Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time

So back in 2002 I wrote a small piece of fan-fiction supposing The A-Team were a crack tech-support team instead of mercenaries. I actually found the document today so am posting it in all it’s original glory. There are probably some edits I would do after re-reading it, but I am posting it in it’s original form because I don’t have time to re-write it and because I want to. So there.

A-Team Tech Support

Scene opens with BA Barracus sitting at a computer. Phone rings and he answers it.

BA: Yeah?

Customer {with a droning monotone voice}: I’m having problems with my DSL connection.

BA: OK, what we need to do is go over some settin’s….

Customer: Well, it all started back in May. We decided to get DSL because my mother was in town, and she needs to be able to be online while she is on the phone and we didn’t want to get a second phone line, she has this problem with her heart, that’s why she was staying with us and we figured we’d try DSL because my good friend Tom has it and he says it’s great and

BA {interrupting}: I ain’t got time for no jibba-jabba. You best be tellin’ me how yo’ routah is configured.

Customer: Well, I’m not sure.

BA: I pity the foo’ who can’t configure their routah!

Hannibal {stepping in}: That’s OK BA, why don’t you tell her we’ll be right over.

BA {into phone}: We be ovah in a flash, my van is helluva fast!
BA {to Hannibal}: Man, why we always be takin’ these foo’s an’ they probems?

Hannibal: Now BA, you know it’s our job to help these people.

{Face enters}

Hannibal: Face, we need some supplies. A Cisco router, a 10/100 network card and some cat 5 cables. Oh, and we’ll probably need Murdock’s help in configuring the router, better spring him out of the hospital.

BA: Not that foo’ he’s crazy!

Face: Right away!

—-Scene Fades—-

Scene opens up with Face and a beautiful blonde hardware vendor.

Face: Come on, I’ve already got my NIC and my cables, all I need is that router!

Vendor {in a breathy voice}: I’m sorry, but I’m all out of stock… {pauses} But maybe I have one in my apartment, care to come have a look with me?

Face: I’d love to, but I only have an hour.

Vendor: {pouts} That’s all….

Face {looks at watch}: Well maybe two…

Vendor {rubs hand down Face’s chest}

Face: ….. or three.

—-Scene Fades—–

Scene opens with Face driving his sports car towards the hospital. He is on his cell phone with Hannibal.

Hannibal: Where have you been?

Face: I had to do a little extra to get that router…. I’m on my way to get Murdock then I’ll be right over.

{Face drives up to the hospital. After he walks in he casually grabs a white jacket and a clipboard that just happen to be lying near the doorway. He takes the elevator up to Murdock’s floor where he is confronted by a nurse in front of Murdock’s room.}

Nurse: Just where do you think you’re going?

Face: Dr. Smith. I have to transfer Mr. Murdock to a new facility.

Nurse: That wasn’t cleared through me. Mr. Murdock has acute hypertension due to long exposure to stupid customers and mind-damaging tech support calls. He’s a ticking time bomb. If a phone rings near him he goes nuts! He can’t survive anywhere but in his protected environment where he can play Quake, he’s even modified it so he’s shooting his worst customers instead of monsters.

Face {mumbles}: Same thing really.
Face {to Nurse}: Be that as it may, Mr. Murdock is coming with me. We have discovered a cure for his condition, but he must come to our facility.

Nurse: What cure?

Face: Let me demonstrate. {Walks into Murdock’s room, winks at Murdock, who has looked up from his game of Quake} Mr. Murdock?
Murdock: {grunts}

Nurse: See he’s not even polite to people!

Face {walks over to Murdock and passes the clipboard in front of his face}: Now this is just a temporary state, but watch how he reacts now. {Makes phone ringing noise}

Murdock {cheerily}: Hello, and thank you for calling! How may I help you today?

Nurse {shocked}: Oh my God! You’d better take Mr. Murdock so he can be cured for good!

Face {leading Murdock out}: I thought you’d see it that way….

—Scene Fades—-

Scene opens up with BA driving the team in his GMC truck. Hannibal is sitting in the passenger seat with Face and Murdock in the back. Murdock is playing with the router.

Murdock: No, no, no! This is all wrong. How can I possibly bake with this. The recipe calls for 5 tablespoons of shortening, and there can’t possibly be that much in this small box.

BA: That’s Crisco, not Cisco you foo’! {looks at Hannibal} That foo’ is crazy!

Hannibal: Murdock is right though, I don’t think that router is going to work. {opens box} See this is set up for Asian power outlets….

