SLK6299@oberlin.bitnet (03/03/88)
My Insignifigant Other (henceforth, "I/O") just bought an XT. Since then, I've been completely ignored. He doesn't talk to me. He has no libido. All he wants to do ---I am not kidding you--- is read comp.sys.ibm.pc. "Oh, but I'm BEHIND!" he says. "There are over 400 messages that I haven't read yet! There's so much Useful Information I'm missing!" And so he sits staring at the annoyingly amber screen (I'm a big green-screen fan, myself) til all hours of the night. By the time he reads all 436 messages and decides to crawl in with me, I'm fast asleep. And then there's the Modem Conflict. He's taken the phone off the wall to hook up his modem. This makes ordering pizza absurdly difficult. Since I crash at his place far more often than I sleep at home, the only place people can get in touch with me is at "I/O"'s number. So now I'm completely cut off from my grandmother, my best friend who just had a baby, and my little brother whose birthday's next week. "I/O" thinks my attachment to these people is immature and "provincial," (he's terminally New York) which means there's no hope whatsoever of compromise here. You want to know the most irritating part? HE WON'T EVEN LET ME PLAY WITH IT. Like I'm going to break it or something. Now, I may just be a silly girl, but I get paid GOOD MONEY to work on machines nearly identical to the one he's got. I won't drool on the keys. I won't scribble on the monitor with crayon. But noooo... it's HIS toy, and even in the rare moments when he's not logged on, I'm not permitted to touch it. All right, XT fans. Is there any hope of competing with a 20-meg hard disk? Should I just dump the creep? He was bearable until the machine arrived. Should I permanently give up sleeping with him? I can think of no other options. E-mail any suggestions. I'll summarize if people are interested. Thanks in advance, Laura (SLK6299@ocvaxa.bitnet)
peter@prism.TMC.COM (03/05/88)
Take a vacation from him. He has a bad case of 'nerd-itis'. I had it once
in college. I would play 12 hour marathon Star Trek sessions on the system.
I would appear bleary eyed for breakfast, and my insignifant friends would
look at me and I would say " I'm loading dilithium crystals...Command
Klingons are a bitch... I hate Supercruisers...doesn't it bother you when
you are so low on energy that you are thinking of rowing home 'cause it's
faster and some Klingon tractors you into a sector with fifty billion
Command Klingons and then you realize that you have failed to save the game
and then you die?!" They would look at me, their eyes searching for meaning,
sanity, humanity, and shake their heads, and back off carefully.
I would feel relieved, I would not be wasting any time with these oxygen
breathing, bleeding heart Klingon sympathizing, fifth column space derelicts,
and could go on to another Thud and Blunder filled day.
Then, one day, I reached nirwana: I became an Admiral Emeritus.
But I was too dazed to realize it. However, soon even Super Commanders
which once caused fear and loathing, now merely caused a stifled yawn as I
docked with my starbase and phasered them to space slag.
I then returned to eat food again.
I started to look around, by eyes swiveling and feeling like battle
pitted ball turrets. I noticed these funny beings with their voices shifted
somewhat higher than mine. Uhm...I remember these...wait! don't tell me!...
yes! I know... those are feee..mmay...uhllls! Now why does that ring a bell?!
...fascinating...oh yeah!...I know one of those!...it's...uhm...it's...it's my
...uhm...girlfriend!...I maybe should dock with her...I mean...uhm...like
interface...no?...like deal with her on a non-electronic basis...yeah! that's
the ticket!
Thus began my slow process of re-humanization. I'm still together with her
seven years later and going strong.
So "relax...take a pill... think it over Dave..." oops! wrong movie, I mean
read that book you always wanted to, go see that movie, take a couple of
weeks off, re-vitalize your social life, he'll snap out of it.
At XT 'speeds' it may take a while, but it's nothing personal, the five-
year-old-with-a-new-toy momentarily has control now, but eventually he'll
realize that significant others are far more versatile both soft- and hard-
ware wise (oops! a momentary lapse).
----
Peter J. Stucki -- peter@mirror.TMC.COM
UUCP : {mit-eddie, ihnp4, harvard!wjh12, cca, cbosg, seismo}!mirror!peter
TryThis: peter@mirror.zone1.com
(we forward for .zone1.com)
Mirror Systems 2067 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA, 02140
Telephone: 617-661-0777 extension 131
"Don't hope for miracles! Rely on them!"
---mvolo@ecsvax.UUCP (Michael R. Volow) (03/06/88)
In article <113840.2147405664@ocvaxa.oberlin.edu>, SLK6299@oberlin.bitnet writes: > > My Insignifigant Other (henceforth, "I/O") just bought an XT. Since > then, I've been completely ignored. He doesn't talk to me. He has no libido. > Thanks in advance, > Laura (SLK6299@ocvaxa.bitnet) Tell you loved(?) one, that capital 'K' for KILL will mark as read all unread news, that many articles are repetitious (ad nauseam), and that if he doesn't learn to 'K'ill instead of [ynq], he will 'K'ill your relationship. Seriously, he can catch up by reading the last few articles in reverse '-r' option and 'K'illing the rest.
alexande@drivax.UUCP (Mark Alexander) (03/08/88)
Here's how to get revenge on your Insignificant Other. First, copy him to a file on your PC, give it a name like NERD.IO. Make him into an ARC file (NERD.ARC). Use PKARC instead of ARC because it will squash him (ever so much more satisfying than mere crunching). Plus the flames from irate net users who only have ARC will make him more crispy. Upload the ARC file your *nix box, UUENCODE it, and name the resulting file NERD.UUE. Finally, post your squashed and encoded I/O to the following groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc comp.binaries.ibm.pc comp.binaries.atari.st comp.binaries.amiga comp.binaries.mac and any others you think appropriate. Oh, and be sure to do all this under your I/O's account, so when the hate mail pours in, your I/O and not you will be the target. Seeing your I/O get squashed, encoded, and flamed in this manner should be most gratifying. -- Mark Alexander (UUCP: amdahl!drivax!alexande) "Bob-ism: the Faith that changes to meet YOUR needs." --Bob
jjw@igloo.UUCP (John Welch) (03/11/88)
Well, two way you could compete...
First, get a Compaq DeskPro 20Mhz 386 with 72 Meg drive.
Second, come stay with me. I havea spare AT that you could use, but I reserve
the right to play with my new 68000 UNIX-oid box all by myself.
( maybe I should cross-post this to humor... ;-)
--
==========================================================================
John Welch ..{codas,ihnp4}!ddsw1!igloo!jjw
"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de-briefed or
numbered. My life is my own; I am a free man!" - #6