Oh, April Fool, how I love thee
"My computer screen is upside down!"
Once again, I have taken the company intranet and turned it upside down. It's my traditional April Fools gag here at work. This year, due to the fun mergers and fun acquisitions, we have lots of new employees who are unsure of how things work and are quick to run to the head of the IT department and exclaim, "My computer screen is upside down!"
Love it.

Sadly, I don't think anyone has actually put a ticket in to our service desk for this issue. If that happens, I will jump for joy.


Tips!
This same upside-side intranet has these stupid "Tech Tips" that range from asinine to, um, really asinine. Literally, here's an actual "tip": When you travel with your laptop, be sure to disconnect all the cables, and carry the modem cables and AC adaptor along with you.

So, naturally I had to edit these as well. Today's new tips include:
· Bear in mind of the new Outlook email and retention rules: 30MB/email and 250MB total - these rules don't apply if you are sending adorable photos of puppies, though.

· If your laptop ever displays pages upside-down, immediately call the Service Desk and tell them you have the dreaded upside-down virus.

· Every laptop issued comes with a special cord that allows you to harness the power of electricity - these so-called "power cords" can help to increase your productivity.




"So-called"
That's my new favorite, ironic.snarky thing - the adding of "so-called" in front of anything.

"Yes, well, your so-called presentation..."
"I need to feed our so-called cat...."
"Your so-called 'Mother' called today..."
"Blaine can sleep on our so-called couch"


We watched that wonderful PBS documentary about Malcolm X a few months back, and I had forgotten how much he and the Nation always used 'so-called'.
No, really - see Google




Postage-paid envelopes
My lovely spouse has never been a real fan of this, but I love to get those postage paid envelopes that come in the credit-card junkmail and stuff them with junk and send them back.
Look at me! I'm a rebel.
I think I once sent a big wad of shredded paper in one of them - much to the chagrin of the poor wage slave that had to open my envelope I am sure.
Look at me! I'm sticking it to the man!

But. Yea.
I like to do that. Postage paid envelope? Let's stick some dumb stuff in there.

The Times had an article about this a few weeks back: No Need to Stew: A Few Tips to Cope With Life's Annoyances

Next, he began stuffing the mail back into the "business reply" envelope and sending it back so that the mailer would have to pay the postage. "That wasn't exacting a heavy enough cost from them for bothering me," said Mr. Williams, 35, a middle school science teacher who lives in Melrose, N.Y., near Albany.
After checking with a postal clerk about the legality of stepping up his efforts, he began cutting up magazines, heavy bond paper, and small strips of sheet metal and stuffing them into the business reply envelopes that came with the junk packages.
"You wouldn't believe how heavy I got some of these envelopes to weigh," said Mr. Williams.


I'm just happy that this article came out (as well as many mentions on NPR shows). I now tell Mrs. Robot that it's OK to do this because NPR said so.
I've been validated!
(I think she's thinking that one day the postmaster general will come a knocking and arrest me for mail fraud. Or male fraud.)



Other Notes
1. Mrs. Robot answered the question of, "What website annoys the hell out of you" with "About.com". Hence, our new "powered by About.com" homepage.
2. Don't forget about the Eric Willhelm message board!
3. I still have free Zip disks to give away!
4. I need a date for the Spring Formal!










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›post #477
›bio: rich
›perma-link
›4/1/2005
›12:22

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