Encyclopedia of Humor

Bill Gates suddenly dies and finds himself face to face with God. God stood over Bill Gates and said, “Well Bill, I’m really confused on this one. It’s a tough decision; I’m not sure whether to send you to Heaven or Hell. After all, you helped society enormously by putting a computer in almost every home in America, yet you also created that ghastly Windows ’95 among other indiscretions. I believe I’ll do something I’ve never done before; I’ll let you decide where you want to go.”

Bill pushed up his glasses, looked up at God and replied, “Could you briefly explain the difference between the two?” Looking slightly puzzled, God said, “Better yet, why don’t I let you visit both places briefly, then you can make your decision. Which do you choose to see first, Heaven or Hell?”

Bill played with his pocket protector for a moment, then looked back at God and said, “I think I’ll try Hell first.” So, with a flash of lightning and a cloud of smoke, Bill Gates went to Hell.

When he materialized in Hell, Bill looked around. It was a beautiful and clean place, a bit warm, with sandy beaches and tall mountains, clear skies, pristine water, and beautiful women frolicking about. A smile came across Bill’s face as he took in a deep breath of the clean air. “This is great,” he thought, “if this is Hell, I can’t wait to see heaven.”

Within seconds of his thought, another flash of lightning and a cloud of smoke appeared, and Bill was off to Heaven. Heaven was a place high above the clouds, where angels were drifting about playing their harps and singing in a beautiful chorus. It was a very nice place, Bill thought, but not as enticing as Hell.

Bill looked up, cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled for God and Bill Gates was sent to Hell for eternity.

Time passed, and God decided to check on the late billionaire to see how he was progressing in Hell. When he got there, he found Bill Gates shackled to a wall in a dark cave amid bone thin men and tongues of fire, being burned and tortured by demons.

“So, how is everything going?” God asked.

Bill responded with a crackling voice filled with anguish and disappointment, “This is awful! It’s nothing like the Hell I visited the first time!! I can’t believe this is happening! What happened to the other place….with the beaches and the mountains and the beautiful women?

“That was the demo,” replied God.

Computer novices may feel like they’re alone these days, but some of the following calls to IBM’s help center show there are plenty of people out there who still are inching onto the information superhighway.

After a caller gave a technician her PC’s serial number, he scanned a database of registered users and responded, “I see you have an Aptiva” desktop unit. Before he could say another word, the caller shrieked and said she’d be right back. When the customer returned, the technician asked if she was all right. The caller responded: “Had I realized you could see me, I never would have telephoned in my bathrobe.”

A customer who had just received a laptop computer asked about the power-saving feature known as “hibernate.” Would this hibernate device work in the spring and summer, the caller asked.

Another caller explained she had received a gift of software on 5.25-inch diskettes, but she had only a 3.5-inch disk drive on her computer. The technician said she had two options: Get a second disk drive, or use 3.5-inch diskettes. The customer called back later, now complaining that her disk drive was making a terrible noise. And this despite the fact that she was using a 3.5-inch diskette, she said. After a bunch of questions, the technician determined the caller had used a pair of scissors to trim the 5.25-inch diskettes to fit the 3.5-inch drive.

A caller, perplexed that his new desktop computer–the one that was supposed to do everything short of bringing on world peace – was doing nothing, cried out for help. No problem, the IBM technician said. First, open a “window” to launch a specific program. The conversation continued, and the caller asked a few moments later if it might be all right to close the window. Why, the IBM technician asked. Because, the caller responded, it was getting very chilly.

IBM: It’s Being Mended
IBM: Inmense Ball of Muck
IBM: I Believe in Memorex
IBM: It’s Better than Macintosh!
IBM: Idiots Built Me
IBM: Intense Bowel Movement
IBM: Inferior But Marketable?
IBM: I’ve Been Mislead
IBM: It’s Better Manually
IBM: Infinitly Better Macintosh
IBM: Indefinitly Boggled Machine
IBM: I Bought a Mac
IBM: I Blame Microsoft.
IBM: I Bought Macintosh
IBM: I’ll Buy Macintosh
IBM: I’ve Been Moved
IBM: I’ve Been Mugged
IBM: Incontinent Bowel Movement
IBM: Identical Blue Men
IBM: Idiotic Bit Masher
IBM: Idiots Become Managers
IBM: Incompatible Business Machines
IBM: Incredibly Boring Machine
IBM: Infernal Bloody Monopoly
IBM: Institute of Black Magic
IBM: Internal Beaurocratic Mess
IBM: International Brotherhood of Magicians
IBM: Intolerant of Beards and Mustaches
IBM: It’ll Be Messy
IBM: It’s Backwards, Man
IBM: Itty Bitty Machines
IBM: Itty Bitty Morons
IBM: It Barely Moves
IBM: I Buy Mainframes
IBM compatible – IBM contemptible

