A letter from the man sleeping on the floor

Dear Other People in the Computer Lab,

I'm feeling a bit tired, so I think I'm going to sleep on the floor. Someone told me the carpet here smells like blueberries, so I'm going to lie with my mouth as close to the floor as possible. I'll also be sure to point my feet inward, but rest assured, that's just because I'm weird.

Sincerely,
This guy



(work.)

So it turns out that this guy just felt a little sick and decided to lie down. Why he chose such an awkward position is still a mystery, but after my boss politely told him not to sleep in the site, he complied and everything was fine.

My main concern was that this guy was dead and that I'd just inadvertently photographed a corpse. I'd never been so relieved to find out someone was just sleeping face down on dirty carpet.

Conversations with law students in a loud bar

I'm glad Amy's become friends with some awesome people at law school, but sometimes I feel like always seeing them at the bar and not being a law student too makes the conversation between us not as good as it could be.

(We are in a bar. Very loud music is playing.)
Me: 'HEY GUYS.'
Them: 'LAW SCHOOL?'
Amy: 'OH YEAH, LAW SCHOOL!'
Them: 'HAHA, LAW SCHOOL!'
Amy: 'LAW SCHOOL, AND THEN LAW SCHOOL.'
Me: '...COMPUTERS?'
(pause)
Them: '...LAW SCHOOL? LAW SCHOOL!'

To be fair, all my coworkers and I do is yell 'COMPUTERS' at one another all day, and it's not even loud where we work.

(COMPUTERS!)

Street preacher sucks at the internet

Today the homophobic screaming preacher should be out on the Diag. This guy's 'on tour', hitting UofM as only one of many college campuses that will get harassed in the name of God.

However, my biggest problem with him isn't his homophobia or his assholish tenacity. Oh no, check out his website.

Mike Venyah condemns college kids for sinning, but come on, man. 3d word art on a red background over poorly-compressed jpegs? You're the sinner here, buddy, not me.

Page titles include: "Do you have BLOODY HANDS?", "Why Rap music will send you 2 HELL!", and "What kind of fireman are you?" All of these pages seem compelling, but it's hard to read them because the links to them go to somebody's D: drive.

So before that guy on the Diag yells at you and makes you feel bad for drinking, smoking, and engaging in lots and lots of sodomy, keep in mind that he sucks at the internet.

(work.)

If you're in Ann Arbor and you see this guy stomping around the Diag and he says you're going to hell, counter that with "Oh yeah? Your website is poorly designed." That'll show him!

This guy wears shirts that say, "NO HOMOS GO TO HEAVEN!" My buddy Danny also pointed out that he had to make those shirts himself because regular t-shirt screeners probably wouldn't make them. What this means is that while he's a loud, mean man, he's also a t-shirt screener using his powers for evil.

Next time you see this guy yelling at innocent passersby, picture him making t-shirts for hours and hours. Seems a lot less menacing now, doesn't he?

Sensitivity toward Hebrews, necrotechnophilia

I am currently resurrecting my old computer from the dead.

People would say I'm playing God if my computer were a human or a very smart dog, but since it's just a computer, we have nothing to worry about.

By the way, for those of you who are Jewish and cannot read His name, I meant 'playing G-d.' For the dyslexic Jews, I meant 'very smart d-g.'

(what about a very smart g-d?)

I bought a keyboard from woot a while back and, after googling for an hour, visiting three buildings, and driving for over an hour over the course of two days, I got it.

Check out this slideshow, but we warned: Images of this sleek, sexy keyboard may suddenly make you want to have sex with your computer.

If you want to have sex with your computer, but your computer is dead (like mine), are you a necrotechnophiliac? Also, if you Google "necrotechnophiliac" in three months when Google's spiders archive this damn page, will you get my page and my page alone? I sure hope so!

The Teat of Ignorance

I work at a job that exists solely because people are ignorant. If people started googling their questions instead of blaming all their computer problems on ghosts then I would be out of a job.

Every morning I can wake up and ask myself, 'Hey, do people still suck at computers? Yes? Then I shall continue to suckle from the Teat of Ignorance.' And as long as the teat of ignorance secretes paychecks, count me in.

Whenever I answer questions for people, I know that little by little I'm making the IT department less important. That's why from now on I'm lying to users. 'Oh, you want to scan a document? Here, let me call my wizard friend and he'll tell me which spell to use. You go off and open Photoshop and I'll get back to you. By the way, do you have any holy water? There's a ghost in your computer that only I can get rid of.'

