Written by an Australian Dentist....and too good to delete....

To Kill an American
You probably missed this in the rush of news, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper, an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.

So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is . So they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!)


"An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan.


An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.


An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan . The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.


An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.


An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world.

The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence , which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.


An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.


When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!


As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan . Americans welcome the best of everything...the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services. But they also welcome the least.


The national symbol of America , The Statue of Liberty , welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America .


Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It's been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.  

So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself . Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

   A Christian in Iraq - Do I Regret Joining the Army?

Hello,

     As it comes close to the end of my tour here in Iraq I feel I need to put this out to those I can call  my friends.  From the time I raised my hand and swore to protect my country I have only become a better person than I was.  Not for a second have I regretted my decision to be a part of the fight to protect our nation, and our freedom.  The Military is not what it is made out to be.  In fact I can tell you I have learned more in the last two years of the military than I ever did in my school years.  I am not talking about algebra or the differences between protons and neutrons.  I am talking about what it means to have pride, self-respect, integrity and a little taste of what real fear is.  I learned to trust the guy next to you and have no doubt that if you get into a rough situation someone has your back.  For anyone that has seen combat (and I mean....think you may meet Jesus today combat) you can understand that life has a whole new outlook when you come home.  Soon I will be there on the couch watching the distorted way the media portrays what’s happening here, but I can say I was a part of something great and possibly changed the world.  And for those of you that have supported me or any other troops, you can say the same.  I can also say that I am ready to see the color of the GREEN grass and the smell of the ground after a rain storm.  The next time you take for granted a cloud think of how much we would love to have a huge bubbly cloud over us as we are out on a mission and have no shade in a 110+ degree weather. Before I left for this place I took for granted the clouds and the shade they provide, not anymore.  It’s the little things that matter now.  A good laugh, a cute kid, a hug, and church without a weapon.

    It’s funny for me to think of the days when churches split because of Coke machines in the youth room, or because the preacher wouldn’t stay behind the pulpit when he was preaching.  I sit in church every Sunday in a sweaty Army PT uniform because I walked a mile to get there, with a M4 Rifle at my side.  I think the Lord is pleased to just have me there, and could care less how I got there and what I was wearing as long as my heart is pure and intentions are good.  Plus this war has brought churches to the side of the world that needs it most.

     In closing I wish to say that war does change a person and I was changed for the better.  Not the same as I left and I don’t regret joining the Army.  In fact, I think it’s the best decision I ever made, well besides the decision to follow Christ!

This letter was an email written by Jeanene Pollard, the 26 year old great-niece of Millie Samuels. She is the daughter of Andrea Bell who grew up in Weed, New Mexico and hopes to be home by Thanksgiving. What an amazing testimony about the character of this young lady!  We have so much to be thankful for and truly are blessed to live in a country where we have the freedom to worship God.  When you lay your head on your pillow at night , please remember to pray for the safety of all those who are serving in the military to protect our nation and our freedom.

There was a Chemistry professor in a large college that had some Exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Prof noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist government.

In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a Strange question. He asked, " Do you know how to catch wild pigs?"

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke."You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. While we continually lose our freedoms- just a little at a time.

One should always remember "There is no such thing as a free lunch!"

Also, "You can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.

COLON CANCER

If you guys had not notice, that I hadn’t had any entries, the reason, I was in the hospital having surgery to remove a cancerous polyp.  Let me tell you the whole story and what led up to this and the myths of a healthy man.

