When you look at every greeting card as a possible tag.

When you buy a new coat, and tell others it’s your new Raster Layer.

When you see a frown on someone’s face & you tell them to put a bezier curve on.

When you sign papers and you are frantically looking for your tag to put on them.

When you tell people you put on your gem tubes instead of your earrings.

When you can tell what fonts are being used in TV commercials.

When other women complain of PMS you think of PSP.

When you look at pictures on people’s walls and think “I could have put a better frame on them than that!”

When your idea of “marching ants” differs from the little columns of black insects roving through your kitchen.

When you go to the paint store and ask where the “custom” brushes are.

When you think it would be so much easier to flood fill your walls instead of painting them.

When the word “challenge” makes you instantly look for a picture at the end of the sentence.

When you are in the hot sun you look around you for a drop shadow to sit under.

When your boss gives you a new assignment and you ask if there is a tutorial for it.

Woman had been married three times and was still a virgin.

Somebody asked her how that could be possible. “Well,” she said. “The first time I married an octogenarian and he died before we could consummate the marriage.” “The second time I married a naval officer and war broke out on our wedding day.” “The third time I married a Microsoft Windows programmer and he just sat on the edge of the bed and kept telling me how good it was going to be.”

Quick Guide to Programming Languages
The proliferation of modern programming languages (all of which seem to have stolen countless features from one another) sometimes makes it difficult to remember what language you’re currently using. This handy reference is offered as a public service to help programmers who find themselves in such a dilemma.

TASK: Shoot yourself in the foot.

C: You shoot yourself in the foot.

C++: You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is impossible since you can’t tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, “That’s me, over there.”

FORTRAN: You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue with the attempts to shoot yourself anyways because you have no exception-handling capability.

Pascal: The compiler won’t let you shoot yourself in the foot.

Ada: After correctly packing your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream, and shoot yourself in the foot. When you try, however, you discover you can’t because your foot is of the wrong type.

COBOL: Using a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be re-tied.

LISP: You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds…

FORTH: Foot in yourself shoot.

Prolog: You tell your program that you want to be shot in the foot. The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn’t permit it to explain it to you.

BASIC: Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On large systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.

Visual Basic: You’ll really only appear to have shot yourself in the foot, but you’ll have had so much fun doing it that you won’t care.

HyperTalk: Put the first bullet of gun into foot left of leg of you. Answer the result.

Motif: You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the bullet, its trajectory, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.

APL: You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to do it in fewer characters.

SNOBOL: If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.

Unix:

% ls
foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o
% rm * .o
rm:.o no such file or directory
% ls
%

Concurrent Euclid: You shoot yourself in somebody else’s foot.

370 JCL: You send your foot down to MIS and include a 400-page document explaining exactly how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back deep-fried.

Paradox: Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can, too.

Access: You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes in all your Borland distribution diskettes instead.

Revelation: You’re sure you’re going to be able to shoot yourself in the foot, just as soon as you figure out what all these nifty little bullet-thingies are for.

Assembler: You try to shoot yourself in the foot, only to discover you must first invent the gun, the bullet, the trigger, and your foot.

Modula2: After realizing that you can’t actually accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.

An unfailingly polite lady called to ask for help with a Windows installation that had gone terribly wrong.

Customer: “I brought my Windows disks from work to install them on my home computer.” (Training stresses that we are “not the Software Police,” so I let the little act of piracy slide.)

Tech Support: “Umm-hmm. What happened?”

Customer: “As I put each disk in it turns out they weren’t initialized.”

Tech Support: “Do you remember the message exactly, ma’am?”

Customer: (proudly) “I wrote it down. ‘This is not a Macintosh disk. Would you like to initialize it’?”

Tech Support: “Er, what happened next?”

Customer: “After they were initialized all the disks appeared to be blank. And now I brought them back to work, and I can’t read them in the A: drive; the PC wants to format them. And this is our only set of Windows disks for the whole office. Did I do something wrong?”

Customer: “Hello, is this tech support?”
Tech Support: “Yes, it is; what is the nature of the problem you’re having?”
Customer: “I can’t seem to power this thing up.”
Tech Support: “If you are unable to boot your computer, sir, I suggest you contact the manufacturer. This is Internet technical support.”
Customer: “Computer?”
Tech Support: “Yes, your computer.”
Customer: “I don’t have a computer.”
Tech Support: “What is the item you are having difficulty with?”
Customer: “My new lawn mower.”
Tech Support: (stifling a giggle) “Sir, you have reached Internet technical support. I suggest you double-check the number and try again.”
Customer: “No, I’m sure I got it right. Are you going to send anybody out to fix this damn thing?”
Tech Support: “Sir, we do not support lawn mowers. Please check the number and try it again.”
Customer: “What kind of *@#%! service is this? *&$#^ you! I wasn’t born yesterday, you know!” (click)

Computer Science Students
Computer science student is studying under a tree and another one pulls up on a flashy new bike The student under the tree asks, “Where’d you get that?!?”

The student on the bike replies, “While I was studying outside, this girl pulls up on her bike… She takes off all her clothes and says to me, ‘You can have anything you want’.”

The other student responds, “Good choice! — her clothes probably wouldn’t have fit you.”

Jesus and Satan have an argument as to who in the better programmer. This goes on for a few hours until they come to an agreement to hold a contest, with God as the judge.

