“Damn it, dude!”
“What now, dude?”
“I’ve been telling this browser upgrade message to go away for weeks. My web browser’s been working just fine, thanks, and I don’t want any upgrades messing up my stuff. But now it won’t take ‘no’ for an answer!”
“Well, dude, you do have a choice.”
“Yeah?”
“You can throw the computer away, and go back to reading books instead of websearching, and playing cribbage instead of Doom.”
“AAACK! What’re you tryin’ to do, dude? Give me a heart attack? OK, I’ll do the upgrade.”
“OK, dude, but …”
“But what … Hey!”
“Hey yourself. I’m not your fodder.”
“Not now, dude! I got this browser uploaded OK, but it wants me to upload this player because, its says here, the old one pokes all these security holes in the new browser.”
“‘No one puts new wine into old wineskins …'”
“And just what’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m afraid we’re going to find out. Unless you want me to get out that cribbage board …”
“Download in progress, dude … Now what?!?”
“More upgrades, dude?”
“Seventeen of ’em. All of ’em absolutely required by this player upgrade I just downloaded, on the insistence of the browser upgrade I just downloaded, in order for any of ’em to work properly. I’m going to be here for hours …”
“Maybe less than that, dude. Or more, depending on your point of view.”
“What are you tryin’ to say, dude … Jesus this laptop’s gotten hot! And what’s that racket?”
“Y’mean, the hard drive spinning out of control?”
“I’m glad somethin’s spinnin’. The screen’s so slow, it’s like there was a human in there moving each pixel by hand. I’ll have to get a new hard drive to speed things up.”
“I wouldn’t bother, dude.”
“Why not?”
“Because if you try to speed up your computer with a new hard drive, you’ll discover that it can’t handle all the upgrades unless you also upgrade the RAM. And if you upgrade the RAM, you’ll discover that it can’t handle the upgrades unless you can somehow replace all the busses. And if you’re geek enough to replace all the busses, you’ll discover that they can’t handle all the upgrades unless you replace the chip … Aren’t you going to look at that popup window?”
“What popup window? I frickin’ disabled the popup windows. What are these upgrades doin’ to me?”
“Pushing you into the market for a new computer, dude? One that can handle all the upgrades you just downloaded? For maybe six months? At a cool five grand?”
“DUUUUUUUDE!! I don’t got five bucks, never mind five grand!”
“Guess you’d better start pounding out those pay posts, Mr. Payperblaug.com.”
“With what?!? My machine’s frozen solid, won’t let me do anything except stare at that [expletives deleted] computer ad! What do I do now?!?”
“Cribbage?”
– O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.
I keep upgrading my information database. It’s getting so big I’ll soon need yet another bookshelf.
Apply at your local library, Tony, they’re surely giving the shelves away. But ask fast, before the libraries close for good.
Every time I have to do an update my poor old computer gets slower and slower. One of these years when my ship comes in I’ll get that Super Duper Fast Computer. Problem is my Ship is Titanic.
And the sad part of all that, Bill, is that the computer companies who are hiding they planned obsolescence pyramid schemes under the “technological innovation” disguise all think that our economic ships are unsinkable. Or at least they did … It would be nice if the economic downturn taught the computer makers to market only machines and software that are easily, cheaply, and effectively upgradeable – and computer consumers to accept nothing else. I know, dream on. And I’m not even smoking funny cigarettes.
Ha! Payperblaug.com is something I’d like to see.
You mean, someplace other than chez Quilly? 😉
LOL! Duuuuuuude! Switch browsers!
I routinely run two, Melli (of the four top ones). They all do it. And they’re increasingly incompatible with each other, so I increasingly have to run multiples in order to view all the websites I follow for professional and personal reasons. There’s no escape …