Face {eagerly}: Do you want me to go check with my vendor to see if she has the right one? It should only take me a couple of hours….

Hannibal: No. We have some old circuit boards and a soldering iron. We can make it work.

{Cut to shots of the team quickly rebuilding the router}

—Scene Fades—-

Scene opens on the customer’s house. The team goes inside where they find a young boy sitting in front of the computer.

Customer: Thanks for coming over, this is my neighbor’s kid, he knows everything about computers, but he seems to be having some trouble now…

Kid: I’m not sure what I did but now it won’t go into Windows…..

{BA sets a small explosive charge underneath the seat the kid is sitting on. After a rather large explosion the kid goes flying through the window and rolls across the ground. He gets up and Hannibal punches him in the face, knocking the kid unconscious.
Camera follows in slow motion as BA throws the boy into the bushes.}

Face {to customer}: Excuse me ma’am would you mind showing me your bedroom?

Customer: Why?

Face: I’m going to have to lay some cable….

{Customer leads Face to bedroom}

Hannibal: Let’s get this DSL set up before Decker finds us.

{BA and Murdock configure the router while Hannibal stands guard.}

BA: Foo’! Don’t be eatin’ the cables!

Murdock: But they’re so good! {Plugs in cable} There! We’re all set!

BA: Yeah, that foo’ may be crazy, but he sure can configure a routah!

{Face and Customer emerge from bedroom, their clothes are slightly rumpled. A telephone truck is coming up the street}

Hannibal: Just in time too! Here comes Decker! Ma’am your router is all configured.

{Team jumps into the GMC truck and speeds away, just as Decker pulls up to the house}

Hannibal {smoking a cigar}: I love it when a plan comes together!

—Scene Fades—

END

Watching Monty Python on PBS. It is the Eric Idle episode of Monty Python’s Personal Best. Very funny stuff. I was watching Benny Hill earlier too. I enjoy British humour obviously. Good stuff.

This old post seems relevant as I’ve just seen some disgusting things in the men’s room at my place of employment…

4/12/2005
Disgusting Animals
Filed under: * General — Chris @ 9:53 pm

Ugh, people are disgusting. How hard is it to not make a disgusting mess in a public restroom? I assume it is because people are not in their own homes, so they feel no compulsion to be tidy, but yuck. I recently travelled from Buffalo to Florida, and visited much of central Florida. I did not find one public restroom that was remotely clean. This is not to fault the owners of the establishments, it was obvious that they did in fact have someone to clean them, it’s just that people choose to do things like urinate on the seat instead of taking the second to lift it out of the way. And what’s so difficult about flushing? My 3 year old has figured out how to do that. If I see one more peson come out of a stall and walk right for the door without washing their hands I’m going to go nuts. I propose that they have their picture taken and posted publicly so you know not to shake hands with them or touch anything that they have touched. I’m not germ-phobic, but to not take an extra minute to wash ones hands is just sickening.

Taking a break from the nostalgic look at blogs past and posting about present day life:

Karen and I went to see Woods Tea Co. last night at the The 1891 Fredonia Opera House as part of their Folk in Fredonia series. It was an absolutely excellent show. There is something about the intimate setting and the storytelling aspect of folk music that appeals to me. We picked up one of the bands cd’s, haven’t had a chance to listen yet, but since I loved them live I imagine I will love the cd as well. I’ve always enjoyed more ‘folk’ types of music, but it seems that as I get older I appreciate it more. It’s amazing how versatile the band was. They all played various instruments and performed different vocal parts. Very very good show. It makes me want to find some people with similar musical interests and get a band started up. Perhaps I will.

I found this interesting because when I went to bed after midnight the race was still too close to call. I was still hopeful that Kerry would win, but realized it wasn’t the sure thing I thought it would be. I still think that if he demanded a recount Kerry could have won.

In more recent politics news, possible Republican presidential hopeful, and current governor of New York, George Pataki is apparently grooming himself for his presidential bid by underfunding public education and giving tax breaks to the wealthy…. So very depressing.

11/3/2004
4 more years
Filed under: * Politics — Chris @ 12:10 pm

I can’t believe that Kerry gave up. I shudder to think what kind of world my children will grow up in with Bush in office for 4 more years. The bonus is that it is only 4 more years, but a lot more damage can be done by then….. I suppose some people may choose to move to Canada rather than suffer through 4 more years of Bush. This is just too depressing.

Not over yet
Filed under: * Politics — Chris @ 12:51 am

Time for bed. It should be interesting to see where things stand when I wake up…..

