BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

I grew up in an age where we had a little bit of patience. For instance, when we wanted to watch something on TV we actually had to wait for it to be on, and be in front of the TV at the designated time. But what made us even more patient is that we had to turn on the toob an hour ahead of time so that the glass vacuum tubes and Cathode Ray Tube that made it work could warm up. No, I’m not kidding. Well, maybe about the hour part. But if you wanted to watch something you definitely turned on the TV a good five minutes or so ahead of time so that said tubes could get warm and things could come into focus. Especially if it was necessary to adjust the tin foil on the rabbit ears because of the weather or time of year. Again, not kidding.

So, what’s my point here?

I’m not really sure…

Wait… Oh yeah… You see, we had patience and perseverance. We would spend months collecting boxtops from breakfast cereal we absolutely hated but ate anyway all so we could send away for some cheap, plastic decoder ring or some such. The point being, we would bide our time and do what was necessary to get what we wanted.

Not so much now. We live in an instant gratification sort of age. One in which folks want it all, right here, right now, and they don’t want to take time collecting things.

Again, what is my point here?

I have NO f*cking idea. Sorry…

And so, without further rambling from me, here we have the first quarter, round three aggregation of the Daily Merpizms, all in one place so that you don’t have to spend time collecting them daily.

Bazzinga.

The Whizzdom Of Merp

January 2011

Merpizm 01/01/11: “Without exception, everyone has a kink of some sort. Most are just too embarrassed to admit it.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/02/11: “No matter how many times you explain satire, some people will just never get it. Facebook wall comments prove this.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/03/11: “If the bastards somehow manage to get you down, just break their kneecaps and level the playing field.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/04/11: “Sadly, there are some days that even Dangerously Delicious Coffee can’t fix.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/05/11: “Being too smart for your own good means you’ve basically come almost full circle and are right back at stupid.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/06/11: “Nothing wakes you up and gets your blood moving quite like a clock falling off the wall at 3:17 AM.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/07/11: “There is a huge difference between acute stupidity and chronic stupidity.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/08/11: “Not everyone is chronically stupid. But those who are seem to think they speak for everyone.” ~ MRS

BONUS Merpizm 01/08/11: “We now know the answer to the age old question, ‘where do birds go when they die?’ Arkansas.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/09/11: “Reading the Constitution and actually comprehending what it says are two completely different things.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/10/11: “Drama is the refuge of those who don’t feel as if they are getting enough attention.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/11/11: “Whenever you hear a Witch cackle, it means a monkey just earned its wings.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/12/11: “Listen… Do you hear stupid?” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/13/11: “You can always tell that it’s high class porn when it has subtitles.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/14/11: “Personally, I would NEVER want to be correct all of the time. That’s just too much responsibility.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/15/11: “Religion is like the junk drawer on your desk. It’s where you hide the stuff you don’t want to deal with.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/16/11: “Trust me. You do NOT want to know what really goes on inside my head.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/17/11: “If you don’t want me to make fun of you then stop giving me so much material to work with.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/18/11: “If you do a stupid, just own it and move on. It’s like Mr. Miyagi’s Crane Technique for personal responsibility.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/19/11: “When you assume you make and ASS out of U and U alone, because YOU did the stupid, NOT ME.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/20/11: “I really don’t care which way the toilet paper hangs, as long as the roll isn’t empty.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/21/11: “Whenever you start feeling TOO proud of yourself, remember – you are NOT as brilliant as you imagine.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/22/11: “I’m much funnier than most people realize. You just have to bring yourself down to my level. Drinking helps.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/23/11: “We could solve a lot of environmental problems with methane
powered vehicles and a steady diet of Navy beans.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/24/11: “No matter how hard I try, I still can’t find any Internet porn that’s as good as the porn inside my head.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/25/11: “I do what my wife says. It’s safer for me that way.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/26/11: “If you aren’t happy with who you are, change. Just don’t turn into an asshole, because I’ve got dibs on that one.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/27/11: “There’s a time and place for everything, but it’s not here and not now, so find someplace else to be stupid.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/28/11: “March to your own drummer, but keep the volume down and don’t expect everyone else to like the same beat.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/29/11: “Real experts are those who, while dubbed experts by their peers, readily admit that they will never stop learning.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/30/11: “Before assigning blame, you should first check to see how much of it you spilled on your own shirt.” ~ MRS

Merpizm 01/31/11: “It takes approximately 72 muscles to speak. It takes ZERO to stop and think before you give those 72 a workout.” ~ MRS

More to come…

Murv

I don’t consider myself particularly naive.

