Blind pigs
Let’s start with a joke. Today has been a day that needs a joke. This comes courtesy Peter’s eleven-year-old grandson.*
How do you spell ‘blind pig’?
B-l-i-n-d p-i-g.
No, you spell it Blnd pg, because if it had two eyes it wouldn’t be blind.
Blogmom says that my vertical spacing problems are Word putting in weird bits of code, if code is what I mean. Thank you, Mr Gates! I’m your biggest fan! ** Of course I want to go on buying ever more megasupermassivecolossal gigagigagigagiga byte computers to hold the ever-expanding Windows, before I put any of my own bits on!*** So that Word, which ought to be accustomed to the concept of people hanging stuff on the web by its recent updates, can make it harder! Yaay! –And anybody roused to wrath and indignation by my uncharitability toward the glorious Microsoft empire, well, there are far wiser and cleverer netheads and computer geeks than I who think Windows is a bungle, and on behalf of netunheads and ungeeks† like me everywhere, if you’re going to take my money, it would be polite to sell me something I can use.
That clicking noise you hear is me trying to turn Rant Mode off.
Although you will have noticed by now that I am still having spacing problems.
So the day started with me ringing up British Telecom to ask them to flip the switch and reconnect the phone at Third House. Yes, I’ve had Third House over a year, but I’ve never had a reason to need a phone there. I can’t figure out how I’m going to use it till the whole Attic Floor/Loft Conversion situation gets sorted out and I’m still waiting for estimates, and I don’t want to waste a lot more time figuring out what I’m doing to have it blown up for me again, which is what happened when I found out I couldn’t just put an attic floor in, that building regs would require a staircase, and as soon as there’s a staircase suddenly it’s a Loft Conversion, and . . . anyway. I don’t have a phone. I’ve never had anyone staying there more than two nights before and everybody uses their mobiles away from home anyway, because it’s simpler. But I now have my best friend and her family coming from America and they will be here for a week and I feel a land line would be a nice welcoming gesture.
So I rang BT. When I moved in to the cottage, I rang BT, told them I was the new owner and I wanted a phone, they said, fine, here’s the list of the available phone numbers, which one would you like? The whole thing took maybe thirty seconds.
Today there was a long pause and–I having already given them Third House’s name, street address, town and post code–they asked me for the location. Location?!? Next to the copper beech in the churchyard! Next to the footpath that runs along the churchyard to the railway cutting! Next door to the people with the Very Irritating Terrier!††† WTF, location?
Another long pause. And then they tell me, triumphantly, that there is no phone line there! That if I want a phone line I WILL HAVE TO PAY TO HAVE ONE PUT IN! For the fearless BT engineers to hack their way further in to the trackless southern English jungle to my lonely outpost! What do you freaking mean there’s no phone line?! The house is eighty years old and in the middle of town! What do you think the little old lady before me did?! One if by land and two if by sea?†† Semaphoring? Smoke signals from the driveway?! There’s a PHONE JACK IN THE SITTING ROOM.
They finally decided they’d investigate the situation. And they’d ring me back before the end of the day.
They didn’t.
I can tell it’s going to be mobiles all round for my friend and her family.
While I was trying not to wait for the phone to ring for BT to tell me that they’d located the renegade line, it had got into bad company and was hanging around wearing black leather and smoking on street corners, I was trying to write an email to Blogmom . . . when my screen suddenly went black. Or rather blue: ah yes, the Blue Screen of Death which one wastes a lot of time‡ hoping one never sees again. I had a beautifully central cryptic message: it said: No Signal. I might have guessed that, thanks.
I rang Computer Man in rather a panic. I’ve got guarantees up the wazoo on the thing but it feels like a very bad omen to have your brand-stomping-new, painfully expensive new kit go squonk only a few weeks out of the box. I couldn’t find any loose wires–my first thought was that something had unplugged itself, very easy to do in the snarly tangle behind my desk–and Computer Man couldn’t diagnose it over the phone. This is why I pay an inordinate sum to these guys: he didn’t say, I’ll try and fit you in next week, he said, I’ll be there in half an hour.