In February 2006, I notice blood in the stool after working hard all day and not drinking much water.  I figure it was hemorrhoid that was bleeding.  Blew it off.  A few days later, my wife walk in the bathroom just as I was flushing the commode and notice blood and ask me to go see the doctor and make sure it was hemorrhoid.   Well again, just not wanting to go see the doctor, call it ignorance, because I was, in good health and always working and just not making time to find out for sure, I finally schedule a physical for myself in May 2006.  I went for my appointment and had everything done, including the finger test, (how I hate that test) and no blood in the stool or anything wrong.  Still had the same problem with my weight and had gained 10#, but still in good health.  He schedules me for a colonoscopy and I said OK and kinda blew it.  I figure I wait as long as possible.  No more blood in the stool and hadn’t had any problems.  In April 2007, this year the blood showed up, gladly my wife wasn’t around to see it and this time I talk to her and let her know.  I call the doctor, and finally schedule the colonoscopy and in August 22, was the earliest I could get in.  The procedure, drink a laxative, clean out the bowels, the day before the procedure.  I showed up in the morning and had the test.  No, it doesn’t hurt, I was out and everyone involve was professional and courteous.  Here are the pictures that show what was found.  In the first picture, normal health colon, second, the polyp, the third, the biopsy bit he cut for test.  He could not remove it because he said it large and grown into the tissue of the colon.

After a week, he call me with the results of the pathology report and said it was not colon cells but it was not cancerous either but would turn cancerous it quick action was not taken.  So we went ahead and scheduled the surgery.

Thursday, September 13, 2007, I started taking the laxative again.  Clean out the bowels and the next day surgery.  I wasn’t scared, because I had left my worries to God, and figured, well I will be off work for at least 6 weeks and coeditors will have to wait. 

Friday, into surgery at 12:30pm and next time I wake up it’s around 6:00 pm and the room is spinning. I close my eyes, dead to the surrounding my environment. 

Saturday, just lay in bed.  Not to do, just hurt a little, surfer with a backache and a handover.  Later those in the day, around 6:00 pm I finally get up and walk around for the first time.  Off and running, did a lap around the floor, got back and dead again. That morphine was good.  Take a shot, out I go.  Wake up at midnight, walk again,  NO food yet.

Sunday, 4:00 am, wake up again, walk a couple of laps, complained about the bed, being to hard, take a couple a shots of morphine, out I go.  NO food yet

7:00 am, wake up again, still can’t get a good sleep, walk around, and still just sit a chair for a while.

1000 am. Start complaining about the bed,  the CNA adjust the bed, and finally get some sleep.  I don’t feel good, but I thank God he had kept me alive.  I got ice chips finally.

I have various visitors all day long and I welcome them.  Visitors are good to help you recover,  they bring humor, laughs and just company to help pass the long day of doing nothing.

At around 8:00pm, I am feeling pretty sick with a slight fever, hot, cold, hot, I already figure it’s going to be a miserable night. -it had been a miserable night. No sleep, sorry bed, hot and cold.  I take 3 shots of morphine and finally wake up in the morning tired but alive.  Take a shot at 6:00 am Monday, of morphine.  Fell asleep again for a couple of hours.  Get up and complain to nurse about the bed, nothing done.  Tell my wife about the bed, she takes it to higher level, that afternoon, and a different bed is brought in.  I finally get a good night.

Monday, I start off pretty good.  Finally get a liquid diet…yuck!!!

Jell-O goes down ok, pudding ok, rest of the stuff, yucky!!.

More visitors that evening and I am feeling better.  Watch some of the football games on TV….don’t remember who played or the score.  I fell asleep and rested.

Tuesday, it all day, wife came again, help me bath and that help 100%.  I rested most of the day and by night, I have the grow lies.  Lots of air in the bowels. I sleep again that night and wait for the next day.

Wednesday, I get word I will be out of the hospital in the afternoon, doctor informs me that the piece of colon with the polyp  he sent off from the surgery gets back from the pathologist it had turn to cancer and that next year I will have a colonoscopy again. NO CHEMO.   I get the 1^st real food.  Roast beef, mash potatoes, green beans, brown gravy, toss salad and bread, Ice tea…..eat and doctor wait to see if I can hold it down….out of the hospital by 1:30pm and head home. 

