Old and New Jokes

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Terminal coolness.

Befuddled PC users flood help lines, and no question seems to be too
basic

AUSTIN, Texas – The exasperated help-line caller said she couldnt get her new
Dell computer to turn on. Jay Ablinger, a Dell Computer Corp. technician, made
sure the computer was plugged in and then asked the woman what happened when she
pushed the power button.

Ive pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens, the woman
replied. Foot pedal? the technician asked. Yes, the woman said, this
little white foot pedal with the on switch. The foot pedal, it turned out,
was the computers mouse, a hand-operated device that helps to control the
computers operations.

Personal-computer makers are discovering that its still a low-tech world out
there. While they are finally having great success selling PCs to households,
they now have to deal with people to whom monitors and disk drives are a foreign
as another language.

It is rather mystifying to get this nice, beautiful machine and not know
anything about it, says Ed Shuler, a technician who helps field consumer calls
at Dells headquarters here. Its going into unfamiliar territory, adds Gus
Kolias, vice president of customer service and training for Compaq Computer
Corp. People are looking for a comfort level.

Only two years ago, most calls to PC help lines came from techies needing help
on complex problems. But now, with computer sales to homes exploding as new
multimedia functions gain mass appeal, PC makers say that as many as 70% of
their calls come from rank novices. Partly because of the volume of calls, some
computer companies have started charging help-line users.

The questions are often so basic that they could have been answered by opening
the manual that comes with every machine. One woman called Dells toll-free
line to ask how to install batteries in her laptop. When told that the
directions were on the first page of the manual, says Steve Smith, Dell director
of technical support, the woman replied angrily, I just paid $2,000 for this
damn thing, and Im not going to read a book.

Indeed, it seems that these buyers rarely refer to a manual when a phone is at
hand. If there is a book and a phone and theyre side by side, the phone wins
time after time, says Craig McQuilkin, manager of service marketing for AST
Research, Inc. in Irvine, Calif. Its a phenomenon of people wanting to talk
to people.

And do they ever. Compaqs help center in Houston, Texas, is inundated by some
8,000 consumer calls a day, with inquiries like this one related by technician
John Wolf: A frustrated customer called, who said her brand new Contura would
not work. She said she had unpacked the unit, plugged it in, opened it up and
sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what
happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked, What power switch?

Seemingly simple computer features baffle some users. So many people have
called to ask where the any key is when Press Any Key flashes on the screen
that Compaq is considering changing the command to Press Return Key.

Some people cant figure out the mouse. Tamra Eagle, an AST technical support
supervisor, says one customer complained that her mouse was hard to control with
the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was
packaged in. Dell technician Wayne Zieschang says one of his customers held the
mouse and pointed it at the screen, all the while clicking madly. The customer
got no response because the mouse works only if its moved over a flat surface.

Disk drives are another bugaboo. Compaq technician Brent Sullivan says a
customer was having trouble reading word-processing files from his old
diskettes. After troubleshooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the
problem, Mr. Sullivan asked what else was being done with the diskette. The
customers response: I put a label on the diskette, roll it into the
typewriter…

At AST, another customer dutifully complied with a technicians request that she
send in a copy of a defective floppy disk. A letter from the customer arrived a
few days later, along with a Xerox copy of the floppy. And at Dell, a
technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and
close the door. Asking the technician to hold on, the customer put the phone
down and was heard walking over to shut the door to his room. The technician
meant the door to his floppy drive.

The software inside the computer can be equally befuddling. A Dell customer
called to say he couldnt get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of
troubleshooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of
paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the send key.

Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so Dell technician
Gary Rock referred him to the local Egghead. Yeah, I got me a couple of
friends, the customer replied. When told Egghead was a software store, the man
said, Oh! I thought you meant for me to find a couple of geeks.

No realizing how fragile computers can be, some people end up damaging parts
beyond repair. A Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer
worked. He had cleaned it, he said, filling up his tub with soap and water and
soaking his keyboard for a day, and then removing all the keys and washing them
individually.

Computers make some people paranoid. A Dell technician, Morgan Vergara, says he
once calmed a man who became enraged because his computer had told him he was
bad and an invalid. Mr. Vergara patiently explained that the computers bad
command and invalid responses shouldnt be taken personally.

These days PC-help technicians increasingly find themselves taking on the role
of amateur psychologists. Mr. Shuler, the Dell technician, who once worked as a
psychiatric nurse, says he defused a potential domestic fight by soothingly
talking a man through a computer problem after the man had screamed threats at
his wife and children in the background.

