This is a true story from the WordPerfect helpline. Needless to say, the help desk employee was fired; however, he/she is currently suing the Word Perfect organization for "Termination without Cause."

Actual dialogue of a former WordPerfect Customer Support employee with a caller:

Customer Support: "Ridge Hall computer assistant; may I help you?"

Caller: "Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."

CS: "What sort of trouble?"

C: "Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away."

CS: "Went away?"

C: "They disappeared."

CS: "Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"

C: "Nothing."

CS: "Nothing?"

C: "It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."

CS: "Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?"

C: "How do I tell?"

CS: "Can you see the C: prompt on the screen?"

C: "What's a sea-prompt?"

CS: "Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?"

C: "There isn't any cursor, I told you, it won't accept anything I type."

CS: "Does your monitor have a power indicator?"

C: "What's a monitor?"

CS: "It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV.  Does it have a little light that tells you when it's
on?"

C: "I don't know."

CS: "Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?"

C: "Yes, I think so."

CS: "Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall."

C: ".......Yes, it is."

CS: "When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?"

C: "No."

CS: "Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable."

C: ".......Okay, here it is."

CS: "Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer."

 

C: "I can't reach."

 

CS: "Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"

 

C: "No."

 

CS: "Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?"

 

C: "Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle - it's because it's dark."

 

CS: "Dark?"

 

C: "Yes - the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in  from the window."

 

CS: "Well, turn on the office light then."

C: "I can't."

CS: "No? Why not?"

C: "Because there's a power outage."

CS: "A power... A power outage? Ah, Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?"

C: "Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."

CS: "Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."

C: "Really? Is it that bad?"

CS: "Yes, I'm afraid it is."

C: "Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"

CS: "Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer."

Congratulations Southend, and thank you for relieving Manchester United of defending the Mickey Mouse Cup. As you probably know by reading previous blogs I support Man Utd and I am not at all bitter about the defeat, happy more than anything! So far this season we have lost 3 games, 1 in the league and all 3 games were 1-0. We have been playing great football but all this result shows is we had a bad night and our backup players aren’t brilliant. We are sitting top of the Premiership and top of our Champions League group. Our best phase comes around Christmas, as we showed last year going on a almighty unbeaten run which ended, disastrously, with a loss at Chelsea and them winning the title. That is what I think has set us up this year to be top after 11 games with a 3 point lead. Nobody except Man Utd has won the league in three consecutive years and Chelski’s money cannot guarantee a third consecutive title. Anyway, with our best form yet to come Chelsea must be gearing up for a long and difficult season. I have read several football boards with Chelsea fans leaving messages which are completely annoying and just overall stupid. They think money can bring them whatever they want and are saying we are top due to ‘referees’ and penalties. We have had one penalty this season and I cannot remember any dodgy refereeing decisions. Apparently we are cheaters yet Arjen Robben is one of the best actors in the Premiership. Then the next thing that was said was we are sore losers? Yet when Chelsea lose Jose Mourinho comes on TV claiming it was luck or some referee decision that went against them! But one thing I must congratulate Mr. Mourinho on is he bought some good players with Roman Abramovich’s bank balance, which anybody could do. Chelsea, win the league three consecutive times, win the Champions League. Have a manager for 20 years who brought back the glory days and made the Premiership what it is today. Without Ferguson there would be no great players in the Premiership. Anyway, end of the rant!

Well, I have next week off, which is good. My Mum is in hospital early next week for a operation so I get the house to myself near enough (little brothers staying at their Grandma’s). Last time I had the house to myself the neighbours rang the council because of the noise and I had to give my Mum thirty quid to replace her ornament my mate smashed while thinking he could do a scissors kick after drinking a litre of vodka. I don’t know if I am going to have a party again, as Christmas is so close I don’t want to be paying for a new TV or anything!