(bed.)

Check out this article:
"97 percent of IT professionals feel traumatized by their daily work. Indeed, 80 percent of them get tense just thinking about going to the office."

I wouldn't say my situation's that bad, but then again, I'm not an IT professional. However, I'm still working in the IT department, so I'm still dealing with people who shouldn't be using computers: women, old people, uh...um....actually, I think that covers it.

Then again, I use the internet. If you're a regular internet user there's a good chance that you look down on people dumber than you. Coincidentally, this is also what happens when you work IT.

Work IT, baby, yeah.

Norton firewalls, now with 50% more FEAR

I wonder who writes the safety alerts for Norton Internet Security: FE (Fascism Edition), the firewall/antivirus/popup blocker/ big brother on Amy's old laptop (which I am currently using due to my own computer blowing up).

Now, given that there are plenty of free safety programs for the learned, I'm going to say this now: Norton was designed for the computer illiterate. Now, given that, I'm sure whoever writes these alerts also writes for the evening news. Everything is a warning or a threat and it's all going over everybody's head so all they really remember from the experience is 'BE AFRAID.'

Saying 'Your computer has recently been ATTACKED by a BUFFER OVERFLOW to ITUNES AND QUICKTIME' is just as scary to the unlearned as 'Today we have an ORANGE ALERT because ANONYMOUS RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISTS may ATTACK US SOMEHOW.'

I don't watch the news, but Norton keeps me afraid.

(Meeting.)

Macs vs PCs

I think one reason why Macs aren't very appealing to the unwashed masses if the fact that they're kinda feminine. Smooth, white, shiny, endorsed by techno artist/sensitive male Moby.

You take a look at PC towers and they're big, they're loud, they emit a blue glow. Men, they're just cyber-extensions of our dongs (admit it; you want a big blue glowing dong). Ladies, you just don't know any better. PCs have been the standard for so long that sure, you got one so you could type into the fancy technology box and check your emails all day. But did you know that if you got a Mac you wouldn't need me to get all the goddamn spyware off your computer? You'd get less popups and more shine. So ladies, get a Mac: because did you ever really want something electric, black, and noisy in your room that didn't live in your sock drawer? (I am, of course, referencing your PC and your gigantic vibrator, you sluts).

(Work.)

80,000 kiloboobs

So my slave drive is officially dead. This means I am out 200 gigs of movies, music, and pornography. That's about 10 hours of cinema, 50 hours of music, and about 80,000 kiloboobs.

If I told my mom that my slave drive died, she'd get all concerned and think her son runs a slave trade. But if I ran a slave trade, do you think I'd be so broke all the time? Of course not. Slaves = big business.

Men may read this and think, 'hey, I could use someone to do my pyramid-building homework.'

Women, however, know better than to buy someone they can confine for all eternity. Oh no, they can just get married.

Well, I've referenced ancient Egypt and insulted the institution of marriage. I can go eat now.

(Dinner.)

If Maxtor, the brand of my dead hard drive, had a mouth, I'd tell it to eat cockroaches, because it is a jerk.

Talking to my grandparents while drunk

I talked to my grandparents on the phone today. Now, before you congratulate me for being a good person, know that I was drunk.

To make matters worse, I was at Buffalo Wild Wings, the loudest of local sports bars. So not only was their dear grandson slurring stuff, but my grandparents heard all sorts of yelling and bad music in the background, too. I am so out of the will.

Also, my computer exploded tonight, so one drive isn't working, and for a while my C: drive couldn't find my OS. So if for some reason my computer is turned off EVER AGAIN, you won't hear from me. Real life friends can always call me if I'm not online, but I feel like I should set up an invasive camera in my bathroom so you internet people can continue to secretly keep track of all my shit. Anonymous jerks.

(Bed.)

There is nothing worse than a sick computer. At least when I'm sick, I know that I'll get better, because the human body is awesome and can do that. My computer just makes kind of a sputtering noise and I get blue screens of death.

elbowdeepinasianteens.com

To me, it's sad that the machine that provides me with email, IMs, pictures of naked ladies, word processing, research information, porn, online shopping, games, and elbowdeepinasianteens.com is just 'Freecell box' to many adults.

I'll tell you what, old people: you give me the computer, I give you a deck of playing cards and a punch in the stomach.

I don't think elbowdeepinasianteens.com exists.

Okay, I just checked, and no it doesn't.

YET.

(Bed.)