You
know children are computer crazy when…
Ø
They’re disappointed
when the pet mouse you give them has fur.
Ø
They hate going to
the beach because there is no power point.
Ø
Instead of being a
juvenile delinquent (getting into fights and drinking), they try to hack into
the Pentagon and start World War Three.
Ø
You buy them Microsoft
Golf and, instead of playing it, they look for lost balls so they can sell them
at car boot sales.
Ø
You catch them feeding
sonic bread and milk.
A beginners
guide to the Internet…
Ø
Http – Hotline To Tragic Plonkers.
Ø
Surfing the net –
the indoor equivalent to wandering aimlessly.
Ø
Modem – a little black
box which stays intact when your computer crashes.
Ø
Downloading – a quick
way of catching a virus from anywhere in the world.
Ø
Bookmark – takes you
back to where you got lost the last time.
Ø
Service provider –
someone whose phone is engaged 24 hours a day.
Ø
Cyberspace – where
all your most important files end up.
Ø
E-mail – rubbish at
the speed of light.
Ø
Websites – shop windows
for people who are too lazy to go window-shopping.
Ø
Web browser – the
missing link between nerds and super-nerds.
Alternative
computer technology…
Ø
Cursor – term applied
to computer users who are abusive to their machines.
Ø
Booting the computer
– applying a size 16 Doc Martens to the system box after it keeps telling you
there’s not enough memory to run the application.
Ø
Hard drive – a car
with no engine.
Ø
Incompatibility –
any situation involving humans and computers.
Ø
Bits – the things
scattered on the floor after you drop your computer down the stairs.
Ø
Hidden files – any
files you need in a hurry.
Ø
Copy Protected – any
disk you really need to copy from.
Ø
Start up disk – the
one disk you always manage to lose.
Ø
Virus – I don’t know
what’s wrong either.
Ø
Hardware – The part
of the computer that makes a noise when you throw it out of a window.
Ø
Motherboard – The
main circuit board responsible for checking that all the other circuit boards
are eating properly and wearing clean underwear.
Ø
Spreadsheet – telling
lies in columns.
Ø
Obsolete – the computer
you bought three months ago.
Ø
Inadequate – the computer
you bought three weeks ago.
Ø
Ideal – the computer
coming onto the market in three days time.
What
servicing staff say, and what they mean…
Ø
Syntax error – learn
to type you fool.
Ø
Printer error – you
need to put paper in the printer for it to print.
Ø
Keyboard error – next
time you have a temper tantrum, try pouring the coffee over the plant.
Ø
Systems error – the
programmers shite.
Ø
Disk drive failure
– sales division can flog you an updated version.
More
Computer Stuff…
Ø
It is cheaper to keep
children quiet by placing a strip of masking tape across their mouths than it
is to buy them a computer console.
Ø
Before computers,
we did the same as we do now except slower and with fewer bugs.
Ø
A computer can do
things very fast – like make you angry.
Ø
A
computer expert is not more right than the rest of us, just wrong for more sophisticated
reasons.
Ø
People who claim computers
will make life easier for us have obviously never used one.
Ø
Your score of a “shoot-em-up”
game will decrease in inverse proportion to your age.
Ø
Computers are now
more realistic than ever. If you ask them
to do the same thing twice, you get two different results, they are not always
switched on, and they crash a lot.
Ø
The program’s user-friendly
enough but the programmer leaves a lot to be desired.
Ø
Computer
viruses can affect humans. If one trashes
your hard disk you’re going to feel very sick.
Ø
The reason for Mariner
1, the Venus-bound rocket, suddenly surging off course and exploding (costing
the US taxpayers $18.5 million) was because a hyphen had been
left out of the flight computer program.
Ø
A computer is perfectly
reliable until the moment when you switch it on.
Ø
You
only get repetitive strain injury if you are a bad typist, because it takes you
half a dozen attempts to type in the right thing.
The
built-in obsolescence of computers…
Ø
A computer is only
as stupid as its operator is.
Ø
The genius of modern
technology lies in making things last fifty years and making them obsolete in
six months.
Ø
Rolph’s law of state-of-the-art
technology: If you understand it, it’s obsolete.
Ø
If a system is of
sufficient complexity, it will be built before it is designed, implemented before
it is tested and outdated before it is debugged.
Ø
Computers come in
two types – the prototype and the obsolete.
Ø
For all their power
and sophistication, computers are still very stupid machines that only understand
two simple instructions – a bit like half the people who use them.
Ø
The one thing that
new systems are most capable of is making many more mistakes than the last one.
Ø
Computers are now
so fast that it takes them a fraction of a second to make the same stupid mistake
that used to take hours before.
Ø
Computers are so versatile
– not only can we work on them all day, but we can also list all our errors in
alphabetical order.
Ø
To err is human, but
to really mess things up requires a computer.
Ø
The computer is a
fantastic invention. It can calculate complex
mathematical formulae, it can interact with other computers, it can analyse and
evaluate data in fractions of a second, it can gather
and interpret information from all over the world. It can do just about anything except get your
gas bill right.
Things
you may have expected in 1998…
Ø
Teletubbies
blamed for obesity and lack of exercise in children.
Ø
BSE spreading
to veggie burgers.
Ø
Universities
offering spin doctorates.
Ø
Millennium
Dome put back to next millennium.
Ø
Tobacco
outlawed, cannabis legalised.
Ø
Bill Gates
taking over the Federal Reserve.
Ways
to encourage high performance cars…
Ø
Make petrol
cheaper than water.
Ø
Ban cars
that can’t reach 70 mph in three seconds.
Ø
Lower
the driving age to ten.
Ø
Put Jeremy
Clarkson in charge of the department of Transport.
Ø
Make gas
masks compulsory outside buildings.