So Saddam Hussain is getting hung, what is the point? Now he is going to be seen as some sort of hero. I can imagine the adverts on Iraqi TV…Defying the World to make Nuclear Weapons, killing innocent people, linked with Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist friends, Saddam is now dead via hanging! Advert finishes and a little kid tells his Dad he wants to grow up to be just like Saddam! They may as well give him the lethal injection, make him suffer a bit and then there will be much less controversy over it. Anyway, they caught Hussain so what about Bin Laden! I haven’t heard anything about him since the Summer when he was supposed to be dead until he appeared on that Al Jazeera channel. Can’t America buy a few Al Qaeda spies or something? Send over James Bond?

Looking on the front page of newspapers this morning everybody is making a big deal out of Britney Spears divorcing Kevin Federline or K-Fed as he prefers to be called. Why is this important? I mean when was Britney’s last song? Exactly, I don’t even know what she looks like now, she has probably put on 10 stone for having them 7 kids or whatever! K-Fed is weird anyway, he can’t rap or sing but made an album as he thought he was famous, all anybody knew him as was Britney’s husband! I wonder whether it would be on the front page of The Sun if my Mum got a divorce…

Working out the hours I slept this weekend, 14. That is Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I am starting to think about going on a healthy diet (not gonna happen…) and I try and get 6/8 hours sleep per night otherwise I end up moody all day (if I am hungover 12 hours sleep!). This hasn’t been working out as I watch way too much TV and play on my PC way too much. Aside from work, I play football games on my Playstation 2, Football Manager on my PC and run two personal websites. This keeps me busy but then I have to watch Eastenders, four times a week, if The Office or Two Pints a Lager and a Packet of Crisps on then I have to watch it. Along with Lost, Smallville, Alias, Boxing, NFL and Football. Sad, huh? My new addiction is…The O.C.

I started watching The O.C last Tuesday and had finished Season One by Saturday (due to staying up most of the night watching it). I am now half way through Season Two and I didn’t want to come to work, I wanted to stay in bed all day to watch it! It has comedy, action and good storylines, so it is easy to watch but it is sooo time consuming. This generation is being brought up wrongly in my belief, most people around my age, stay in all day, play computers watch DVDs and go out to get drunk now and again. Nobody I know has that much of a social life, yeah I talk to friends who live down the same steet as me on Instant Messaging programs and play football with them every week but that is not enough to be called ‘socialising’. Soon, we are all going to evolve into couch potatoes and the only exercise we will get is walking to the fridge, or dancing in the shower.

Thinking about the sociallising problem brought me onto the major cause for this. Technology. Without it we would all be lost but with it we are getting unhealthy and hardly going out. I am not against it, I couldn’t live without my PC, DVD player, Mobile Phone and my MP3 Player but there are bound to be plenty of people who are petitioning for new laws, No Technology and at least 4 hours of sociallising per day!!!!!

I couldn’t live without my phone and without I would have never had any girlfriends so how did the older generation get girls? They wouldn’t have been able to text them or anything! I need my phone otherwise I will forget girls names, let alone their number! The older generation didn’t have that luxury though, they didn’t have text messaging or sending photos through Bluetooth etc… so how did they get girls? Nowadays following a girl around is called stalking so I don’t know if they did that back then. Can anybody help me with this?

Football last night was a good result for my team, beating Liverpool was fun as several of my friends are fans so I get to wind them up! Christmas seems to be getting closer, luckily I started my shopping in the Summer, I hate the whole last minute thing so I like to get it out of the way in advance. Anyway, I have loads have work to do and I am currently clock watching as I want to get home to watch The O.C! Cya!

The only thing I am going to say about football is well done Scotland.

I had last week off sick, I think it was concussion, the doctor said it sounded like it but I only spoke to her on the phone. I bumped my head, messing round in JJB, don’t want to go into the full story as it is embarrassing. The doctor basically said it sounded like concussion and I had to take two Ibuprofen twice a day and if it was still as bad by Friday to arrange an appointment. Luckily it seemed to sort out a bit as the pain is getting less frequent, got to be a good sign!

Well, I am back to work, loads to do but my blog needed updating so I thought I should get that out of the way. I was reading the comments from previous blogs and Ed Asquith, editor of the Scarborough Evening News said I had a hidden talent for writing! Cool, especially coming from a editor of a newspaper. I could be the next Stephen King…or maybe not.