They set themselves before their computers and began. They type furiously, lines of code streaming up the screen, for several hours straight. Seconds before the end of the competition, a bolt of lightening strikes, taking out the electricity.

Moments later, the power is restored, and God announces that the contest is over.

He asks Satan to show what he has come up with. Satan is visibly upset, and cries, “I have nothing. I lost it all when the power went out.”

“Very well, then, ” says God, “Let us see if Jesus fared any better.”

Jesus enters a command, and the screen comes to life in vivid display, the voices of an angelic choir pour forth from the speakers.

Satan is astonished. He stutters, “B-b-but how?! I lost everything, yet Jesus’ program is intact! How did he do it?”

God chuckles, “Everybody knows … Jesus saves!”

Hello.

Yes, you. You, looking at this screen for hours on end, online. You, bleary-eyed. You, an addict. Have you looked in the mirror lately? Been outside? Know what day of the week it is?

Your name was given to us by a spouse or family member who is concerned about your internet addiction. At Internetaholics Anonymous, we can help. We’re a non-profit society of recovering addicts like yourself that provides support and counseling through weekly meetings designed to help you cope with your problem.

We feature a twelve-step recovery program and in extreme cases, interventions. Although it is our firm belief that you are never “cured”, you most certainly can recover.

We have designed a brief checklist to determine if you are an addict. Do you:

1) Have twitches of the hand when you walk by your terminal?
2) Check e-mail more than five times a day?
3) Spend more time chatting than eating or sleeping?
4) Surf aimlessly with no direction, if only to be online?
5) Leave your name and information at countless sites if only to hope you’ll receive a reply one day from a company you’ll never do business with anyway?
6) Log on before important personal habits, such as meal preparation, hygiene or bodily functions?
7) Have red, swollen eyes that hang halfway out of your head?
8) Spend hours online on a holiday from work, where you’d usually be griping about your carpal tunnel syndrome?
9) See smoke arising from your computer or WebTV box?
10) All of the above?

If you answered yes to four or more questions (or chose #10), you have a problem. Please call us at Internetaholics Anonymous at: 1-800-LOGOFFNOWFORYOUROWNSAKE.

We’re here, we’re free, and we’re confidential. The first step to recovery is admission that you have a problem. Call us today. If you can power off to free up your phone line, that is.

10) You ticked him off once and your next phone bill was for $20,000.

9) He’s won the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes 3 years running.

8) When asked for his phone number, he gives it in hex.

7) Seems strangely calm whenever the office LAN goes down.

6) Somehow gets HBO on his PC at work.

5) Mumbled, “Oh, puh-leeez” 95 times during the movie “The Net”.

4) Massive 401k contribution made in half-cent increments.

3) His video dating profile lists “public-key encryption” among turn-ons.

2) When his computer starts up, you hear, “Good Morning, Mr. President”.

1) You hear him murmur, “Let’s see you use that Visa card now, Professor I-Don’t-Give-A’s-In-Computer-Science!”

* SHY ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply: “No! I just came in to check my E-mail!”

* VIOLENT ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply: “Go to hell your son-of-a-bitch!”

* HYPOCRITE ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply: “This is his brother, do you want to leave a message?”

* ICQ USER IN LOVE
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply: “I’m in a chat with my baby! bye!”

* BUSY ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply: ” ;-) ”

* ICQ USER WITH BAD MANNERS
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They don’t reply!

* SINCERE ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply: “I have been here since last night! I want to break the record.”

* STUPID ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply: A BUNCH OF STUPIDITIES!

* GAY ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply: ” ;-****** ”

* RUDE ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply:

/”\
|\./|
| |
| |
|>*
| * * * * |> >
| /
| /
| /
\ |
|–/”’\–|
| |–+= | |
|–\…/–|
* DISTRACTED ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply: “I’m fine and you?”

* HOSTILE ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They put you on “DND” OR “AWAY TO USER.”

* PUSILLANIMOUS ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They disconnect themselves.

* SOCIAL ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They send you a “CHAT REQUEST.”

* HORNY ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply: “Sorry for being so slow to answer, the reason is that when I see you ONLINE I start typing with just one hand.”

* OLYMPIAN ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply: “I havr been almhst 36 houns herg!” (Grammar mistakes are due to his long period chatting)

* PROFESSIONAL ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply: “I have been here almost two days! Let me change my diaper before we start.”

* VIAGRA INFLUENCED ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply: “Do you wanna get laid?”

* LIAR ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply: “No! I just came from the beach!”

* NEWBEE ICQ USER
When you ask them: “Have you been connected all day?” They reply: “Hey! If someone wants to send you a file called “penpals” or “Good days”, don’t take it! IT’S A VIRUS

An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A cursor used profanity
A keyboard was a piano!
Memory was something that you lost with age
A CD was a bank account
And if you had a 3 1/2 inch floppy You hoped nobody found out!
Compress was something you did to garbage Not something you did to a file
And if you unzipped anything in public You’d be in jail for awhile!
Log on was adding wood to a fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a backup happened to your commode!
Cut – you did with a pocket knife
Paste you did with glue
A web was a spider’s home
And a virus was the flue!
I guess I’ll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head I hear nobody’s been killed in a computer crash
But when it happens they wish they were dead!