There are also the lonely hearts who seek out human contact, even if it happens
to be a computer techie. One man from New Hampshire calls Dell every time he
experiences a life crisis. He gets a technician to walk him through some
contrived problem with his computer, apparently feeling uplifted by the process.
A lot of people want reassurance, says Mr. Shuler.

(Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, March 1, 1994)

In France and Italy, people seduce each other.

In Brazil, they dont have seduction, they just have sex, and
are laid back about it in a way many uptight Englanders might
find loose-moraled.

In Sweden, they dont have seduction either. Any sex that may
occur usually happens during a discussion on Third World debt, or
the ozone layer, or something equally mind-broadening. Any
attempt to seduce a Swede will result in a patronising lecture
on safe sex.

In Singapore, they dont have seduction either. Ordinary people live
in towering government-built apartment blocks, most of which have
a social committee which receives funding from Singapores
government to throw parties to get the socially inept technocrats
to socialise and marry and have children to make more Chinese than
Malays and Indians (who have a higher birth rate). For the same
reason, the National University of Singapores Engineering faculty
is built next to the Accounting department, so the male engineers
meet the female accountants, get married, and have Chinese children.

South of Harlem and north of downtown Manhattan, and either
side of midtown, is where the rich whites live, and where
half the people are too busy to even think about something as
frivolous as romance, while the other half are too busy seeing
their shrinks because they cant find romance. Anyone they do
meet faces a barrage of questions about their career paths,
medical insurance plans, and past drug and divorce offenses.

People who live in Connecticut and upstate New York, who commute to
Manhattan every day (so-called mainline snobs because they
never use the subway) seduce each other on the train home,
where they scope each other out on the train for a few days,
then strike up a conversation a couple of minutes before one
of them gets off (so that if the other person
is an asshole, the conversation will shortly end anyway) and
arrange a lunch date back in Manhattan. This ensures that
rich professional mainline snobs mix with other rich professionals.

Near (but not in) Washington D.C., in the neighbouring suburbs in
Maryland and across the river in Virginia, the first thing single
people talk about having met an attractive potential partner
is politics. Tax-and-spend liberals wont go out with
Dickensian conservatives, gun nuts wont touch screaming
heart civil libertarians, lobbiests for oil companies wont
date lobbiests for clean air, and all the fine shades of political
opinion are more important than opinions about anything else,
physical attractiveness, intellectual prowess, and personality.

In Germany, people can talk about their emotions up-front and
realistically.

SCENE: Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany
Helmut: So Hans, how is Helga these days?
Hans: Helga says that unless I stop sleeping around
and spend more time at home, shes going to
leave me and contest custody of the kids.
Helmut: I think Helga has a point – if you really loved
her, you wouldnt pay for Evas flat.
Hans: The first few years with Helga were great,
but I really dont love her any more.

People from other cultures find this Teutonic efficiency a little
bloodless and dehumanised, as if they discuss their emotions
like they discuss their shopping list, or desired options in
their new Opel.

In most of Australia, people are afraid to say what they think,
for fear of offending someone else and for someone else hurting
them. Instead, they talk about safe trivialities.

SCENE: Kensington, NSW
Warren: So Harry, how is Janet these days?
Harry: Shes been very strange lately. [Tense]
Warren: Oh? [Nervous tone of voice]
Harry: Yeah.
Warren: [Changing the subject] Hows the new Falcon?
Harry: Its alright, but typical Australian-made stuff….

Foreigners are shocked to find that the only way to seduce an
Australian is to pretend to be almost completely disinterested.
Any show of romantic interest will cause the
non-risk-taking Australian to go scurrying of to their friends
for security. Any effort to be warm, caring, and supportive
to an Australian woman will cause her to reciprocate only because
she thinks you must be gay, and thus free of emotional risks.

Any Man who brings a camera to a stag night may be legally
killed or beaten by his fellow partygoers.

Under no circumstances may two men share an umbrella.

It is ok for a man to cry under the following circumstances:

a. When a heroic dog dies to save his master

b. The moment Angelina Jolie starts unbuttoning her blouse

c. After wrecking your boss car

d. One hour, 12 minutes, 37 seconds into The Crying Game

e. When his date is using her teeth

Unless he murdered someone in your family, you must bail a
friend out of jail within 12 hours.

