BIT - A word used to describe computers, as in "Our daughter's computer cost quite a bit." BOOT - What your friends give you because you spend too much time bragging about your computer skill. BUG - What your eyes do after you stare at the tiny green computer screen for more than 15 minutes. Also: What computer magazine companies do to you after they get you on their mailing list. CHIPS - The fattening, non-nutritional food computer users eat to avoid having to leave their keyboards for meals. COPY - What you have to do during school tests because you spend too much time at your computer and not enough time studying. CURSOR - What you turn into when you can't get your computer to perform, as in "You %@& computer!" DISK - What goes out of your back after bending over a computer keyboard for seven hours at a clip. DUMP - The place all your former hobbies wind up soon after you install your computer. ERROR - What you made when you first walked into a computer showroom "just to look." EXPANSION UNIT - The new room you have to build on to your home to house your computer and all its peripherals. FILE - What a secretary can now do to her nails six and a half hours a day, now that the computer does her day's work in 30 minutes. FLOPPY - The condition of a constant computer user's stomach due to lack of exercise and a steady diet of junk food (see "CHIPS"). HARDWARE - Tools, such as lawnmowers, rakes and other heavy equipment you haven't laid a finger on since getting your computer. IBM - The kind of missile your family members and friends would like to drop on your computer so you'll pay attention to them again. MENU - What you'll never see again after buying a computer because you'll be too poor to eat in a restaurant. MONITOR - Often thought to be a word associated with computers, this word actually refers to those obnoxious kids who always want to see your hall pass at school. PROGRAMS - Those things you used to look at on your television before you hooked your computer up to it. RETURN - What lots of people do to their computers after only a week and a half. TERMINAL - A place where you can find buses, trains and really good deals on hot computers. WINDOW - What you heave the computer out of after you accidentally erase a program that took you three days to set up. _________________________________________________________________________ Last year, my friend upgraded his GirlFriend3.1 to GirlFriendPlus1.0 (marketing name: Fiancee1.0). Recently he upgraded Fiancee1.0 to Wife1.0 and it's a memory hogger, it has taken all his space; and Wife1.0 must be running before he can do anything. Although he did not ask for it, Wife1.0 came with Plug-Ins such as MotherInLaw and BrotherInLaw. Some features I'd like to see in the Upcomming GirlFriend4.0... - A "Don't remind me again" button - Minimize button - Shutdown feature - An install shield feature so that Girlfriend4.0 can be completely uninstalled if so desired (so you don't lose cache and other objects) I tried running girlfriend 2.0 with girlfriend 1.0 still installed, they tried using the same i/o port and conflicted. Then I tried to unistall girlfriend 1.0 but it didn't have an uninstall program. I tried to uninstall it by hand, but it put files in my system directory. Another thing that sucks in all versions of girlfriend that I've used is that it is totally "object orientated" and only supported hardware with gold plated contacts. ***** BUG WARNING ******** Wife 1.0 has an undocumented bug. If you try to install Mistress 1.1 before uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.1 will refuse to install, claiming insufficient resources. _________________________________________________________________________ Having chosen English as the preferred language in the EEC, the European Parliament has commissioned a feasibility study in ways of improving efficiency in communications between Government departments. European officials have often pointed out that English spelling is unnecessarily difficult - for example, cough, plough, rough, through and thorough. What is clearly needed is a phased programme of changes to iron out these anomalies. The programme would, of course, be administered by a committee staff at top level by participating nations. In the first year, for example, the committee would suggest using 's' instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly, sivil servants in all sities would resieve this news with joy. Then the hard 'c' could be replaced by 'k' sinse both letters are pronounsed alike. Not only would this klear up konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but typewriters kould be made with one less letter. There would be growing enthusiasm when in the sekond year, it kould be announsed that the troublesome 'ph' would henseforth be written 'f. This would make words like 'fotograf' twenty per sent shorter in print. In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible. Governments would enkourage the removal of double letters which have always been a deterent to akurate speling. We would al agre that the horible mes of silent 'e's in the languag is disgrasful. Therefor we kould drop thes and kontinu to read and writ as though nothing had hapend. By this tim it would be four years sins the skem began and peopl would be reseptive to steps sutsh as replasing 'th' by 'z'. Perhaps zen ze funktion of 'w' kould be taken on by 'v', vitsh is, after al, half a 'e'. Shortly after zis, ze unesesary 'o kould be dropd from words kontaining 'ou'. Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. Kontinuing zis proses yer after yer, ve vud eventuli hav a reli sensibl riten styl. After tventi yers zer vud be no mor trubls difikultis and evrivun vud fin it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drems of the Guvermnt vud finali hav kum tru. ---------------------------------------------------------- Top 10 Signs You Work in Consulting: 10. You lecture the neighborhood kids selling lemonade on ways to improve their process. 9. You get all excited cause it's Saturday and you can wear casual clothes to work. 8. Refer to the tomatoes grown in your garden as deliverables. 7. Find you really need PowerPoint to explain what you do for a living. 6. Normally eat out of vending machines and at the most expensive restaurant in town within the same week. 5. Wear gray to work instead of navy blue to make a bold fashion statement. 4. Know the people at the airport and hotel better than your next door neighbors. 3. Ask your friends to "think out of the box" when making Friday night plans. 2. You think Einstein would have been more effective had he put his ideas into a 2 by 2 matrix. 1. Think a half-day means leaving the office at 5 o'clock