eat. He e-mails you back from his bedroom, "What's for dinner?"

Your grandmother clogs up your e-mail inbox asking you to send her a JPEG file of your newborn so she can create a screen saver.

You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home.

Cleaning up the dining room means getting the fast food bags out of the back seat of your car.


Worthwhile Smiles
Inspie's
Inspie's Place
Place

This Background Was
Provided by
Inspie

You Are Listening To
"Jeteveu"