If youve known a guy for more than 24 hours, his sister is
off limits forever, unless you actually marry her.

The minimum amount of time you have to wait for a guy whos
running late is 5 minutes. Maximum waiting time is 6 minutes.
For a girl, you have to wait 10 minutes for every point of
hotness she scores on the classic 1-10 scale.

Bitching about the brand of free beer in a friends fridge is
forbidden. Gripe at will if the temperature is unsuitable.

No man shall ever be required to buy a birthday present for
another man. In fact, even remembering your buddies birthday is
optional.

When stumbling upon other guys watching a sporting event, you
may always ask the score of the game in progress, but you may
never ask whos playing.

It is permissible to quaff a fruity chick drink only when
youre sunning on a tropical beach… and its delivered by a
topless supermodel… and its free.

Friends dont let friends wear Speedos. Ever. Issue closed.

If a mans zipper is down, thats his problem — you didnt
see nothin.

Women who claim they love to watch sports must be treated
as spies until they demonstrate knowledge of the game and the
ability to drink as much beer as the other sports watchers.

You must offer heartfelt and public condolences over the death
of a girlfriends cat, even if it was you who secretly threw
it into a ceiling fan.

Never hesitate to reach for the last beer or the last slice of
pizza, but not both. Thats just plain mean.

Never talk to a man in a bathroom unless you are on equal
footing: both urinating, both waiting in line, etc. For all
other situations, an almost imperceptible nod is all the
conversation you need.

Never allow a conversation with a woman to go on longer than
you are able to have sex with her. Keep a stopwatch by the
phone; Hang up if necessary.

The morning after you and a babe who was formerly just a
friend have had carnal drunken rampant sex, the fact that
youre feeling weird and guilty is no reason not to do it again
before the discussion about what a big mistake it was.

Había una vez una niña que sólo tenía tres pelos. Un día cuando se iba para el colegio le dijo a su mama: Mamá, mamá hazme una clineja.

La mamá le dice: No puedo porque se te cayó un pelo.

Al otro día:

Mamá, mamá, hazme dos moñitos.

No puedo porque se te cayó un pelo.

Al otro día:

Mamá, mamá, hazme una colita.

No puedo porque se te cayó un pelo.

Y la niña contesta:

¡Entonces déjamelo suelto!

Two rednecks decided that they werent going anywhere in life and thought they should go to college to get ahead. The first goes in to see the counselor, who tells him to take Math, History, and Logic.

Whats Logic? the first redneck asks.



The professor answers by saying, Let me give you an example. Do you own a weedeater?



I sure do. Then I can assume, using logic, that you have a yard, replied the professor.



Thats real good! says the redneck. The professor continues, Logic will also tell me that since you have a yard, you also own a house.



Impressed, the redneck says, Amazin! And since you own a house, logic dictates that you have a wife.



Thats Betty Mae! This is incredible! The redneck is obviously catching on.



Finally, since you have a wife, logically I can assume that you are heterosexual, said the professor.



Youre absolutely right! Why thats the most fascinatin thing I ever heard! I caint wait to take that logic class!!



The redneck, proud of the new world opening up to him, walks back into the hallway, where his friend is still waiting.



So what classes are ya takin? asks the friend. Math, History, and Logic! replies the first redneck.



What in tarnation is logic??? asked his friend. Let me give you an example. Do ya own a weedeater? asked the first redneck.



No, his friend replied.



Fag! Queer!

posh and Becks are sitting in front of the television watching the six

> oclock news. The main story is a man threatening to jump off the



> Clifton



> Suspension Bridge on to the busy road below.



>



> Posh turns to Becks and says: David, I bet you 5,000 that he jumps!



> to



> which Beckham replies 5,000? Done! I bet that he doesnt. So they



> shake



> hands on the bet and continue watching.



>



> Sure enough, the man jumps and hits the road below with a loud thud.



> Beckham



> takes 5,000 out of his back pocket and hands it to Posh. But she



> refuses.



> I



> cant take your money, David, she says. The truth is, I was cheating.



> I



> saw the five oclock news, so I knew he was going to jump.



>



> No, babe, fairs fair says David. That money is yours fair and



> square. I



> was cheating just as you were. I saw the five oclock news, too. I



> just



> didnt think he would do it again.

yo momaso ugly when she was born they had to feed her with a sling shot

What do you call a woman outside the kitchen?

Answer: A fugitive