Continuing on my nostalgic romp through my old blog, with some updated comments.

It seems like he’s been in office forever. Or at least how long it seems it will take to repair the damage he has done to our country. What exactly are ‘conservatives’ conserving? One definition of conserve is “To keep in safe or sound state.” It doesn’t seem that way to me. It would seem that compassionate conservatives are neither.

11/2/2004
republican county
Filed under: * Politics — Chris @ 11:50 pm

I was surprised to find that Chautauqua County, NY (where I live) has voted primarily Republican. You can see the results at http://www.votechautauqua.com
You can also see the results of neighbor Erie county at http://www.erie.gov/elections

99
Filed under: * Politics — Chris @ 12:09 pm

I was voter #99 at my polling place this morning. I overheard one of the workers saying that was more than they had all day last time. Don’t forget to vote!

So I was thinking that for posterity and boredom I will post some of the posts from my old blog, which ran from 10/2004 – 6/2005. This post was the second post after getting back into blogging. In my first post I mentioned it had been 8 years (10 now) since I kept an online journal (it wasn’t called blogging then, or if it was I hadn’t heard about it) and in this post I elaborated on that theme:

10/16/2004
8 years
Filed under: General — Chris @ 10:55 pm

In my last post I had mentioned it had been 8 years since the last time I did an online journal regularly. That prompted me to think about all the things that have changed in 8 years. 8 years ago I had just started dating my wife. I was still in college. I was in a band. Now I am married, have 2 children, and have a career. It is amazing how fast time goes by. My oldest daughter will be 3 in January, and it seems like just yesterday she was born. I’ve been with Karen for 8 years, married for 4, but it doesn’t seem like it. Where does the time go? It seems as I get older time goes by even faster. Do we get so caught up in our everyday lives and responsibilities that we blink and a year has gone by?

And now almost another 2 years have gone by. We have another daughter, who is already walking around the house. It’s interesting going back through these old posts. It would seem a shame if I didn’t reproduce some of them so I can go back and read what I was thinking then. I wish I had thought to copy my original website/journal from back in college. I would have liked to go back through some of that as well.

One of the problems with moving your blog is the loss of history. Quite a while back on an old blog I discussed my general distaste for professional sports among other things. That would have proved sufficient to link to to explain why I did not watch the superbowl, but things being as they are I must repeat myself. So here is my old post, which incidently I posted after last years superbowl was on:

2/8/2005
Sports and society
Filed under: * General * Movies/TV * Politics – Chris @ 12:45 pm

Since the Superbowl just happened, I was thinking about how professional sports drain our society of anything beneficial. Anytime I see a professional athlete’s salary I just want to scream. It is ridiculous that we pay these people so much money when there are people living in poverty. There is talk about how Soical Security doesn’t have enough money, well how about using some of the billions of dollars wasted on sports people to making it secure? Nobody needs to be paid over a million dollars a year. It is irresponsible for our society to allow this. Not only do the players make obscene salaries, but what about all the tax breaks that are given to teams to build stadiums in certain area’s? This takes needed tax money away from services that the community needs to survive. Without exact numbers it is hard to say, but I bet that if we took all the money spent on athletes salaries, capped the atheltes at earning $100,000 a year, and spread the rest out among all US citizens, it would give everyone a decent yearly income. This goes for all actors/musicians/CEO’s as well. It is unbelievable that we support these people. Enough is enough and the time has come to better society as a whole instead of a select few.

So I watched the Rolling Stones play at the halftime show of the superbowl (the only part of the superbowl I watched). Of course they rocked, although I think their collective ages are begining to show. Parts of the vocals were weak, and some of the guitar was sloppy. But for doing it for 40 or so years it was a good show. I wonder if they ever think about how many times they’ve played a song and if it gets boring or repetitive. I mean really, playing the same song for 40 years has got to get on your nerves as an artist. Plus I was disappointed that they gave the bass player such little screen time. Just because he wasn’t one of the original memebers doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve to be shown. Overall I was very pleased to have caught the show.

Let’s say you are not staring at your computer screen eagerly awaiting your next email. You will not know that new mail arrived into a filtered folder because you did not see your desktop alert so you want to add a sound to all of your incoming email as well.

Click on Tools and then Rules and Alerts.
Click the rule you created for the desktop alert and click Change Rule then Edit Rule Settings.
Click Next to the Selcet Action step. Click on ‘play a sound’ and select a sound to play.
Click Finish

Now when new mail comes in you will get both an audio and a visual alert.