MY LESSON LEARN, I AM NOT SUPERMAN,    I AM DESTRUCTABLE BY THE LITTLE CELL, AND THOSES CELLS CAUSE LOTS OF PAIN. So stay healthy, eat right, do exercise, quit smoking and drinking alcohol, and listen to your body.  Sometimes it is telling you, you are hurting inside.  If you want individual questions answered send me an email to: chiefralphsonar@yahoo.com  

Hampton Blvd.

by Bob 'Dex' Armstrong

To all East Coast sailors, Norfolk was 'Shit City.' Rumor has it that during World War II the fine citizens of that fair city put signs on their lawns that read, "SAILORS AND DOGS KEEP OFF THE GRASS." Next to the Red Cross making front line GIs pay for coffee and doughnuts they should have given away, the stories about Norfolk come in a well deserved second. The best way to see Norfolk was through a rear view mirror.

Norfolk created a sinkhole called East Main Street. No place on earth was a bigger dump. It was wall to wall beer joints and establishments designed specifically to separate sailors from their money. It was a municipal embarrassment and they shut it down.

It needs to be said that without the Navy payroll, Norfolk would have been just another seedy seaport... The neat stuff that Norfolk has today got built with bluejacket bucks.

The police force that spent most of their time hassling sailors turned a blind eye to gambling, gouging storekeepers, whores, motels who rented the same room four times a night, and the crooks who drove cabs. Norfolk was a corrupt hole... A festering pus pit on the East Coast... It WAS 'Shit City.'

The city fathers through a clever zoning plan, closed down the open sore of East Main Street. This forced the center of action to Hampton Blvd. A case of moving the ticks to the dog.

Hampton Blvd. became a Mecca of beer joints, navy gear stores, tailor shops, and greasy spoons. They sold everything a sailor wanted and set up locker clubs to store your junk. It was a land beyond health codes and consumer protection.

They had clothing stores who must have purchased their entire inventory straight off the seconds' rack at the Ringling Brothers outlet. I once saw a sailor come out of Bells Naval Tailors wearing an avocado-colored sports coat with metallic threads woven into it. Jeezus, they would have laughed the guy out of a Ubangi class reunion.

There was a motto engraved in the hearts of all shopkeepers on Hampton Blvd... "You can sell dog doo doo to a sailor on payday..." And they did. Sailors with good taste (I wasn't one and never met one) were a statistical element right behind pregnant nuns.

They sold godawful silk pillows with fringe all around the edges. They also had every imaginable kind of brass, plastic and ceramic ships and anchors with "FROM YOUR SAILOR IN NORFOLK VIRGINIA" printed on them. I figured any mother who put one of those ugly sonuvabitches out where anyone could see it, must have REALLY loved her son, or was blind.

There were kids running around with an open top tin can suspended on a string around their necks and a wood box... In the tin can they had a couple cans of black Kiwi or Lincoln shoe polish and a buff rag... The box held a shoe brush.

"Hey sailor... One fine shine... One thin dime..."

Adrian Stuke brought back this wonderful memory in a recent phone call.

"One fine shine... One thin dime," a clean white hat, fresh pressed blues, dolphins, money in your pockets for a couple of pitchers of beer, eight Slim Jims... It didn't get any better than that... It never did.

Hampton Blvd. was the home of the Second Fleet. Tincan sailors had a bar... Airdales had a bar... All the other skimmers had bars... SUBRON SIX had Bells. Bells was a hole. It had beat up furniture, a beat up pool table, a juke box and a men's room where on a heavy duty drinking night, grown men have been known to pee directly down the floor drain. It was a hole all right, but it was OUR hole. Bells was the nest we feathered... Hell, we were young single guys and had no other place to go.

When a decent girl left home, the last thing a Norfolk dad said was, "Darling, stay away from sailors and don't go anywhere near Hampton Blvd." So, if you wanted female companionship, you most likely had to pay for it. One way or the other, you paid... And at the pay rate in those days, the product was a little ragged around the edges.

Our story will never show up on the screen at your local movie house. We should be thankful in a lot of ways... Why? Because no one who wasn't there could get it right.

 Norfolk was somethng else when I lived there between 1982-1984 and 1990-1993.  It was better, but then I didn't like Norfolk.  Between driving from Portsmouth to Norfolk Naval Base,  there was still a sign that said "Sailors and Dogs keep off grass," and it bother me because dogs could read..... 