In my defense, it took him about fifteen minutes to figure it out; the problem with shiny new kit is the shiny new bells and whistles, and one of them had managed to self-engage and was waiting for the lurid multimedia input. Obviously it wants action, and a novel-writer isn’t giving it the right sort. Feh. Maybe I can teach it to run the blog. And my Computer Man, who is a very nice computer man, said, Don’t worry about it, it’s a lovely day for a drive, and I was glad to get out of the office.
On the plus side, hellhounds ate both lunch and supper. And I got a good [sic] joke.
*Ie, brace yourselves.
** The Head Guy at my Computer Man shop, who I’ve been dealing with for many years, since he first left the mother company and set out all by himself, refers to him as ‘your friend, Mr Gates’ and then laughs like a drain.
*** And while I’m complaining, my homeopathic software is also ginormous and full of weirdness, and they keep updating it, which is to say tumefying it, and with every tumefication^ it gets weirder and less stable and harder to use.
^ No, I don’t think this is a word, but tumefy is, and ‘tumefication’ sounds like the sort of thing that goes on with software.
† Of course I’m a geek. I’m just not a computer geek.
†† Or is it the other way around? Good thing Paul Revere remembered.
††† This is not really helpful. It only narrows it down to about 10% of the population.
‡ Or one does, if one is I, in a more or less permanent state of trembling in fear of all the bells, whistles, pretty flashing lights, toolbars, pop-ups, mysterious boxes, and beeping noises. Which increase with every update.
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Gosh, I’ll have to remember that one for my nephew, who isn’t quite eleven yet. Rembering jokes is hard enough, but ones that are suitable for that stage of one’s humour’s development is harder.
(I’m still not sure whether my name will appear on top, so it may be unnecessary but it’s)
Susan from Athens
Names seem to be appearing. I’m still having trouble figuring out which order to press buttons in so my comments appear rather than disappear. Okay, pushing button now, POUF!
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Well my name and your reply made it. Congratulations for surviving the tech. I find the blue screen of death one of the truly disturbing things in life, and even regular back-ups (after near seizures of almost losing stuff) still don’t rid me of the gut-clenching horror. Hope they find your phone line, too. Have a candle burning right now.
Peter’s grandson is obviously darling. :)
Boo computer! I *hate* when they think they know better than you. Windows is especialy bad about this, and let me just say how much I *don’t* miss it. Bambi (my iMac, and she is a GIRL computer, not a boy like that deer) rarely insists she knows what’s best for me. And if I want to quit a program that’s stopped working? She does it. No questions asked. Do. Not. Miss. Windows.
Hopefully the phone company will discover that phone jack. *shakes head* Even old houses can have phone lines! It’s true!
Very sorry you have had to wrestle with idiots today (ref BT, Bill Gates…) but I’m so glad you’ve kept a sense of humour albeit sardonic :)
**** While I was trying not to wait for the phone to ring for BT to tell me that they’d located the renegade line, it had got into bad company and was hanging around wearing black leather and smoking on street corners, I was trying to write an email to Blogmom . . . when my screen suddenly went black. Or rather blue: ah yes, the Blue Screen of Death which one wastes a lot of time‡ hoping one never sees again. I had a beautifully central cryptic message: it said: No Signal. I might have guessed that, thanks.
It has been the only thing to make me smile today since my car has totally died despite me lavishing new components on it; I abandoned it and caught a bus home with Rosie dog, who thought it very strange transport, but gloriously smelly :P
I have also signally failed to succeed in winning wordpress’ acknowledgement of existence, despite hours of polite social chit chat and password requesting; I know that wordpress cruelly spurns me as I have sent comments to the last 2 posts, but I have been dumped in outer cyberspace. Bleeuurgh! to you, WordPress, (misquoting Calvin!)