Ø
Ban walking,
cycling and public transport.
Ø
Double
the width of all roads, and quadruple the total number of miles of motorway.
Ø
Bring
all the major towns nearer together by deregulating urban sprawl.
Things
nobody looks at…
Ø
The trailers
at the start of a rented video.
Ø
The small
print on insurance policies.
Ø
The Queen’s
Christmas message.
Ø
The wine
list in an Indian restaurant.
Ø
The support
bands at rock concerts.
Ø
The end
credits at the cinema.
Ø
The ingredients
on grocery packs.
Ø
The ‘twinned’
towns on road signs.
Ø
Forewords
in books.
Ø
Safety
procedures on aeroplanes.
You
know you are extremely sad when…
Ø
You think
people should mate for life (Like pigeons and Catholics).
Ø
You want
to commit suicide by jumping off the Eiffel Tower and contemplate taking Concorde so you can
be there sooner.
Disadvantages
of your husband taking Viagra…
Ø
No more
reading the paper in bed on Sunday morning.
Ø
His sudden
virility means he’ll probably lose the rest of his hair.
Ø
You’ll
have to sleep on the sofa.
Ø
It could
turn the menopause into a menofastforward.
Ø
He’ll
start trying to dress twenty years younger.
Ø
He’ll
drain the NHS of vital funds.
Ø
You’ll
never be able to trust him at the office again.
Ø
You’ll
be getting a lot more headaches from now on.
Ø
He’ll
be making up for lost time.
Ø
You’ll
have to get the bed re-sprung every six months.
Dilemmas
of the 1990’s…
Ø
Should paparazzi
bow to royalty before taking their photographs?
Ø
Does one
hold one’s plastic chip fork in the left or right hand?
Ø
How do you
open an automatic door for a lady?
Ø
Should fans
use titles when screaming at pop stars with a knighthood?
Ø
Must you
always use official titles when sending a letter bomb?
Ø
Can you
call your surrogate mother by her first name?
Ø
Is it rude
to point at a police identity parade?
Careers
for Children of Doting Parents…
Ø
Artist –
can draw people without their arms sticking out sideways.
Ø
City Financier
– remembers that the tooth fairy gave more last time.
Ø
Genius –
always knows what’s going to happen next in Eastenders.
Ø
Vet – remembers
to feed hamster and does so without poisoning it.
Laws
of camping…
Ø
The life
of torch batteries is inversely proportional to your need for them.
Ø
Campsites
are one big family – arguing, fighting, and hogging the bathroom.
Ø
A high wind
starts as soon as you get the tent out the bag.
Ø
Tents take
hours to put up but seconds to blow down.
Ø
A three-man
tent will only hold two men and ten thousand insects.
Ø
If you do
remember the can opener you’ll forget the cans.
Ø
Your nearest
neighbours will be insomniacs who talk loudly.
Ø
Sleeping
bags are ingeniously keep you hot in summer and cold
in winter.
Ø
If you have
a television in your tent, someone else will have video, satellite and fax facilities.
Ø
Don’t expect
to speak to your fellow campers ever again.
Definitions
of intelligence…
Ø
Being smart
enough to know you’re not that smart.
Ø
Having the
ability to play three-dimensional chess but the sense not to bother.
Ø
What separates
us from the apes, but not from the psychiatrists.
Ø
Learning
to talk with your mouth open.
Ø
What’s left
when you lose your memory.
Ø
Something
that computers can only dream of (or they could if they WERE intelligent).
Ø
Daydreaming
with attitude.
Ø
A train
of thought that doesn’t stop at stations.
Ways
to stop you car being stolen…
Ø
Always park
it facing the wrong way round in a one-way street.
Ø
Leave a
Robson & Jerome tape in the deck.
Ø
Fit your
own wheel clamps before you leave it.
Ø
Install
a car alarm that plays the ‘Birdie Song.’
Ø
Always park
it next to a more expensive car.
Ø
Put a ‘Sumo
wrestlers do it with their bare hands’ sticker in the window.
Ø
Rip the
stereo out yourself.
Ø
Buy a three-wheeler.
Ways
you can tell summers over…
Ø
Next door
gives you back your lawnmower.
Ø
We stop
losing at cricket and start losing at rugby instead.
Ø
You finally
work out how to get the barbecue going.
Judge-speak:
a guide to convoluted sentences…
Ø
Objection
overruled (I’m the boss here).
Ø
Menace to
society (Steals from rich people like me).
Ø
I will impose
the maximum sentence available (Pity they abolished hanging).
Ø
The worst
case I have ever tried (It ran through two test matches).
Things
Delia Smith never tells you
Ø
How to open
a sardine tin without severing an artery.
Ø
How to get
the lid off a vacuum sealed jar.
Ø
How to remove
pancakes from ceiling tiles.
Ø
Why that
thing you use for picking up fried eggs is called a fish slice.
Ø
How to cook
chips without setting off the smoke detector.
Ø
Why her
husband never phones half way through cooking to say he’ll be late.
Ø
How she
can cook complicated meals without swearing.
Ø
Why your
meals never look anything like hers.
After
dinner speaking…
Ø
The best
way to give a speech is under an assumed name.
Ø
Whilst it
may not be loaded, there is nothing like a video camera to put a speaker off.
Ø
The amazing
thing about the human brain is the way it starts working as soon as you are born,
but stops the minute you are called upon to speak in public.
Ø
The difference
between a good speaker and a bad one is often a comfortable nap (taken by the
audience).
Ø
A person who makes a bad thirty minute speech to two hundred people wastes
only half an hour of their own time, but more than four days of the audiences time, which should be a hanging offence.
Ø
The only
after dinner speech people want to here is the one announcing you will pick up
the bill.