BOFH: Hammer time!
"Ooooh, watch this!" I gasp happily to the Boss as he and I observe the PFY, from the relative safety of the webcam monitor in Mission Control. "What?" the Boss asks. "He's going to take a look at her PC!" "Isn't that part of his job?" "No this isn't a work machine, this is a home machine!" I snigger. "Still, if it's a …
Just what I need on a friday afternoon, you are on form as always, Mr. Travaglia.
Here, have a (metaphorical) beer on me.
Been there done that many times...
Speaking of that sodding cat i stuck down double sied tape on top of my case the cat never slept on it ever since (Cat had half its fur missing)
And the secret way of opening it...... must have been a compaq!!.....
You forgot to add the famous quote "Can you install XP to it"
And Windows ME... Would have cried if i saw that come on and directed them to the nearest website to buy a new one!!..
Nice work Though on BOFH
Funny because it's true. Even attractive young people who know nothing about electronics can have crap machines. Nice one, Simon :-)
Grenade for what happens to my sinuses every time I tried in the past to fix a friend/relative's computer and ended up inhaling glub only knows what sort of spores and crud from the orgy of horror inside the case.
There isn't much action in this episode, but it has the BOFH spirit as well as a sense of freshness, it's fairly convincing and it gave me some good chuckles. In short, it was a very enjoyable reading.
Brilliant, Same principle could be used with all DELL Machines but with an added twist of handcuffing the user to the machine, pouring petrol over the machine and the user, turning the condemmed machine on and lighting the fuse!
The best DELL is a dead DELL!
Really did laugh out loud at the old folks routine :-)
Still, how does Simon know what my parents PC is like?
No, don't answer that.
I didn't understand the punch-line. "I couldnt repair it because it is her PC". Is he alergic to cats or to attractive girls who use Windows ME?
It's beer o'clock, so I'll ponder on it in the pub
Nice twist at the end.
Still, wouldn't like to be in the Boss' shoes after winning a tenner off the BOFH!!
...you wipe the hard drive and install Linux on it!
:-)
Could have been worse - could have been dried blood. Before Roladex went bust they moved from file cards to making the cheapest, nastiest PCs ever. I had to install modems (pass me cane young whippersnappers) in eight of them. The insides were full of unfinished metal edges and subsequently with blood....
But "use the memory as a coffee coaster for the morning" - wouldn't a coffee stirrer be more appropriate (your cup would just fall off a stick of ram!)
But more than made up for it with the motherboard being suitable to land a light aircraft on :D
You did not by any chance leave feedback on teh argos site about a Belkin Ipod classic holder?
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/catalogId/1500001501/partNumber/5241273/Trail/searchtext%3EIPOD.htm
If so are they n e good?
For the love of all that is holy!
Please nuke the site from orbit. That's the only way to be sure.
Pub time already.
Whatever is this world coming to?
Not just normal ISA ones?
It is so familiar, the complicated cases that sometimes bite when reassembling and only need one screw to hold it together (as thats all I'd bother putting in) but strong enough to stand on when you need a step ladder. Loved the cleanliness of a 'vacuum bag' bit.
Reminds me of the days of the 486 when my neighbour wanted me to look at his 8086 IBM. Well, first he was sold a VT terminal and told it was a PC, then was sold this old monster. The hard disk died on it and the machine default booted into GWBasic in lew of an operating system.
There is a little nostalgia when looking at old PCs, unless someone wants you to make as fast as a new one.
except mine has no USB ports
Paris -cos she know where her ports are
So when to we get the slash fanfic about curing the PFY?
Gaah! Good job I'm off to a party tonight - I must obliterate those painful memories...
To paraphrase the Indian office dude from Family Guy: "HA HAAA! IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE IT'S TRUE!"
Been there and done that! Turned the machine on and just a BZZZT from the power supply! Opened the case (with required hunting dog and search party for screws) only to find that many, many, MANY generations of mice had resided in the case. The mouse urine had eaten the tracks of the mother board, curling the traces so the protesting noise from the supply was quite natural!
The good side is that the owner did pay for the hospital visit for broad spectrum antibiotics, plague vaccine and the complete sterilization of my office! NEVER AGAIN!
Another good BOFH :)
Seeing as our network is down I feel like I can home now my day is complete.
Um, no. I haven't got an iPod, nor am I ever likely to run a half-marathon.
I do know the Queen, though.
"Speaking of that sodding cat I stuck down double sided tape on top of my case the cat never slept on it ever since (Cat had half its fur missing)"
You now owe me a (dust and cat hair free) keyboard. Earl Grey all over the old one.
Every sodding time I get this request from an attractive lady has gotten me absolutely nowhere with the aforementioned dame.
I now reply to such requests with: "are you willing to pay for this?".
LOL, Open PCI slots indeed. No mention of the razor sharp internal edges which were the de-facto standard in cases like that. I think the old beige machines turned yellowy because dried blood goes that colour when you try to wash it off.
"I do know the Queen, though"
Her Maj? Or Graham Norton?
I lol'd several times reading that :)
I find working on PC's owned by smokers the absolute worst, last week a mate of the wife brought her overheating PC round, that much tar in the case and the processor fan had stopped turning! talk about stinks!
