Now, where was I? Oh yeah...

Some silly computer humour I felt the need to liberate from the Net, just cos I'm sick of bloody computers this weekend...

---

At least once per day, without fail, my computer, like every computer I have ever owned, has some kind of emotional breakdown. It simply stops working -- often when I'm not touching it -- and it puts a message on the screen informing me that an error has occurred. It does not say what the error is, nor where it occurred. For all I know, it occurred in New Zealand, and my computer found out about it via the Internet, and became so upset that it could not go on.

When this happens, I have to turn my computer off and start it up again.
When I do, my computer puts a snippy note on the screen informing me that it is scanning its disks for errors, because it was shut down improperly.

``But I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!'' I shout, but my computer ignores me, because it is busy scanning its disks. You just know that if it finds any errors, it's going to blame me, even though I don't even know where its disks ARE.

While my computer is busy, I scan my wart. I have a wart on my right leg. It has been there for many years. I call it Buddy. I keep an eye on Buddy, in case his appearance changes. I've read that it's a bad thing, medically, when a wart suddenly changes appearance. If I ever look down and see that Buddy has turned green, or he's wearing a little pair of Groucho glasses, I'll know it's time to take some kind of medical action. Such as quit drinking.

But my point is that because of computer weirdness, I regularly see an entire morning's work -- sometimes as many as 18 words -- get blipped away forever to the Planet of Lost Data. Needless to say, I use Microsoft Windows. I've been a loyal Windows man since the first version, which required you to write on the screen with crayons. Every year or so, Microsoft comes out with a new version, which Microsoft always swears is better and more reliable, and I always buy it. I bought Windows 2.0, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1415926, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows RSVP, The Best of Windows, Windows Strikes Back, Windows Does Dallas, and Windows Let's All Buy Bill Gates a House the Size of Vermont.

My computers keep having seizures, but I keep buying Windows versions, hoping I'll get lucky. I'm like the loser in the nightclub who keeps hitting on the hot babe. His shoes are squishing from the piña colada she poured on him, but he's thinking: ``She's warming up to me!''

I bring this all up because now Microsoft has a new version out, Windows XP, which according to everybody is the ``most reliable Windows ever.'' To me, this is like saying that asparagus is ``the most articulate vegetable ever.'' But still, I am tempted. ``Maybe this will be the one,'' I say to Buddy, as the two of us wait for the disks to be scanned.

If I do get Windows XP, I won't try to install it myself. I no longer mess with the innards of my computer. The last time I tried was a disaster, even though I enlisted the aid of my friend Rob Stavis, a medical doctor who is the most mechanically inclined person I know. Rob can disassemble and successfully reassemble a live human being. He and I recently spent an entire weekend trying to solve an allegedly simple computer problem. We wound up at the computer store, talking to guys who were trained by the Monty Python Institute of Customer Service:
US: So, what do we need to make it work?
THEM: You need a model FRT-2038 expostulating refrembulator.
US: And that will make it work?
THEM: No.

Finally, I hired a guy named J.C., who is a Microsoft Certified Technician.
He was in my office for the better part of two days, most of it on the phone with Technical Support. It was fascinating for me, a layperson, to hear the technical terminology that J.C. used to get the information he needed:
``DO NOT PUT ME ON HOLD, DO YOU HEAR ME? DO NOT PUT ME ON HO... HELLO?
HELLO?? YOU (very nontechnical term)!''

In the end, J.C. solved the problem. So now I'm thinking about hiring him again. Because the more I think about this Windows XP, the better it looks, sitting over there by the bar, drinking a pina colada. All I have to do is make my move, and I'll have what every guy dreams of: computer reliability!

I worry about who will take care of Buddy.

~~ Do ya suppose The Dark Ages was caused by the Y1K problem? ~~

---

Now, where was I? Oh yeah...

"Its late", she cried, as the clock ticked away
the dawning of another dark day
where her sunshine was something she'd hidden away
until somebody came to claim it.

~~ Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.
This is the ultimate. - Chuang-tzu ~~

---

Now, where was I? Oh yeah...