Lost started last week, over in America that is and the first episode of the new season was great, I don’t want to spoil it for anybody who watches it so let’s just say it answers no questions you may have, it just makes more! Typical, the most confusing show ever that is! Also, Smallville started again two weeks ago. The first two episodes were good, looking forward to the next one though. I have just started watching Family Guy it is cool, I prefer that to The Simpsons! I think my favourite characters are Quagmire and Stewie.

The Weather is good, rain, sunshine then rain again. The rain is great, it is one of the reasons I love living in England! I am going on my first family holiday next winter, to Spain. We agreed their was no point going in the Summer as the weather would be good, we may as well make the most of it when it is cold!

On New Years Day, me, my Uncle and eight mates are off to watch Man Utd vs. Newcastle, in Newcastle. Should be a good laugh, tickets are quite cheap too so I can’t complain. I have started making plans for my birthday, which will be my 18^th on the 30^th January. At first I decided to go to Hull with a few mates, watch Hull vs. Leeds and then come home and have a few beers but kick off is at 7:45pm so I scrapped that plan. Now my Mum and her Husband want to take me for a few drinks then my Mum’s Husband, pete, who is 21 or 22 is going to take me clubbing with some mates and family on the weekend so it all seems good.

Anyway, sorry for wasting 5 minutes of your time and boring you to death!

It has been a while since I updated my blog. I did one last week but it got took down as it was ‘libellous’. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it, I just guess some people are more fussy than others, interesting to see how far the boundaries can be pushed.

Since my last blog I have had a weeks holiday. That was a nice break, I enjoy my job but sticking at it non stop week in week out isn’t good, I need a break, as everybody does now and again. I have 9 days holiday left which have to be used before the end of the year. I don’t know when to use them but I will figure something out.

Football is interesting, Portsmouth and Aston Villa are doing extremely well in the league. Champions League is good too, hopefully Man Utd can progress futrther than the group stages this time. I was unhappy when people said Crouch had scored a overhead kick. To me it looked like he slipped and sort of volleyed it from a side as he was going down, well at least they had a tough match, winning 3-2. My little brother started his football season last weekend, his team, West Pier, lost a tournament match 3-0 but straight after they started their first league match which they won 4-1.

My life hasn’t been that interesting, just arguing with the girlfriend about ‘not giving her attention’ well she should stop talking about ‘shoes’ and ‘hairdressing’ and talk about football. She would get more interesting then! I have started my Christmas shopping, I want to get it out of the way early and quickly as I hate the mad rush coming into December. Luckily, I have about 5 presents to buy then I am done.

On the websites there is now a national news scrollbar thing which is good, I can’t believe a 17 year old got a date with Miss Universe. I may have to send her a letter…

What a start to the season, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea have all dropped points whuile my team, Man Utd are top of the league. Not bad considering we are supposed to be ‘past it’. On Sky Sports they are advertising a weekend of football where Chelsea play Liverpool and Man Utd play Arsenal, they are saying Chelsea vs Liverpool are the teams challenging for the title while Man Utd and Arsenal are the ‘old guys’. Typical, anybody who knows anything about football will admit that Liverpool won’t win the league, how can they with Craig Bellamy who acts like a teenager and Jermain Pennant who couldn’t make it at Arsenal? Bellamy is quite funny though, when he was at Celtic he said that he would hire one of the lower league players to be his gardener! Well Man Utd are currently top of the league and Chelsea lost to Middlesborough while Liverpool drew with Sheffield United. Shows how good the ‘Title Contenders’ are doesn’t it!? Aston Villa have surprised me though, Martin O’Neil has done wonders and he hasn’t been their long. Transfer deadline day and West Ham have pulled of a coup, Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez were wanted by Arsenal and Manchester United but have gone on loan to West Ham! I did’t see that coming!