Now, this is not to say that I consider myself to be especially worldly wise either. I mean, I’ve been around the block a couple of times. Looks pretty much the same on the other side as it does here, except that their yards are a little more sloped. Unfortunately, that slope is pointed toward my yard and when it rains…

Well… We should probably address that in a different blog.

This one is actually a different story, from a different time. A time way back before I started getting paid (regularly) for splattering words across paper. In a sense it is even pre-E K. Not entirely, as E K and I were actually living together. It is just pre-E K in the sense that she was leasing me and had not yet exercised the buyout option in order to have full ownership.

Back then we both worked at a small computer and electronics repair company called MicroFix. We shared an office with our sister company, Computer Connections Technologies. I don’t know that either of them even exist anymore. I know MicroFix doesn’t because when I went to work for T&W they bought them out.

But again, I sort of digress.

You see, back in my Techie days one of the duties was phone support. It’s not that we were a phone support company, but it just kind of comes with the territory. People call with questions and you try to help them. It’s how you get paying customers who come back again and again.

Or, in some cases you can just delete the word “back” from that last sentence.

I should probably explain what I mean by that. I should also probably note that what you are about to read is true. I can make up some pretty crazy sh*t, but not this. Srsly.

I was sitting at my desk one spring day while working up a quote for a customer when the phone rang. So, being the service manager and since the phone was on my desk, I picked it up. (For the sake of the historical accounting, remember, this was pre-Windows. We’re talking about the days of MS-DOS 2.0.)

“Good afternoon, Microfix, this is Murv, how can I help you?” I said into the handset.

“Good afternoon,” a somewhat breathy woman replied. “I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about my computer. I’m having some trouble with it.”

“Sure. What sort of trouble?” I asked.

“It won’t come on.”

“I know this sounds silly,” I said. “But are you sure it’s plugged in?”

She chuckled. “Oh yes, it’s plugged in. It just blinks at me. I don’t get a prompt.”

“Do you have a hard disk or just a floppy?”

She sighed in a very odd manner, then breathed, “Hard.”

“Well, it’s possible you have a non-system disk in the floppy drive. Is it giving you any sort of error?”

“Yes,” she almost whispered between panting breaths. “That’s exactly what it says. Non-system disk.”

“Check the floppy drive and see if there is a disk in there.”

“No. There isn’t.”

“Okay,” I replied apologetically since it was looking like the problem could be a little more serious. “You might have a damaged boot record on the hard drive, but it’s hard to say without seeing it. If you have a system disk handy you could…”

“How would you fix that?” she said, interrupting me with a strange gasp filling in behind her voice.

“Well…” I replied, a shrug in my voice that even I could hear. “It really depends on how bad it is. We might be able to just Sys the volume and add the boot files back on. Or we might…”

She interrupted me again, her voice low and breathy. “More technical…”

“I’m sorry?”

“Tell me the technical stuff. How would you fix it?”

“Well… Umm… It depends. If it’s really bad we might have to do a low-level format.”

“How?” she breathed.

“It’s a process we invoke through a program built into the hard drive controller card.”

Her breathing was getting faster and shallower now and I couldn’t help but hear it.

“No… Tell me… Exactly… How…” she panted and now I could hear a faint buzz in the background.

I was beginning to think she was having a heart attack or something. Not only that, our connection seemed to be having issues, what with the buzzing noise and all.

“Well… We have to use a program called Debug which allows us to enter hardware level commands. We would tell the controller to access a particular portion of its onboard ROM and run a segment of code.”

“Yes…” she moaned. “How… more…”

“Umm… Depending on the type of controller and whether or not you have an MFM or RLL encoded hard drive we would type in g=c800:5 or g-c800:ccc, and that…”

At right about that moment she screamed and I heard a loud clattering noise that sounded like she had dropped the phone.

“Ma’am? … Ma’am?…” I said, somewhat alarmed.

I was just getting ready to yell through the door into the front office to have someone call the police, for fear that the woman actually had experienced some sort of catastrophic system failure of the human kind – be it a heart attack, seizure, or whatever. I figured I should stay on the line so they could trace the call or whatever in order to find her and dispatch paramedics.

Just as I leaned back and began rolling my chair toward the door, handset still to my ear, her breathless voice came back on the line.

With a moan and a satisfied sigh she said, “Thanks… Technical talk really gets me off… I’ll definitely be calling you again.”

When I hung up I just stared at the phone for a while. I felt so cheap and used, especially since I didn’t get her credit card number,  so I couldn’t charge her for the service.

Hand to whatever deity works for you, true story.

I am not kidding.

To this day I wonder if it ever showed up in Penthouse Letters, or whatever Playgirl Magazine equivalent there happened to be at the time…

More to come…

Murv