A girl walks into a supermarket and buys the following:
1 bar of soap
1 toothbrush
1 tube of toothpaste
1 loaf of bread
1 pint of milk
1 apple
1 banana
1 orange
1 peach
1 plum
1 tomato
1 lettuce
1 cabbage
1 potato
1 muesli bar
1 pie
1 box of cereal
1 frozen dinner
1 single frozen pizza

The checkout guy looks at her, smiles, and says "single huh?"

The girl smiles sheepishly and replies, "How did you guess?"

He says, "'cause you're ugly"

Amen.

~~ I may be ugly, but I have big breasts ~~

---

Now, where was I? Oh yeah...

I was going to write about Sex, and then Shari sent me a joke and I was going to write about God... then I thought "bugger it, I'll combine the two" and then I thought I might just rehash something out of the old blog and recycle it with a few minor modifications.

Cos I can.

My Version of the Seven Deadly Sins.

ENVY:
What it is: Envy is the desire for others' abilities, status, wealth or attributes.
Colour: Green
Why I do it: Because other people are so much richer, smarter, luckier, better looking and more clever than me.
My punishment in Hell is likely to be: A freezing cold swim. A long one. I hate water.

My Version: Shari bought a nice MP3 player for her Primera. I want it for my Primera. Oh, I want World Peace, an end to hunger and to lose 40 kilograms of fat as well. But I really want that MP3 player.

SLOTH (This would have to be my favourite Sin well, after that really big sin that I've forgotten what it is now).
What it is: Sloth is avoiding work. Any sort of work.
Colour: Light Blue
Why I do it: I am a really shiftless, lazy cow.
My punishment in Hell is likely to be: I will be forced to listen to Barry Manilow's Christmas Album for all Eternity. In the dark. Whilst folding washing.

My version: The phone is ringing. I can't be bothered rolling over to answer it. Sorry.

GLUTTONY
What it is: Gluttony is an intense desire to use or eat more than is required.
Colour: Orange
Why I do it: Because I was bottle fed as an infant.
My punishment in Hell will likely be: Eternity spent rebaiting the trap for Merlin's snak-paks. He's a bloody glutton, too.

My version: I will hide all this box of chocolates a lovely lady sent me and share almost nothing with the kids.

WRATH
What it is: Anger is manifested in people who are irrational in the face of opposition. They display this as Wrath.
Colour: Red
Why I do it: It's a talent. It just comes naturally.
My punishment in Hell will likely be: Living in a room with 20 men who cannot put the toilet seat down.

My version: Parking Nazi. 'Nuff said.

PRIDE
What it is: Also known as Vanity. Pride is overweening the belief in one's own fabulousness that interferes with the individual's ability to recognise the Truth.
Colour: Violet
Why I do it: Well-meaning people told me to "believe in yourself." Like if I don't, nobody else is going to.
My punishment in Hell will likely be: Listening to some evil size 10 bimbo moan for all Eternity about how fat she is.

My version: I don't give a shit what you think, I know I am right.

LUST
What it is: Lust is an extreme craving for the pleasures of the body.
Colour: Blue
Why I do it: Cos I have a Pulse.
My punishment in Hell will likely be: Living in a room with 20 GAY men who cannot put the toilet seat down.
My version: I'm dead from the neck up and the waist down. I think they meant "dust" not "lust"

GREED
What it is: A rapacity or desire for material wealth or gain. Also known as Greed.
Colour: Yellow
Why I do it: Cos I am a spoiled brat living in the "Me, now generation"
My punishment in Hell will likely be: Every technological toy imaginable... and no batteries, power or phones.

My version: Debbie has a nice Home Theatre system. I want one too, but with a big plasma wide screen TV.

So, what's wrong with all that? I never said I was altruistic to the bone, it's really only skin deep :-)

Really, I'm a yellow-bellied, green-eyed Hari Krishna wearing Orange robes who just happened to fall into the wrong incarnation. I drive a blue car with light blue trim and have violet hair. I go from perfectly calm to "I see red" in 1.37 nanoseconds.