I joined works 5-a-side thing last week, I went last Thursday and played rubbish, nevermind guess it will take a few weeks to get used to. Usually I play with people I know or just people from my estate and aren’t really fussed about hurting them but playing on Thursday was sort of weird, I couldn’t play my game as I wanted to be more careful with my tackling. Usually I just go in for it and if I hurt them then that is their problem.

My Mum’s anniversary is this weekend I think, I don’t know what to get her to be honest. I might not get her anything and see what she says, it is only a marriage I guess, I wouldn’t be bothered if I didn’t get a wedding anniversary gift! My Mums husband supports Newcastle, I can’t wait to wind him up. Basically, Newcastle’s manager has admitted Man Utd’s reserves are better than his first team by signing our reserve striker Giuseppe Rossi on loan. Ha, well Rossi is quite good and the experience should help him out.

I have just started reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, I am on Chapter 13 and I am intrigued. The description is fantastic and it just seems great even though the story has no where near finished. I read 50 Cent’s biography the other day and some of that was funny. He said that when he was a kid he used to talk to little green army men and when he was scared he would convince them he wasn’t. He ended up threatening to beat up a dog, then kicked the dog’s fence and ran away. I liked how he admitted that he wasn’t a good boxer at first, he kept getting knocked out but then he realised where he was good and he analysed his matches when he was against the ropes or knocked out on the floor. I also bought a book called The Prince by…okay, some Italian guy that whose name sounds like Mach-i-velli. I am only reading that as my favourite rapper, 2pac, read it before he died and said it was good.

Anyway, cya.

Death. So what happens when we die? Do we get reincarnated? Come back as a new person or a animal? Do ghosts exist? Or do we just disappear from everywhere with no memory, no mind to think with, no nothing? I do not know but death is a thing that interests me. JK Rowling’s quote is ‘Death is to a well organised mind, a adventure’. Quite a few people believe in ghosts. My family lived in a Hostel when we first moved to Scarborough and my Uncle James had a room where a young boy had died in a fire. His cot was in the bottom left corner in the room and whenever my baby cousin (baby at the time) went into that room he stared into that corner.

He could not speak and did not know about the death in that room so why did he stare? Can young children sense/see ghosts or spirits? Can they tell where something bad has happened? Or was it just a coincidence? This leads me onto another subject, invisible friends. What if invisible friends are ghosts? If children can see ghosts then what if the invisible friend is really just a ghost? Which brings up the question, why can I not remember ghosts? Most people cannot remember much of their first 10 years on the planet and what we can remember is very little.

Maybe we did have a invisible friends/ghosts as friends when we were little and we have now forgot them which could explain why we do not believe in ghosts. I am afraid of death, not scared, I think it is just the unknown that frightens me. Not knowing what happens when I die. Lucky I’m 17, hopefully I can have the next 60+ years getting used to the idea of dying! What brought this subject around is my little brother Jack. He is 7 and his father died a few years ago in a sky diving accident.

He was asking me whether or not his Dad was in heaven and whether he was happy. I could not answer properly, I do not know and frankly I am not interested (long story) but that’s what got me onto death. I do not believe there is life after death. Do you? I do not believe in ghosts, I do not believe in heaven or anything. To be honest I am a Atheisest, I don’t believe in God or Heaven and Hell or any of that. If God existed then why are murderers and rapists all over the place? Exactly, there is no God and here is another thing, he messed up the Bible a little, apparently we are all his children but if so then why is Jesus so special?

I believe that Horroscopes, Magic, Hypnotism, God and whatever else are not real, just money makers really. The only people who believe them are older people who want to grasp on to the whole life after death thing or younger people who are following in their parents/grandparents/friend footsteps in believing in that rubbish. All that stuff about everything happens for a reason and God made this planet is mental. If God made this planet then who made Mars and Jupiter? Who made God? Exactly, I don’t know how we got here or how the first human or animal got here but no human could do it! I don’t think we will ever found out too. Greece are the worst when it comes to God. They have a God for everything. Zeus – The Lighting God, they have water gods and War gods and all sorts. Mozarella – The Cheese God!

Anyway I am up for all/any suggestions so comment and we can discuss further!