Saturday, April 26, 2008

Inlaw Tech support

I'm on the road to recovery from the pneumonia I wound up with... the bad news is that I still had to miss almost three weeks of work. God willing, I should be able to go back next week.

Anyway, I'm riding to the doctors office the other day with Silverfox when she gets a call from her Mom, who wants to move her computer desk, but doesn't know if she can just unplug it and move it or not. She tells Silvermama that it should be fine, as long as she turns it off first. problem is, she's not sure how to do do that. Silverfox tells her to pull up the start menu and click on "turn computer off". Silvermama can't seem to do it.

Well, as amazing and talented as she is, Silverfox can't deal with this and drive without running us into a canal, so she hands me the phone.

Me: "Tech support..."
Her:"I'm looking at the screen and it's blank."
Me:"Is it on?"
Her:"I don't know."
Me: "push the switch on the base of the monitor."
Her:"A light came on. It's blue."
Me: "that's good. It should come right up."
Her:"Wait. it just turned orange. is that bad?"
Me:"No. it's just in standby mode. Move the mouse or hit a key on the keyboard and it should come up."
Her: "Does it matter which key?"
Me:"No. tap on any of them."
Her: "Nothing's happening."
Me: "Really?"
Her:"Just the orange light, sugar."
Me: "silvermama, look at the front of the CPU. are any lights on?"
Her:"The what?"
Me:"The tower under the desk. Is there a blue light on in front of it?"
Her:"No."
Me: (trying not to laugh) "your computer is already off. just unplug it if you want to move it."
Her:"It was already off?"
Me: "Yep."
Her: "Lord help me... I hate these machines."

I tell her it's alright and chuckle before hanging up the phone. Silverfox just looks at me and shakes her head before cracking up.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Some funny on a friday...

From the DOA management: We apologize for the dearth in posts, but Rob has been wrestling with pneumonia for the past week or so. He has assured us that regular posts will resume as soon as he can reach the keyboard without falling over. Now on to today's joke:

A little girl is sitting on her grandpa's lap and studying the wrinkles on his old face. She gets up the nerve to rub her fingers over the wrinkles. Then she touches her own face and looks more puzzled.
Finally the little girl asks, "Grandpa, did God make you?"
"He sure did honey, a long time ago," replies her grandpa.
"Well, did God make me?" asks the little girl.
"Yes, He did, and that wasn't too long ago," answers her grandpa.
"Boy," says the little girl, "He's sure doing a lot better job these days, isn't He?"

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Today's inspirational poster...

Culinary pet peeves... (continued from yesterday)

I'll tell ya... there's only one thing worse than the one post you make in about a month glitching after it leaves the cell phone... when a dear friend takes the time to poke fun at you for it. (see the comments from yesterday's post)

Yes, I'm looking at you Lauren.

Anyway... to continue... I'm not what you call a refined diner. Beer and pizza suits me just as well as wine and tapas. I do know however, what I like and dislike about restaurants... even more so with restaurants I go to all the time. Generally, I enjoy a well prepared meal and passable service... I'm not one to send stuff back to the kitchen, but a poor meal will usually factor into whether I go to that particular place again. I also don't feel that I hold wait staff to some ideal... people in that profession have it pretty rough, and I try to remember that.

Then there are things that just piss me off. I've noticed that this happens more often when I'm not dining in, but getting something to bring home with me. Still, these are my pet peeves...

Pet peeve #1: When I go into an ethnic restaurant, and the person taking the order assumes that just because I can't pronounce the name of the dish correctly, that I have no idea what I'm ordering. It irritates me even more when I just order the number of the dish off the menu and they still question me with "You sure that's what you want? That's noodles, not rice." It's called "being worldly" toots, look it up when you get home and you'll see a picture of me. Now get off my case and fetch me my number 23 pronto before I start cursing in italian.

Pet peeve #2: When I order a meal for six people and they give me one fork. While I appreciate that someone of my carriage is often assumed to have an exceptional appetite, I am not going to eat six entrees and two appetizers by myself. Maybe I'm just being a little over sensitive, but this really insults me. I am a man, not an eating machine.

Pet peeve #3: When the person behind the counter insists I haven't ordered enough. "do you want fries with that?" is one thing... but when I order something without rice, noodles, or bread, who are you to tell me "You big man. you eat rice."? I used to go to this one Chinese place that did this to me constantly when I worked in the french quarter.

Pet peeve #4: When a waiter acts irritated when I ask what's in a dish, or for specifics about how it's prepared. I'm usually asking because I have food allergies and I'm embarrassed enough that I have to ask, so lose that freaking attitude. My Mom is allergic to soy and corn, so she has to do this all the time... I wonder how she deals with it.

Pet peeve #5: When I'm in the drive through and the person on the other end of the speaker says anything but "Welcome to (our fast food joint) may I take your order?" Anything else just confuses me, especially in the morning before I've had my coffee. There's a McD's not far from where I work where they say "What can I make for you this morning?" every time. No "Welcome." No "Good morning." Just some pain in the ass piece of homespun crapola that I have to get her to repeat twice before it registers in my head. GOD, THIS BUGS ME!!!! I was tempted to write to McDonalds and complain about it, but realized my opinions matter to McDonalds about as much as a field mouse matters to the President of the United States, which is to say not at all.

Okay. End of rant.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Culinary pet peeve #1.

When I go into an ethnic restaurant and the person taking my order assumes i have no idea wh

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