Great Idea

ICE Campaign - "In Case of Emergency"

We all carry our mobile phones with names & numbers stored in its memory but nobody, other than ourselves, knows which of these numbers belong to our closest family or friends.

If we were to be involved in an accident or were taken ill, the people attending us would have our mobile phone but wouldn't know who to call.
Yes, there are hundreds of numbers stored but which one is the contact
person in case of an emergency? Hence this "ICE" (In Case of Emergency) Campaign.

The concept of "ICE" is catching on quickly. It is a method of contact during emergency situations. As cell phones are carried by the majority of the population, all you need to do is store the number of a contact person or persons who should be contacted during emergency under the name "ICE" ( In Case Of Emergency).

The idea was thought up by a paramedic who found that when he went to the scenes of accidents, there were always mobile phones with patients, but they didn't know which number to call. He therefore thought that it would be a good idea if there was a nationally recognized name for this purpose.

In an emergency situation, Emergency Service personnel and hospital Staff would be able to quickly contact the right person by simply dialing the number you
have stored as "ICE."

For more than one contact name simply enter ICE1, ICE2 and ICE3 etc. A great idea that will make a difference! Let's spread the concept of ICE by storing an ICE number in our Mobile phones today!

Please forward this.
It won't take too many "forwards" before everybody will know about this.
It really could save your life, or put a loved one's mind at rest.
ICE will speak for you when you are not able to.

On   Tuesday, September 11th, 2007, an   American flag should be displayed
outside every home, apartment, office, and   store in the United   States.
Every individual should make it their   duty to display an American flag on
this anniversary of our country's worst   tragedy. We do this in honor of
those who lost their lives on 9/11, their   families, friends and loved ones
who continue to endure the pain, and those   who today are fighting at home
and abroad to preserve our cherished   freedoms.
 
 
 
In the days, weeks   and months following 9/11, our country was bathed in
American flags as   citizens mourned the incredible losses and stood
shoulder-to-shoulder against   terrorism. Sadly, those flags have all but
disappeared. Our patriotism pulled   us through some tough times and it
shouldn't take another attack to galvanize   us in solidarity. Our American
flag is the fabric of our country and together   we can prevail over
terrorism of all kinds.
 
 
 
Action Plan: So,   here's what we need you to do...
 
 
 
(1) Forward this   email to everyone you know (at least 11 people).  Please
don't be the one   to break this chain. Take a moment to think back to how
you felt on 9/11 and   let those sentiments guide you.
 
 
 
(2) Fly an American   flag of any size on 9/11.
 
Honestly, Americans   should fly the flag year-round, but if you don't, then
at least make it a   priority on this day.
 
 
 
Thank you for your   participation.
 
   God   Bless You and God Bless America

 

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August 21, 2007

Fitzgerald: The point of CNN's religious fundamentalism series

Christiane Amanpour has at least one parent who was part of what one would have hoped to describe as the intelligent secular ancien regime. They were the people pushed out by Khomeini and his epigones, and therefore, one would have thought, comprehending the nature of Islam. Well, it turns out that not everyone who has fled Iran quite has that necessary understanding. Some like to pretend that Khomeini is a sport, when the real sport was the Shah and his father, in their de-emphasis on Islam, their emphasis on the pre-Islamic past of Iran, and their willingness to limit the power of the mullahs -- and, above all, to give the non-Muslims of Iran, the Christians, Jews, and Baha'is, reasonable security and even something akin to legal equality.

But Amanpour does not realize that. Nor, in her aggressive climb through the media ranks, has she stopped to study Islam. She has not stopped to find out what happened to the Zoroastrians or what happens to them in Iran today. She has not stopped to find out why, even in the 20th century, a Jew could be killed for going out in the rain (where a drop might ricochet off him and hit an innocent Muslim with this raindrop of najis-ness, thus contaminating him).

