Encyclopedia of Humor

My computer broke down.
It crashed and burned!
And for my AOL, I really yearned!
I tried to stay busy…
And keep it off my mind.
It was worse than cigarettes, at least butts I can find!!
So I went to Wal-Mart, and got on their pc.
The cashier in electronics was staring at me.
But I didn’t care. I had to get on line!
Check my mail, and see what buddies I can find.
I drew a crowd as I began to cry.
I couldn’t find the password no matter how hard I tried!
I need my AOL!!
I got to have my fix!!
Go to my favorite places, check out some cool pics.
The cashier called Security!
I heard her whisper low, “We have ourselves a Psycho here and she has got to go!”
Security rushed over. Not long did he stall.
Obviously he has never suffered from AOL withdrawal.
He slapped cuffs on my wrists and threw me out the door!
Then he looked at me and said, “Don’t come round here no more!”
I feel so embarrassed!! I have sunk so low!
To be kicked out of Wal-Mart…. How low can I go?
So I’ll try really hard now to rid myself of this affliction.
Get rid of these bad habits and my AOL addiction!

What Really Happened To The Kursk

Some new information has come to light over the Kursk disaster. For those with short attention spans, the Kursk was the submarine that blew up and sank killing all 118 on board. The Russians tried to blame the incident on a collision with an unidentified object. However, sonar tapes which recorded the blasts (a small one at first, then a much larger one two minutes later) cast doubt on these claims. A whistle blower within the Russian military has leaked that the crew of the Kursk was testing a new type of torpedo when the accident occurred. It seemed very likely that the test didn’t go quite as planned.

While rescue efforts to save the survivors of the Kursk failed, salvage crews were able to recover a ‘Black Box’ from the submarine which contained detailed accounts of the events leading up to the explosion. As luck would have it, we got a copy of those tapes.

It turns out that the submarine crew was trying to load Microsoft Windows on their fire control computer. Their intent was to replace the aging CP/M operating system with the flashier Windows OS. Apparently, the Russians didn’t know about the legendary stability problems exhibited by Windows. The log tapes make this painfully obvious:

Captain: Is the new fire control Windows OS installed yet?

Seaman: Almost Sir. We just need to finish filling out the registration card.

Captain: Excellent. Soon we will be able to point and click our enemies into oblivion.

[evil laughter in background]

Seaman: Captain! It is booting! Look, it says “Preparing to run Windows for the first time”.

[long pause]

Seaman: Arrgh! Sir, it wants me to reboot again. That makes the 27th time.

Captain: Hmmm. This is not encouraging. Go ahead and reboot again.

Seaman: Aye Sir.

[another long pause]

Seaman: Captain, it is up again. It says it found new hardware … A CD-ROM drive and that it needs drivers.

Captain: Where are the drivers?

Seaman: On the CD-ROM.

Captain: You are joking, right?

Seaman: No Sir.

Captain: Reboot the damn thing again. I am starting not to like this Windows.

[another long pause]

Seaman: Sir! It is back! It says it found the Gorby2000 Torpedo and is looking for the device drivers. Do we have a driver disk?

Captain: I do not think so.

Seaman: I will tell it to use the default drivers.

[another long pause]

Seaman: Crap. It wants to reboot again.

Captain: How many times are we going to reboot today? This is taking forever. Our hull is going to rust out before this works.

[another long pause]

Seaman: Sir! It is up and this time it is not asking for anything!

Captain: Really? No device drivers? No registration cards? No user profiles?

Seaman: No Sir. I think it is ready.

Captain: Good work. Now click on the fire control icon and let us see how this works.

Seaman: Clicking now, Sir.

[another long pause]

Captain: Why does the fire control screen have a dancing paper clip on it?

Seaman: I have no idea Sir.

Captain: Hmmm, well try clicking on the menu.

Seaman: Aye Sir. Let us see; Open E-mail, Spam a friend, Mail a Virus, Fire a Torpedo.

Captain: We will spam a friend later. Let us fire a torpedo.

Seaman: Aye Sir.

[another long pause]

Seaman: It is asking us to load the torpedo and to click when ready.

Captain: Torpedo room, load a torpedo in tube number 1!

[intercom:] This is the Torpedo room. The torpedo is loaded Sir.

Captain: Click on the continue button.

Seaman: Aye Sir.

[another long pause]

Seaman: It is asking for a target Sir.

Captain: Hmmm, target the Rainbow Warrior.

Seaman: Aye Sir. Damn! It says the torpedo is low on ink.

Captain: Click ignore. We will get some ink when we return to base.

Seaman: Aye Sir. We are ready to fire.

Captain: Very good. You may fire when ready.

Seaman: Firing torpedo Sir.

[another really long pause]

Captain: Well?

Seaman: I am trying Sir. Nothing is happening. Wait a minute…

[a loud explosion is heard in the background followed by screaming on intercom]

Captain: WTF was that?!?!?

Seaman: Captain! A new screen has appeared! “Outlook Express Fire Control has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. Click ‘OK’ to continue.”

Seaman: Oh my God! The paper clip has died! What should I do?

Captain: Shut it down! Shut it down!

Seaman: It is not responding Sir!

Captain: Try ‘CTRL-ALT-DELETE’!

Seaman: Aye Sir. We are in luck! The task manager is still operating. I am instructing the task manager to shut down Outlook Fire Control.

[another long pause]

Seaman: The task manager says that Outlook Fire Control is not responding.