My personal favourite sin would have to be Lust, but Sloth, Wrath (hey that rhymes!), Greed, Pride, Envy and Gluttony are a really close second.

Oh, Shari's joke was;

Why Men Pee Standing Up

Seems God was just about done with creating the universe but he had two extra things left over in his bag so he decided to split them between Adam and Eve.

He told them that one of the things he had left was a thing that would allow the owner to pee while standing up. "It's a very handy thing," God told them, "and I was wondering if either one of you would like that."

Well, Adam jumped up and down and begged "Oh, give that to me! I'd love to be able to do that. It seems just the sort of thing a man should be able to do. Please. Please!
Pleeease! Give it to me." On and on he went like an excited little boy.

So Eve just smiled and told God that if Adam really wanted it so badly, he should have it. So God gave Adam the thing that allowed him to pee while standing up and he was so excited. He whizzed on the bark of a tree and then went off to write his name in the sand, laughing with delight all the while.

God and Eve watched him for a moment and then God said to Eve, "Well, here's the other thing and I guess you can have it." "What's it called? Eve asked.

"Brains" God said.

You can go back to sleep, now. I'm done, I think.

~~ Remember: First you pillage, then you burn. ~~

---

Now, where was I? Oh yeah...

"It's astounding;
Time is fleeting;
Madness takes its toll.
But listen closely...
(--Not for very much longer--)
I've got to keep control."


Richard O'Brien wrote The Rocky Horror Picture Show in the early 70's. He was an out of work actor at the time. The original RHPS started out as a stage play in London, which opened in June of 1973 to fantastic reviews and packed houses of 60 or so people a night. In early 1974 the play crossed the Atlantic and opened in Los Angeles in March that year. Two of the attendees of that first US screening run were Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon who would join the cast of RHPS in England when filming of the movie began late 1974. Richard wrote, directed, produced and starred in it.

Bored yet?

Richard gained both lunatic and genius status with this musical about a bunch of "unconventional conventionalists" who were into cannibalism, leather, booze and all sorts of different sexual proclivities set in a spooky old castle beamed from Transsexual, Transylvania which he wrote as a young man in London, a far cry from his home in New Zealand. Thirty years later, he still occasionally visits his family in Tauranga and has been known to play the odd number or 10 with his brother and the Jazz band that performs every Wednesday night. My father reckons he is a real beaut and he didn't even know RHPS even existed. Bloody Phillistine. He was rather stunned when I sat him down and showed him what it was all about. Rocky Horror Picture Show became the cult movie to end all cult movies where audience participation was not only welcome, it was almost mandatory. You could even say that RHPS has done the Time Warp and come out the other side just as entertaining as it was risque when it first appeared.

Time is a subjective thing. It's pretty warped, as well.

I have several clocks in my house.

I have one on the microwave which seldom gets reset after a power cut. I have one on the wall in the lounge that I almost never see, cos I never go in the lounge. I have one on my computer that I look at all day and I have one next to the bed that I look at in between the times I am looking at the one on the computer. The trouble is, they all tell a different time and I don't actually think any of them are correct.

Just goes to show how often I need to know the real time, doesn't it.

It's astounding, Time is fleeting, I am about to turn 40 and I don't know where it went. But wherever it went, it took my youth and all my good bits and it left behind the dregs of good health, usefulness, happiness and acceptability. I think it also took my Queen albums, my wit, my Reader's Digest Encyclopedia of Haunted Houses and my emerald engagement ring. In other words, anthing worth having it took with it. Mind you, it left me my long hair. Shame that's going so gray.

I wouldn't have a problem if I looked like some bubble-headed bimbo, she would look good sitting in a wheelchair, still be a visual asset and every shcock-driven male knows sexy is what really counts in a man's world.

Sometimes Life is very, very stupid. Every day is one more wasted, every day is Groundhog day, and Madness takes its toll.

~~ Barbie doesn't come with Ken, she comes with G.I. Joe. She only fakes it with Ken. ~~

---