She might, that is, have begun with the history of Islam in Iran and considered the treatment of non-Muslims, and how Shah Abbas II overnight ordered the conversion of all the Jews and Armenians in an Iranian city (possibly Tabriz), and why the real, as opposed to the Iranian exile's dreamy fictional history of Iran, is full of such episodes. She might have gotten hold of E. J. Browne's work on Persian literature, and studied Hafiz and Sa'adi. She might have read Omar Khayyam, and come to realize just how un-Islamic he was. She might have read the Shahnameh of Firdowsi, and seen how his literary talent was put to work preventing the linguistic and cultural imperialism of the Arabs from successfully coming to damage and then overwhelm the Iranian culture. She might have done a special program on Islam as a vehicle of Arab cultural and linguistic imperialism, and used Iran as an example of one place where it did not succeed as it did elsewhere.

Oh, there are many things that raw-boned massive Christiane Amanpour might have done, if she had allowed herself the leisure to think, and be something more than one more media star, one more mere reporter incapable of making sense of what she reports on.

But she did none of it. She clawed and clawed to the top. She entered into a mariage blanc, a white marriage of grayish convenience, with James Rubin. She travels, she reports from here, she reports from there. She is like so many of them, with their fabulous salaries, their baseless self-assurance, their inability to convey anything difficult, anything that requires instructing us rather than feeding us visual and verbal pablum.

If you have seen the presentation of those "Christian fundamentalists" (read: Fanatics), then you will observe how carefully the cameramen have captured those flags, and taken shots of hands uplifted in prayer or hallelujahs to make sure the viewer gets the impression of a Nuremberg rally, with these "Christians" heil-hitlering all over the place. Very carefully done, very artfully and deliberately done. She, Christiane Amanpour, is of course determined to make this group of Christians look as bad as possible, and then to convince us that they represent a huge number of people, and to do the same, when their time comes, to those wild-eyed fanatical Jews, those "Biblical settlers" who think -- imagine that! -- that the Land of Israel, that gigantic land, practically the size of Connecticut or is it Massachusetts, was given in a Covenant to the Jews. What a terrible thing, what a thing so utterly comparable, is it not, to the view in Islam that the entire world belongs to Muslims, and that they must by right dominate everywhere?

Do you see a little something not quite symmetrical in her view, in her presentation, or that of her crew, so willing to play ball? Meanwhile, one wonders how she can stand herself. And why CNN so obviously insults us, in reducing the menace of Islam, the menace that only a fool could ignore, and the full scope of which, based on immutable texts, becomes clearer to the intelligent every day, to something like the non-existent menace from those wild-eyed Nurembergian Christians, with Amanpour as their recording Riefenstahl, or those crazy "West Bank" settlers, in their trailers, choosing to live among a million Arabs -- "Palestinians" -- who of course have every right to be there, because...well, isn't the Middle East the same thing as the Arab World, after all? Where do those pesky remnants of Jews, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Copts, Maronites, Mandeans, Yazidis, Armenians, and all the others come from? Why don't they go back where they came from? The "Arab World," the "Muslim Arab World" -- now that's more like it. That's just the ticket.

Because, you see, Every Group Has Its Crazies. And those crazies, you see, are exactly alike, in what they want, and how they act, and the size of the demands they make on the rest of us. But exactly.

That's the point of this series. You didn't think there was another point, did you?

Posted by Hugh at August 21, 2007 9:51 AM

Actual call center conversations!

Customer:     'I've been calling 700-1000 for two days and can't get through; can you help?'

Operator:     'Where did you get that number, sir?'

Customer:     'It's on the door of your business.'

Operator:     'Sir, those are the hours that we are open.'

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Samsung Electronics

Caller:          'Can you give me the telephone number for Jack?'

Samsung Electronics  'I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand who you are talking about.'

Caller:          'On page 1, section 5, of the user guide it clearly states that I need to unplug the fax machine from the AC wall socket and telephone Jack before cleaning. Now, can you give me the number for Jack?'

Operator:      'I think it means the telephone plug on the wall.'

