undefined
 |
Things That Get My Goat |
|||
The Internet Q. What, exactly, is the Internet? A. The Internet is a worldwide network of university, government, business, and private computer systems. ----- Q. Who runs it? A. A 13-year-old named Jason. ----- Q. How can I get on the Internet? A. The easiest way is to sign up with one of the popular commercial ISP services, such as AOL, Freeserve and BT, which will give you their program disks for free. Or, if you just leave your house unlocked, they'll sneak in some night and install their programs on your computer when you're sleeping. They really want your business. ----- Q. What are the benefits of these services? A. The major benefit is that they all have simple, "user-friendly" interfaces that enable you, even if you have no previous computer experience, to provide the online services with the information they need to automatically put monthly charges on your credit card bill forever. ----- Q. What if I die? A. They don't care. ----- Q. Can't I cancel my account? A. Of course! You can cancel your account at anytime. ----- Q. How? A. Nobody has ever been able to find out. Some of us have been trying for years to cancel our ISP accounts, but no matter what we do, the charges keep appearing on our bills. We're thinking of entering the Witness Protection Program. ----- Q. What if I have children? A. You'll want an epidural, because it really hurts. ----- Q. No, I mean, What if my children also use my Internet account? A. You should just sign your house and major internal organs over to the ISP right now. ----- Q. Aside from running up charges, what else can I do once I'm connected to an ISP? A. Millions of things! An incredible array of things! No end of things! ----- Q. Like what? A. You can ... ummmm ... OK! I have one! You can chat. ----- Q. Chat? A. Chat. ----- Q. I can already chat. I chat with my friends. A. Yes, but on the Internet, which connects millions of people all over the entire globe, you can chat with total strangers, many of whom are boring and stupid! ----- Q. Sounds great! How does it work? A. Well, first you decide which type of area you wish to chat in. Some areas are just for general chatting, and some are for specific interest groups, such as Teens, Poets, Cat Lovers, Religious People, Homosexuals, Gay Teens who Read Religious Poetry to Cats, and of course Blokes Having Pointless Arguments About Sport. At any given moment, an area can contain anywhere from two to dozens of people, who use clever fake names such as "ByteMe2" so nobody will know their real identities. ----- Q. What are their real identities? A. They represent an incredible range of people, people of all ages, in all kinds of fascinating fields from scientists to singers, from writers to wranglers, from actors to athletes -- you could be talking to almost anybody on the Internet! ----- Q. Really? A. No. You're almost always talking to losers and hormone-crazed 13-year-old boys. But they pretend to be writers, wranglers, scientists, singers, etc. ----- Q. What do people talk about in chat areas? A. Most chat-area discussions revolve around the fascinating topic of who is entering and leaving the chat area. A secondary, but equally fascinating, topic is where everybody lives. Also, for a change of pace, every now and then the discussion is interrupted by a hormone-crazed 13-year-old boy wishing to talk dirty to women. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Post script: Someone forwarded me this letter to NTL. I have no idea if it is genuine or not but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. After reading the above I'm sure you'll agree that it's very apt.
Dear Cretins, My initial
installation was cancelled without warning or notice, resulting in my spending an entire
Saturday sitting on my fat ar*e waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not
arrive at all, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and
the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website....
how? I alleviated the boredom to some small degree by playing with my testicles for a few
minutes – an activity at which you are no-doubt both familiar and highly adept. The rescheduled
installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to
bring a number of vital tools – such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum. Two weeks
later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After several further telephone calls
(actually 15 telephone calls over 4 weeks) my modem arrived ... a total of six weeks after
I had requested it, and begun to pay for it. I estimate that the downtime of your internet
servers is roughly 35%... these are usually the hours between about 6pm and midnight,
Monday to Friday, and most of the useful periods over the weekend. who are it
seems also highly skilled b*llock jugglers. I
have been informed that a telephone line is available
(and someone will call me back), that no telephone line is available (and
someone will call me back), that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not
a telephone line is available (and then been cut off), that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone
line is available (and then been redirected
to an answer machine informing me that your
office is closed), that I will be transferred
to someone who knows whether or not telephoneline is available (and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman.... and
several other variations on this theme. |