Thought this might work for searching the Guardian’s site – http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/inside/2008/04/late_easter_eggs.html
Glad the hell hounds are eating (candles still burning here, I’ve put training conversation on pause as you have been rather occupied)
southdowner
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/inside/2008/04/late_easter_eggs.html might help you find your bell foundry picture – sorry if you get 2 posts but I just sent one and I think it’s been eaten, like the comments I sent for he last two days….
going off into a dark corner to cry. It’s really been one of those days.
Word lets you save your document in a couple of useful formats (file organizations vary, for what different programs expect to find there). For the web, you may want to experiement with ‘File -> Save As -> and then pick ‘Plain Text’ or some such, with a .txt extension. You should expect a hideous warning, that you will be *gasp* losing that fancy formatting Mr. Gates is so proud of.
Actually, with practice Word is a pretty capable program. It just takes lots of friends that know how to use it, and time to invite the right ones over for coffee. Really. Propagating knowledge about how to use computers is an exercise in social sharing. Always has been. Read the 1960′s era ‘Psychology of Computer Programming’ (quite readable!), and find the most important function for productivity in a company was usually the coffee room. People clustered around key punches (don’t ask) and showed each other nifty new commands in EDT on the VAX I worked on in Silicon Valley in 1984. After a couple of visits this week to a friend just opening a used record store, I can assure you that having a friend to ask questions is still essential to anything getting done.
Back to Word. OpenOffice.org lets you download a free program – donate if you like it – that does what MS Office does. Including us MS files. For those of us with dialup connections, the 95 mbyte program takes many hours to fully download. I like the free Sun.com Download Manager – makes restarts possible, still takes a bit of getting used to.
I found that a 500-700 watt Uninterruptible Power Source is a lot better than a surge protector. Much less trouble with the computer. My community power is notorious for destroying stereos, computers, and TV’s. My computer is just over seven (7) years old now. I am on the third APC brand UPS, and I often work through thunderstorms, etc.
About 5 years ago I bought a laptop computer from Dell. At the time, something like 25% of all laptops were DOA – dead on arrival, right out of the box. So I deliberately called the refurbish line. I wanted a computer that something had already been fixed, then re-checked. The odds of something else going bad are much less. Whatever the ration of bad, new computers, I still recommend the refurbished route – they have been checked twice, and stuff that dies when new has already had one chance to fail.
Thank you! Although some of this is again why I flipping well *tithe* my Computer Man–if I’m drowning, he throws me a rope, every time. The results may not be perfect (or even pretty) but I continue to have working computers and I continue to be able to work on them . . . . Hey, I’m *old*. I REMEMBER key punches.
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I like Open Office! I’d been using MSOffice 2000 on my PCs since I had a copy and it didn’t have that stupid you-may-only-install-this-three-times crap. But then I moved to Mac (yay Mac!) and couldn’t use my trusty (read: less explosive than other Office editions) copy Office. I got Scrivener for writing (only the word processor, but so cool) and Open Office for other officey things. And yeah, it’s just like MSOffice. :D
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I want to third the recommendation for OpenOffice. I know I’m a trifle biased, because we used it at the computer school I used to work at and so I got to know it much better than Word. However, having used both of them a reasonable amount, I will say that I’ve had far fewer problems with OpenOffice, and the ones that I did have were easier to fix. Plus I felt like it is organized in a way that makes more sense (and if you don’t know how to use it, the Help section is great and I find it much easier to find actual answers there than I ever have with Word). Not to mention that free is a nice price, and it’s high quality (I don’t know if they still do this, but at least when I first started working with it they supported it by having a paying version that had more bells and whistles [more templates, for example] and tech support. I have never missed either).
I think I’m signed in, but in case I’m not this is danceswithpahis.
You have opened my Pandora’s Box with jokes.
While in Hawaii (Yes, I know it’s a hard lot, but some one has to help their economy) I noticed that their geckos laugh. A delightful chittering sort of laugh. Our geckos in south Florida do not laugh. At least none have done so within my hearing. It was decided that the problem was south Florida geckos do not have proper jokes and need a joke book. So, those of us (all women) on the workshop I was attending decided to see what we could do. Here you are, suitable, I think, for grandchildren, assuming they can catch the daft humor.