The point is that you could probably fill Wembley Stadium with all the people who refer to themselves as 'Sarah B' on the internet so it's highly unlikely that that one would be me. I never refer to myself as 'Sarah B', anyway. Why would I? Tsk.
A friend of mine went out with a girl whose surname was Bee. It was years before I realised that Bee really was her surname and not an affectionate shortform. I didn't like to ask you see.
Nice to see the Boss coming out on top for a change.
Even if doing so does do horrible unspeakable things to his projected life expectency :)
Why would he not be able to fix the machine because it's hers..?
Arrgh!. The memories of my old field support days.
I agree that ones owned by smokers were the worst. You'd turn up, the machine would be 6 months old, yet the case yellow - you open it up and everything inside is sticky, and the CPU fan is stuck solid.
Then they expect you to fix it under warranty. Pah!
I agree with the smoker thing.
Had to repair a PSU in a cable box for some one and erm well I was sticking to the board..
On a seperate note I came downstairs switched on my PC looked at tower and there was a soddng snail stuck to it...
Bloody thing had left a nice trail all over it....
So now got a ring of salt around my pc... Looks like i am trying to stop evil demons getting to it...
Because no self-respecting PFY could have a "relationship" with such a technological half-luddite. Its the half part, you see...
If the young, attractive (apparently single) lady had *no* computer, then no problem: She would be greatly impressed with the PFY's prowess with the dip switch technique(tm), or the short lived holiday to his bedroom would be simple and sweet.
If the YA(AS)L [new acronym?!] had brought her parent's machine, then no problem: She would either be Category 1 (above), or her machine would be a nice modern thingy. A modern machine means either that she is comfortable with the PC and would be interested in the PFY as a person (GASP!), or would (holy grail of g/f's) actually be able to hold an intelligent conversation with the PFY and ENCOURAGE the expense for that new nVidia card. Yum in so many ways...
However, because it was *her* machine, it means that she is still stuck in the hoarfrosted clunker of her college years, and obivously has no respect for the Light of Technology. Yet, she understands the nature of *needing* a computer, and would want to maintain a relationship with (possibly) the only person who would keep her dreck running. Hence, he found himself in a (very old, back of bottom shelf of fridge for five years type) pickle; she was merely one of the many "more interested in overstock.com's shoe clearances than my machine" types. Though she would string him along to keep him near, she would also CONSTANTLY bitch, whine, and moan (but not in bed!) about him even getting compressed air to clear out the keyboard (it could mess up her hair and pollutes the environment... WITH AIR...) because it was money *not* spent on her.
And no, money spent on her computer would likewise be "wasted"; look how well she kept it up, eh?
Yep, he dodged a bullet on that one. <sniff/> We should all be *so proud*.
The Pc can't be that old if it had PCI slots.I would have expected ISA or EISA or VESA, and Window ME is positively modern. Windows 3.11 or MeSs-DOS would be more appropriate.
I recently found a PC at work which still had the Netware client installed. I bet that sends shivers up a few spines.
Like the man said above, this is hilarious because it's true!
Yep, done the PC repair person thing myself.
Haven't come across a dead mouse in a machine yet. But there was one I did forensics on and confirmed that the spiderwebs that bridged between the power supply and the motherboard (and everything else) had collected enough dust to become a semiconductor. ZAP!
Cat hair (or eugenically-engineered small canine hair), check. Dust layers an inch thick on the bottom, yep. Power supply and CPU overheats because of dust collection on the fans, quite a lot. Lots of really pointy solder connections and sharp edges on the cases and components, got the scars. Fiendishly complicated chassis, all the manufacturers did that (Compaq and Bleeding Edge, err, Leading Edge were the worst), and some of the kit machines we assembled came with Engrish instructionings. Always good for a laugh, those.
Three rounds of Georgetown Brewery's Manny's Pale Ale for the BOFH, the PFY, and Mr. Travaglia for this one!
Old PC, they complain the net is slow. Boot it up, dozens of useless tray items for every single piece of cheap electronic usb gadget and fake antivirus theyve ever used. They use "the big blue e".
Boot it, half the screen taken up by scrollbars for web searches, cursors, "buddies", translators etc.
Absolute mess always makes me cry.
cool - can you get me Prince Michael of Kent's autograph?
Never have been so close to actually spit my coffee over the keyboard!
Great job as usual, Simon.
Will the Boss meet a sudden and gruesome death before the BOfH pays the 10 quid?
Will the BOfH punish the PFY for making him lose a bet?
Will we be forced to wait a whole month in order to know the answers to these questions?
... Don't miss the next Bastard Operator from Hell in (hopefully) less than 30 days!
It's as 'I didn't do IT' says : you couldn't possibly go out with someone who thinks Windows ME is a good thing.
There is precisely one exception : if the reason they don't care about their computer is due to having multiple interesting non computer related hobbies/interests. In that case it's allowed, although some of the really sad geeks might disagree.
Of course, Simon clearly isn't a cat owner : cats don't sit on tower cases, because they go under desks. There isn't enough room to fit a cat and a full tower under a desk. With the death of CRT monitors, cats have lost out from their elevated heated sleeping platforms, too.