Don’t you wish when life is bad
and things just don’t compute,
That all we really had to do
was stop and hit reboot?

Things would all turn out ok,
life could be so sweet
If we had those special keys
Ctrl, Alt, and Delete

Your boss is mad, your bills not paid,
your wife, well she’s just mute
Just stop and hit those wonderful keys
that make it all reboot

You’d like to have another job
but you fear living in the street?
You solve it all and start a new,
Ctrl, Alt, and Delete

EMACS: Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift
EMACS: Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping
EMACS: Even a Master of Arts Comes Simpler
EMACS: Emacs Manuals Are Cryptic and Surreal
EMACS: Energetic Merchants Always Cultivate Sales
EMACS: Each Manual’s Audience is Completely Stupified
EMACS: Emacs Means A Crappy Screen
EMACS: Eventually Munches All Computer Storage
EMACS: Even My Aunt Crashes the System
EMACS: Eradication of Memory Accomplished with Complete Simplicity
EMACS: Elsewhere Maybe Alternative Civilizations Survive
EMACS: Egregious Managers Actively Court Stallman
EMACS: Esoteric Malleability Always Considered Silly
EMACS: Emacs Manuals Always Cause Senility
EMACS: Easily Maintained with the Assistance of Chemical Solutions
EMACS: Edwardian Manifestation of All Colonial Sins
EMACS: Extended Macros Are Considered Superfluous
EMACS: Every Mode Accelerates Creation of Software
EMACS: Elsewhere Maybe All Commands are Simple
EMACS: Emacs May Allow Customised Screwups
EMACS: Excellent Manuals Are Clearly Suppressed
EMACS: Emetic Macros Assault Core and Segmentation
EMACS: Embarrassed Manual-Writer Accused of Communist Subversion
EMACS: Extensibility and Modifiability Aggravate Confirmed Simpletons
EMACS: Emacs May Annihilate Command Structures
EMACS: Easily Mangles, Aborts, Crashes and Stupifies
EMACS: Extraneous Macros And Commands Stink
EMACS: Exceptionally Mediocre Algorithm for Computer Scientists
EMACS: EMACS Makes no Allowances Considering its Stiff price
EMACS: Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
EMACS: Embarrassingly Mundane Advertising Cuts Sales
EMACS: Every Moron Assumes CCA is Superior
EMACS: Exceptionally Mediocre Autocratic Control System
EMACS: EMACS May Alienate Clients and Supporters
EMACS: Excavating Mayan Architecture Comes Simpler
EMACS: Erasing Minds Allows Complete Submission
EMACS: Emacs Makers Are Crazy Sickos
EMACS: Eenie-Meenie-Miney-Mo- Macros Are Completely Slow
EMACS: Experience the Mildest Ad Campaign ever Seen
EMACS: Emacs Makefiles Annihilate C- Shells
EMACS: Eradication of Memory Accomplished with Complete Simplicity
EMACS: Emetic Macros Assault Core and Segmentation
EMACS: Epileptic MLisp Aggravates Compiler Seizures
EMACS: Evenings, Mornings, And a Couple of Saturdays
EMACS: Emacs Makes All Computing Simple
EMACS: Emacs Masquerades As Comfortable Shell
EMACS: Emacs: My Alternative Computer Story
EMACS: Emacs Made Almost Completely Screwed
EMACS: Each Mail A Continued Surprise
EMACS: Every Mode Acknowledges Customized Strokes
EMACS: Eating Memory And Cycle-Sucking
EMACS: Everyday Material Almost Compiled Successfully
EMACS: Elvis Masterminds All Computer Software
EMACS: Emacs Makes A Computer Slow