GECKO JOKES FROM HAWAII (or at least inspired by Hawaii)
A gecko is in a restaurant and calls the waiter over.
“Waiter, there’s a fly in my poi.” (or ‘soup’ for the mainland people)
“Yes, sir?”
“My compliments to the chef!”
————
How many geckos does it take to change a light bulb?
As many as want dinner.*
————
Why did the gecko cross the road?
Because there wasn’t a ceiling.*
————
A gecko turns to a frog and says,
“Time sure is fun when you’re having flies!”*
————
A priest, a rabbi, and a gecko walk into a bar.
The bartender says,
“What is this?! A joke?!”**
————
*For those of you ignorant of the ways of geckos, they hang out around lights at night, usually on walls and ceilings, and catch bugs to eat.
**This is the one I was dying to create. I mean, really: “A priest, a rabbi, and a gecko go into a bar…” I HAD to find a punch line for it!
There’s a demon in the internet!
*Sends hugs and virtual chocolate*
I can’t find the help for commenting anywhere on this site, so I can’t figure out how to preview my comment or format things. Oh well.
I hope that you and the hellhounds are continuing to improve. By the way, I did find my way to the adorable (awwwwww) photo of curled baby hellhounds. They look so innocent…
I can’t find the help for commenting anywhere on this site, so I can’t figure out how to preview my comment or format things. Oh well.
********* I think Blackbear mentioned this too. Write to Blogmom! This is the Early ShakeDown Phase so we can all Live Happily Ever After!!
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Amongst all the other myriad problems with Microsoft, they foist Vista on us, which doesn’t work for $#|+. I feel for you.
Well, I finally got registered.
I like the joke; like Susan, I need a joke short enough I can remember it (strangely, I can memorize lines for a play in no time, but not jokes).
I will have to look at the links for the comedy groups you put up the other day when I have more time. I don’t know any of them well, but you mentioned earlier that you liked Monty Python and Firesign Theater, so you must have good taste (duh!). I grew up quoting Firesign Theater like those phrases were part of the general lexicon and then was really surprised when other kids looked at me like I was speaking gibberish.
I feel for you with the evil phone company. Over here, the evil phone company that gave me grief was Qwest; they gave us so many headaches that my husband and I gave up our landline entirely and now only use cell phones and broadband internet.
Anyway, congrats on the move to the new blog. I hope all of the tech bugs work themselves out quickly and mostly painlessly.
In case the name doesn’t show up,
Erika in Colorado
Or is it the other way around? Good thing Paul Revere remembered.
This made me giggle a bit. It is one if by land, two if by sea.
I always thought it was spelled “POOF.” Silly me.
The spacing doesn’t bug me. But I suppose you need it all nice and neat and professional, so everyone who sees the page will know that you are nice and neat and professional. Snerk.
Seriously though, good luck figuring this one out.
Snerk.
********* LOL! No, I’m just a control freak!!! :)
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I have to speak up a little for Windows XP (SP2), which is so much better in general than Windows 98 and so much better at playing with others than Vista that it deserves a pat on the back. I’d bet your Word-to-blog formatting glitches are the result of unresolved issues in the interface, in which case you could point the finger of blame in any direction or in all of them, depending on how comprehensively you want to curse. Interfaces provide a LOT of scope for venting.
Good luck with BT. Reminds me of our attempts to get the telephone connected in our first house, when Ma Bell was the only game in town–”We’re the Telephone Company, and we don’t care” was exactly their attitude. And of course the only way to contact them and complain was by finding another %&$# *telephone* . . .
I’m glad to hear that the hellhounds provided a positive counterweight to your Bad Tech Day and hope the good eating becomes a habit. Good going Chaos and Darkness!
That clicking noise you hear is me trying to turn Rant Mode off.
