h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

so much to do, so little time
By now it's time for my post-lunch dip.
I'll read today's Dilbert

I like Dilbert, except once in a while it's a little too much like where I work... Have you read Scott Adams' book: The Joy of Work, Dilbert's guide to finding happiness at the expense of your co workers?

I missed that one Title sounds good though!

My favorite chapter is the one about practical jokes to play on your co workers.

I want that book.
(* I don't have that many cow-workers at this time.. just clients *)
Leaves me to study just those chapters.. for about six months; then I'll change project again.

One prank suggestion in the book is send a fax to a co worker's voice line... Then there is use the windows recorder to record annoying sounds and play it in a perpetual loop.

I have switched the sound files attached to the command prompts on my computer from the windows chimes and dings to other audio files...The new startup sound was a line from a movie instead of the windows musical note. My brother thought it was pretty funny to have the computer yell every time it restarted(if the speaker was on). But, the critical error message, a line from Red Dwarf, is his favorite.

There is another adjustment on my new computer that wasn't meant to be a joke.... We have different user profiles, one is set to the U.K. keyboard because the £ and a few other things are not on an American keyboard(they are alt+three other digits instead of one key). The same profile is set to GMT time, with a U.K. spell check... The first time someone else logged into that profile instead of their own I got "What's wrong with your computer?"....

I've toyed with the idea of changing their profile to something like wingdings as the default font and Japanese as the default language, but they haven't irritated me lately...

I tried the sound effects.. indeed some of the most succesful sound effects come from Red Dwarf ("This is a distress call ...")
and Southpark ("Oh my gawd.. they killed Kenny")
Most rewarding was changing the icon of a video test program to the ms-word-document icon and sending the "document" for review.
Future plans include doing that same to a "Blue Screen of Death" display.. (*of course I can also be serious.. when forced to*)

The critical error message was Kryten saying "Mr Rimmer, you are a smeeeeeg a smeeeeeeg...a smmmeeeeee" and the restart sound was from Sharpe's Rifles (where Sharpe finds the sentry asleep on duty and yells "Up ya lazy b*****d").

This one always gets attention: http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/ed.harding/Kakapo.htm

Oh good.. RedDwarf and Monty Python sounds..
(had one in the windoze start .. forgot all about it while traveling on a crowded train.. fascinating reactions.. )

No, really it's just the computer making those noises...
Fatal error message suggestion: "There seems to be something wrong with this parrot...."
http://www.edict.com.hk/vlc/listening/montypython/parrotframes.htm

I'm not the most computer literate person in our office. However, the only person who is more experienced agrees about changing the profiles...and she didn't see a thing either.

Deadly : change default keyboard layout to Russian..
Note: be sure you can set if back to normal again.. (I forgot about that.. cost me half an hour ()

Last time I checked it was start button, settings, control panel, regional settings, then the input language tab...(*checks again to make sure*). Did you have to do that to type in English(or something else) on a Russian keyboard? Or was it the other way around? My nephew took three or four years of Russian in highschool. He can speak Russian fluently. Judging from his typing in English, I'd say he never got around to typing in Russian. I can touch type, just not very fast.

According to the Dilbert book: If you pay your bills, surf the internet for your own use, or play games at work you are reverse telecommuting...

Good news is I cannot speak or type Russian.. ()
But I AM reverse telecommuting! )

I do receive personal mail and packages at work. Actually, I work about 45 hours most weeks. My house is in a more rural area, and everything important(banks, stores, car repair places...) is just a block or two from work. Ah, if we would only get the internet *sigh*...(I've heard it's supposed to be soon).

All my current houses (!! one reasonably permanent, two temp) have now internet.. two offices as well..

I only have access to the internet at home. Considering broad band connection to make it easier to listen to streaming media(mostly audiobooks and radio).

Broad band at home.. Absolutely great! Almost never use it for streaming media.... almost never to download music/movies..
Best feature is "always there" always information on bank accounts, trains, busses, airplanes, fares, bookings, movies, cinema, theatre, gouvernment services (taxes ), and anything else I forgot today. What on earth did I do before Internet came?

Before the internet? *shudders and tries to remember*
BBC 7 is playing Dracula at the moment. Later, the Hitch Hiker's Guide radio play will be airing.

noted..

Let's see if I can remember to actually tune into BBC 7 at 6 p.m. to catch the midnight re broadcast.