----------------------------------------------------------------------

RAC Motoring Services

Caller:          ' Does your European Breakdown Policy cover me when I am traveling in Australia?'

Operator:     'Does the product name give you a clue?'

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Caller (enquiring about legal requirements while traveling in Europe)

'If I register my car in France, and then take it to England, do I have to change the steering wheel to the other side of the car?'

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Directory Enquiries

Caller:  'I'd like the number of the Argo Fish Bar, please'

Operator: 'I'm sorry, there's no listing. Are you sure that the spelling is correct?'

Caller: 'Well, it used to be called the B argo Fish Bar but the 'B' fell off.'

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Then there was the caller who asked for a knitwear company in Woven.

Operator:        'Woven? Are you sure?'

Caller:             'Yes. That's what it says on the label -- Woven in Scotland.'

----------------------------------------------------------------------

On another occasion, a man making heavy breathing sounds from a phone box told a worried operator:

'I haven't got a pen, so I'm steaming up the window to write the number on.'

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Tech Support:      'I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop.'

Customer:             'OK.'

Tech Support:      'Did you get a pop-up menu?'

Customer:             'No.'

Tech Support:      'OK. Right-Click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?'

Customer:             'No.'

Tech Support:      'OK, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?'

Customer:            'Sure. You told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'.'

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Tech Support:          'OK. At the bottom left hand side of your screen, can you see the 'OK' button displayed?'

Customer:                 'Wow! How can you see my screen from there?'

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Caller:  'I deleted a file from my PC last week and I just realized that I need it. So, if I turn my system clock back two weeks will I get my file back again?'

----------------------------------------------------------------------

This has to be one of the funniest things in a long time. I think this guy should have been promoted, not fired. This is  a true story from the WordPerfect Helpline, which was transcribed from a recording monitoring the customer care department. Needless to say the Help Desk employee was fired; however, he/she is currently suing the WordPerfect organization for 'Termination without Cause.'

Actual dialogue of a former WordPerfect Customer Support employee.

(Now I  know why they record these conversations!):

Operator:         'Ridge Hall, computer assistance; may I help you?'

Caller:              'Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect.'

Operator:         'What sort of trouble??'

Caller:              'Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away.'

Operator:         'Went away?'

Caller:            ;   'They disappeared.'

Operator:         'Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?'

Caller:              'Nothing.'

Operator:         'Nothing??'

Caller:              'It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type.'

Operator:         'Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out??'

Caller:              'How do I tell?'

Operator:         'Can you see the 'C: prompt' on the screen??'

Caller:              'What's a sea-prompt?'

Operator:         'Never mind, can you move your curs or around the screen?'

Caller:              'There isn't any cursor; I told you, it won't accept anything I type.'

Operator:         'Does your monitor have a power indicator??'

Caller:              'What's a monitor?'

Operator:         'It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on??'

Caller:               'I don't know.'

Operator:          'Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that??'

Caller:              'Yes, I think so.'

Operator:    ;      'Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall.

Caller:              'Yes, it is.'

Operator:         'When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one??'

Caller:               'No.'

Operator:          'Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable.'

Caller:               'Okay, here it is.'

Operator:          'Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer.'

Caller:            'I can't reach.'

Operator:          'OK. Well, can you see if it is??'

Caller:               'No.'

Operator:          'Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over??'

Caller:               'Well, it's not because I don't have the right angle -- it's because it's dark.'

Operator:          'Dark??'

Caller:               'Yes - the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window.'

Operator:           'Well, turn on the office light then.'

Caller:                'I can't.'

Operator:          'No? Why not??'

Caller:               'Because there's a power failure.'

Operator:           'A power .... A power failure? Aha. Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff that your computer came in??'

Caller:               'Well, yes, I keep them in the closet.'

Operator:           'Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from.'

Caller:                'Really? Is it that bad?'

Operator:         'Yes, I'm afraid it is.'

Caller:                'Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them??'

Operator:           'Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer!!!'  

Subject:     Firearms Refresher Course

 
Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not."   ~ Thomas Jefferson