LOL! Good luck with that.
Ahh, BT. Definitely not the most effective company around. I moved back into my house after being away for a while and went to get the phone line back. It took them TWO weeks to change a name on an account. No turning things on, no adding wires. just changing a name on a computer system somewhere. Not at all impressed.
If you ever want to get a Mac, say so on your blog and you might be able to get some professional shopping assistance; I have some friends that work at Apple who very much enjoy your work . . . and I’ve been using Macs for ages and haven’t encountered the volume or type of complaints my PC friends have–no BS O’D for me.
Isn’t suffering/persecution supposed to be a source of artistic inspiration? Perhaps if you foster your computer problems you might learn to sing opera, or play Rachmaninoff.
Good to hear about the hellhounds eating!
If it made me play the piano better, it would be WORTH it. :)
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OK, awful jokes for younger minds (of whatever age):
(Best if all read through in sequence)
Q: What’s the difference between an elephant and a gooseberry?
A: One is green and hairy, the other is grey and hairy
(10 second pause for reflection)
Q: What did the General in charge of the Roman Army say, when he saw Hannibal and the elephants with the Carthaginian army coming at him, having crossed the Alps?
A: “Help – here come the gooseberries!” (he was colour blind)….
(second pause, for some serious throwing of objects at joke-teller)
And re Microsoft, it’s not only individuals who get caught up in all the problems. This, from one of the lists I belong to in my working life, came through yesterday in relation to a UK universty’s planned upgrade of all 10,000+ staff and students to Office 2007, from Office 2003:
“The biggest problem was Excel, in that it was found to have bugs that wouldn’t add up figures in large spreadsheets correctly, 2003 correct answer, 2007 wrong answer, this was a problem for the serious engineering people. Also, it didn’t support clever/advanced macros. Microsoft took the complaint and started working on fixes (not sure if they’re sorted yet) but the Uni then had to redeploy 2003 to all machines.”
I find it extraordinary that a bug like that hadn’t been picked up sooner. I know it’s fun to kick the Microsoft Empire, and often it’s not deserved, but sometimes it is!
Microsoft–good gods.
I will try the joke on the stepgrandson! His family may never forgive me! I believe he is already required to ask permission to TORTURE the company with a joke!
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You could always ditch dear Bill… Delete him from your phone etc. There’s other stuff out there. It’s free and it works…. Some of us even know how to access it…. Some of us even use it… (I’m waiting to be struck by lightning but nothing so far….)
What is your homeopathic software called? Is it a reference or do you input data into it?
Its just that if I type ‘homeopathic software’ into Google, it gives LOTS of options, so if its only reference software have you considered something newer?
Since I tend to swear at it, I probably shouldn’t identify it. But I’m thinking seriously about STOPPING buying the updates because they just make it fatter and LESS STABLE. On the other hand the next update is RUMOURED to stop just shoving everything in and to be more selective so i guess I’ll wait and see.
It’s both–reference and client sheets/note files.
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Here’s one for the grandson:
Q – What do you call a blind stag (or antelope)?
A – No idea!
Susan in Melbourne
I really don’t “like” computers. Yes, I agree they can be useful tools (to find even more books I don’t need – I have 500 or so of my own I haven’t read yet – and have no place for) and this (I don’t know where the toolbar with the italics is and I need it – sob! – it is really difficult to be more computer ungeeky than I am) is really marvellous – but that computers in themselves are Marvels of Wonder and Happiness and Joy, I do not agree with; some people’s computer-fervour and dedication really borders on the religious!
I swear thiis bla-blessed computer knows I’m insulting it – the keyboard is barely working – I have to press multiple times for letters and grr!
One of my brothers works with computers – he’s some kind of engineer – and once, many years ago, I said to him “I just want them to work!” He looked at me and said “But that’s not possible!” as if what I had said was utterly ridiculous and unreasonable. What does one say to that? Anyway, I was to sick and tired to bother.
