Some Peoples Kids!!!

We get told that we must save the planet for the next generation, Well after what one of my customers told me today i'm wondering if we should really bother.

The lady phoned me up today and explained that her son had noticed on the back of there TFT monitor what appeared to be round deep indentations, So while the system and monitor was still powered up he took a metal allen key and poked the end of said key into this tempting hole at the back of the monitor......... She went on to say there was a loudish pop/bang and the screen went off moments later.

What he thought was a deep indentation on the rear of the monitor were infact one of a number of round air vents that help cool the components and screen with general air flow, he had poked the ye oldie allen key directly onto the live circuit board behind the monitor screen.

The age of her son is.........17 (not sure how likely it is of him making 18 though)

There was nothing i could do (apart from not laugh) but confirm her suspicion that the screen was now bin fodder.

Nice one. I had a customer complain of an unpleasant odor, and when I got there, it seems little Billy poured ( on purpose, mind you ) his milk into the air hole slits in the back of the CRT monitor. Amazingly, the thing still worked. Needless to say, she opted to buy another monitor and junk that one. This was after I told her that the smell would just get worse from then on!

Well this is more a confession than really complaining of a kid being foolish. When I was learning PC repair I was left to try and fix a compaq that had a bad modem. Well it worked before so I assumed maybe I put it in wrong. After looking around on the modem I noticed a unique looking port where I could plug in to. I also happened to notice a cord that had a plug that was shaped exactly like what the modem had the port to. So I put 2 and 2 together and got the brightest flash in the world that burned into my retinas for over 5 minutes after I turned the power on. Turned out the little cord was part of the power supply and sending direct current into a fragile modem capacitor turns it into a fairly expensive sparkler display. Not to mention I fried the whole board. Luckily my mentor was understanding and didn't yell at me or even charge me for turning a customers computer into a box full of green door stops.

If we are using this post for catharsis, then I'll tell of the time that I thought that the computer was off and unplugged, so I took the power molex off of the floppy drive and ended up buying a new $40 floppy drive for a friend, who wasn't even paying me for the diagnosis.

Reminds me of the Denis Leary comedy bit where he talks about his kids putting a Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich into the VCR because they wanted to watch the Peanut Butter and Jelly Movie. If you have not watched that stand up I highly recommend it.

There is one of our boys that I absolutely do not want helping me ever, at all, with anything. The same one that ruined my detail saw, used for cutting nice angles into wooden trim, etc., by attempting to cut through an aluminum fence post. The one who who helped us move and jerked the coaxial connection right out of the TV set, because he failed to check if it was still connected to the cable outlet in the wall before moving it. The one who complained the lawn mower would not start, and when I checked it, found the air filter completely soaked in oil. The one who, when the toilet overflowed, was content to contain the flood into a foul lagoon, using our towels as levees, and do nothing else about it. Of course, this one is the know-it-all, eternal college student, who is constantly sounding off about Life, the Universe and Everything.

A techie aquaintance of mine has a story that he swears is true.

Many years ago in the 486/dial-up-era, he received a call from a distraught woman who said she had a computer problem. She refused to specify what the problem was.

When he arrived at the house he was taken to the woman's teenage son's bedroom where he was shown a naked teenage male standing (really really) next to a PC which was on a stand next to a desk. The skin of the boy's scrotum was pinched in the closed CDROM tray. The mother was torn between anger and embarrassment.

The techie instructed the mother on how to use a straightened paper clip to release the tray and lent her a small screw driver to pry the tray open.

My techie friend says he never inquired how the "accident" happened, and no explanations were offered.

I have called him on this story a number of times, accusing him of lying through his teeth. But he still asserts to this day that the story is true.

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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

Good job he didn't have a bladder problem he could have fried himself.
One less dickhead.