Captain: Well no ****. Tell it to ‘end task’.

Seaman: Nothing is happening Sir.

Captain: Try ‘CTRL-ALT-DELETE’ again.

Seaman: Aye Sir.

[sounds of frantic pecking on keyboard.]

Seaman: Oooh! What a pretty blue screen!

Captain: Holy ****! Not the blue screen of dea….

[ KABLAM! A really big explosion. More screaming and the sound of rushing water.]

The tape ends at this point. During the week long rescue effort, divers reported hearing tapping in the form of Morse code coming from survivors inside the damaged sub. The rescuers couldn’t understand why a group of men would spend the last of their strength tapping out “WINDOWS SUCKS” in Morse code. The tapes of the last moments of the Kursk may offer some insight into this.

100 buckets of bits on the bus
100 buckets of bits

Take one down, short it to ground
FF buckets of bits on the bus
FF buckets of bits on the bus
FF buckets of bits

Take one down, short it to ground
FE buckets of bits on the bus

A man goes to his physician and is shocked to find that he has been replaced by a super-computer. The computer asks him his ailments and the man says he has a sore elbow. A drawer pops out and he is asked to urinate in it. After a few bleeps and flashing lights the computer decides he has tennis elbow.
The man is annoyed and decides to get one over on this machine so he asks his wife for a urine sample. He then mixes this with urine from his dog and his small son and to top it off, adds some of his sperm. He takes it to the computer-physician who again asks him for a sample. He places the urine/sperm sample in the drawer and the computer makes its usual display of bleeps and flashes before telling him that his wife is pregnant, his dog has rabies, his son has chicken pox and if he doesn’t stop masturbating he’ll never get rid of his tennis elbow.

The power of shifting

Q: My shift keys have little arrows on them. Does that mean the *real* shift keys are located above them, and these keys are just little signs to point them out?

A: Nope, they’re the Real McCoy. The little arrows mean “up”, as in “look up at the screen”. Your keyboard is telling you to learn to touch type and quit staring at your fingers.

Q: What happens if I press both shift keys?

A: Even bigger letters may show up on your screen. You should not use this feature, however, because these letters are also brighter, and may cause Screen Burn-In, which would be particularly embarrassing if you were typing something naughty at the time. You might consider obtaining the author’s Shift Key Burn-In Protector program for only $139.95. Or you might not, it’s your computer, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Q: My religion prohibits the use of shift keys. how can i type capital letters and punctuation

A: Discuss alternatives to the shift key with your spiritual advisor. Perhaps your deity would not be angered by repeated use of the Caps Lock key, or maybe you can retain a consultant to depress the shift for you. You might also consider replacing punctuation marks that require the use of shift keys with lower case expressions; replace ? with “huh” and ! with “zowie”.

Q: I pressed shift and its stuck down now

A: Do small children with a fondness for peanut butter use your keyboard frequently? If so, you may want to clean it off for more reliable operation. First, disconnect your keyboard by gripping each of its ends firmly and pulling as hard as you can. Next, immerse the keyboard in warm water and scrub thoroughly with your favorite lemon-scented detergent and lots of steel wool. Finally, you need to dry the keyboard. Either dry it to touch with a handheld blowdryer, or place it it the dryer for not less than 60 minutes. Be sure to clean the lint screen when you are finished.

Q: Why are there are no “shift” keys on my keyboard, but there are two keys labelled “hif”?

A: Again, you may want to consider cleaning your keyboard, and washing your hands more frequently for that matter.

Q: Are there shift keys on my Macintosh?

A: Yes, although instead of the notation “shift”, the key may be labelled with an excited Mac face, something like :O . Press this key to use shift, and be thankful you’re using a friendly Mac instead of a mean old PC with all them confusin’ words ‘n stuff on it.

Q: I’m sick of pushing the shift key every single time I want big letters. Is there any other way to do this?

A: This is the Modern Age of Convenience, and you may be able to activate the shift key merely with the power of your voice! Check to see whether your computer is equippped with speech-recognition equipment by saying the word “shift” very clearly and slowly into its speaker. Then watch the keyboard closely to see if the Shift key moves down. Note that you may have to repeat this action several times to “train” the computer to recognize your voice before the feature works reliably.

Q: There are two shift keys, which should I use?

A: Avoid unnecessary wear on either shift key by alternating between the two. Keep track of your usage of each key so that you press them in equal amounts. Your keyboard may be equipped with a small notepad; you should use this to make little tally marks in two columns for each time you shift. Remember, it’s better to go to a little trouble than wind up with a broken shift key.

Q: Why are the shift keys bigger than the other keys?

A: They aren’t. This is simply an optical illusion. Just as the moon appears much larger when it is close to the horizon, your shift keys look larger because of their proximity to other keys. To verify this, go out in a large field at night with your keyboard, place it in an upright position, and view it from a distance of 200 yards. Sure enough, the keys all look the same size!

Q: If I press the shift key at the wrong time, or too many times, will my computer explode?

A: No. Well, generally no. Not unless you are using a NEC laptop. Or vt100 terminal emulation. But even then, hardly ever. Really, don’t worry about it. Forget I mentioned it. Just type softly. Move along, next question.

Q: No matter what I do, the shift key just doesn’t seem to work. What’s wrong?

A: Have you ever considered that the problem may not be your keyboard, the problem may be YOU? Perhaps God Himself has suspended the operation of these keys to send you a Message that you have strayed from the path of righteousness. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your life.