My husband once found something funny on the internet on how a car would behave if it was a computer (stop of itself, &c) I wish I had saved it – it was hilarious!
LRK
I wish my grandmother was still alive. She’d have LOVED that pig joke. Cheesey jokes were her favorite.
I find it fascinating that you have a Computer Man on call. I have one on call too but only because I’m married to him. I didn’t know they had such people for hire. I’m thinking that might be a good career to look into…I could probably get very rich, very fast….
Good luck with BT. I have a friend who lives pretty near to London and it just took her two weeks to convince BT to come over and reattach her already existing internet connection after it mysteriously broke down. AND it’s only a temporary fix, with the router sitting right underneath her daughter’s high chair. She had been posting blog updates via blackberry in the mean time. I can hear the gnashing of teeth all the way from America.
I just tried the blind pig joke on the fifteen-year-old daughter. She said, “Interesting”. Translation : “Mom, why are you so weird?”
What? It’s 6AM here. I’m going back to the newspaper and my cup of Lifeboat tea.
And the anonymous commentor with the daughter was me, because I forgot to log in. Morning brain.
I assume Computer Man ordered the new computer with Windows XP instead of Vista? Judging from what I’ve heard about Vista, I’m sure we would have gotten some rants about that by now. :) Apparently it takes up even more space, plus it doesn’t work with some common programs. I just ordered a new computer with XP myself, and then found out I did so just in time–MS is planning to retire it in a few months, unless the petition succeeds.
Yes–this again is one of the reasons I pay a FORTUNE in maintenance–they protect me from this kind of thing. I’d heard (dimly) about Vista but I hadn’t realised that they’re in the process of squashing XP out of existence. Yes, BOTH new computers have XP on them.
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The sparkly purple pills are working!!! Thank goodness!
I don’t think my daughter is ready for a spelling joke yet, but I’ll tell my husband… and he will probably hit me(:
Your blog so often cheers me, though as many people have mentioned through the months, that seems mean when we’re being amused by things that have been a frustrating pain in the butt to you. . . . But of course, it’s because you are so articulate when being pissed off, so that you express what everyone feels (but was ne’er so well expressed) under similar circumstances.
A few years ago my computer did something unspeakably stupid all by itself and then actually whined, in a strange, tinny, computer voice, “It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault,” and I proceeded to try to find the computer’s neck so I could kill it, while shouting, “Then who the f*ck’s fault is it then???? Then I put the computer on mute, that being the equivalent of a sock in its mouth, and I turn on the sound only to listen to funny music videos. (If I figure out how to download Star Trekkin as my cell ring, I had better remember to turn it off when I’m at the opera. . . .I want it to sing “there are Klingons on the starboard bow.” There nearly always are, I find.)
I’m rambling. How nice that your friends are visiting, even if they have to wave flags out the windows to communicate.
Yes well if the things that are driving me nuts can at least be made to make other people LAUGH it means they have a purpose BESIDES making me nuts and this is a GOOD THING!!!!!!
There are ALWAYS Klingons on the starboard bow. Yes.
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11-year-old joke: lol
Pachelbel rant youtube thing from last entry: LOL
delinquent phone line: LOLOL
I am intrigued as to why, when you are on wordpress now, you don’t just type into the box rather than using word – it (should) autosave as you are going so you don’t risk losing it all if something goes wrong.
And there is no spacing problem when reading the blog in rss format :)
Jax. (for the same reason as Susan above :) )
Because I compose in snatches off line. Because off line is still more STABLE than on line. (Also cheaper.)
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I prefer Macs. One must pay a ridiculous sum to get Word for the Mac, but one would have to do that ANYWAY for a PC.
I sent a comment on the above and it does not appear. Any suggestions what the problem might be?
Probably that Due to Circumstances Out of My Control I never unscreened it. I missed unscreening last night altogether. Visitors will do that to you. Well, to me.
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This is a test to see this comment goes through. Previous ones have not.
It’s also very likely me failing to perform some necessary function. We’ll get this sorted, really we will . . .
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