10-2-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

After a long involved go-round with tech support at Microsoft, I've been told to change my drivers. What's wrong with my drivers? I've had the same ones for years.

Miss Daisy in Dothan 

Dear Miss Daisy:

The problem with relying on the same drivers all the time is that you get stuck in a rut, always going to the same places in the same order. Back when I had to give up driving my beloved '38 LaSalle Town Car, "Bessie," I experimented with different drivers from different agencies just to keep my brain alert and functioning. It was wonderful! Sometimes we would wind up at the beach, sometimes in the mountains, and sometimes in a different part of the country altogether.

My favorite driver was Alvin, from the Fresh Air Taxicab Company, which he had inherited from his grandfather Amos. We hit it off right from the start. Alvin would share some of his "wackybaccy" with me and we would hit all the clubs. (This was long before "Reefer Madness" and such foolishness drove people to use standard carcinogenic smoking mixtures instead of the good stuff.) I met Zoot and Dizzy and Earl and Fats and I don't know who else.

Another one of my favorites was Lance, who took me around to all kinds of bars and theaters I never knew existed. You haven't lived until you've seen "Elizabeth the Queen" in drag.

So I suggest you swap drivers as often as possible. People our age need as many cheap thrills as we can stand.

10-3-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Within the past 2 years I have been unable to break a time consuming and life draining habit. Here's my dilemma:

Each morning without fail I listen to a certain set of songs over my headphones and until I feel I have heard them enough, I can't even begin my day. It has become such a ritual that no one need question my whereabouts in the house. I receive phone messages such as, "I guess you're listening to your music, call me when you get this message," and "You must be listening to your music with your headphones on, call me."

It has even taken precedence over all social functions. No one is allowed to disturb my routine. The sad thing is, is that even though I am totally aware of my condition, I am still the same. Have you ever dealt with anything like this and is there any hope for me?

--Binaural in Babylonia

Dear Binaural:

This condition is what people in the mental professions call "psong psychosis," and the cure is not at all easy. It involves the process of deconditioning, which can be undertaken in several ways:

1. Buy a second music-player box and splice the headphone wires together so you're listening to different songs at the same time in each ear. This is pretty effective for breaking the resistance of spies and should do the trick for you.

2. Listen only to songs that you can't stand, I mean, that you absolutely HATE. Eventually you'll do anything rather than listen to them and the spell will be broken.

3. Alternatively, listen to your favorite songs, but as sung by singers who have no business being in the singing business. I can't recommend too highly the "Golden Throats" series, where you can hear people like William Shatner belting out "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," or Phyllis Diller attempting "I Can't Get No Satisfaction." It will put you off music forever. 

10-4-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I'm confused about the term "surfing" as applied to the World Wide Web, since it has nothing to do with salt water, wave action, boards, woodies or beach bimbos. Where did the expression come from?

--Surfer in Santa Fe 

Dear Surfer:

That's a keen observation, and you're quite right-- there doesn't seem to be much connection between wet blondish people hurling themselves at a beach on a plank of fiberglass and the pursuit of knowledge online.

The confusion came about because "surfer" sounds so much like "server," especially after a few beers. Early users of the Internet understood that servers carried the important information and allowed it to be shared, and it wasn't long before "serving" was used as shorthand by early Internet users (geeks) to describe moving from server to server in search of information. There was even a band that sprang up, the BIOS Boys, who tried to popularize the use of the Internet through rock and roll. They had several hits like "Server Safari," "Server's Up!", "Little Server URL" and "I Get a Workaround," before falling out over the proper pronunciation of "warez."

Unfortunately right at the time they were breaking up the surfing craze was catching on, and another group who looked like they actually spent some time in the sun, stole the BIOS Boys songs and adapted them for beach tunes.

This is the earliest recorded instance of Robert "Bobby Dude" Napster at work, by the way. Bobby set up an offshore network of music copying services and made a fortune until the FCC busted him for melody laundering. While in prison he worked in the computer lab and invented an even sneakier way of stealing music, the Music Palagiarism ver.3 program, and you know what THAT led to....

RARE PHOTO OF ROBERT "BOBBY DUDE" NAPSTER,  ALWAYS A FASHION TRENDSETTER, IN THE EARLY 60'S BEFORE HE WENT OFFSHORE. (credits: Aunt Nettie's Photo Album)

10-5-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

You know that little dog assistant in MS Office? Well, I can't get him to play fetch. He plays fetch on my friend's computer, but when I get home, he never wants to play. Is there a place I can take him for retraining??

--Woodhouse in Westchester

Dear Woodhouse:

Unfortunately you can only use the Fetch program on a Macintosh. On a PC, however, you can quickly train it to do lots of Windows tricks, like Play Dead, Restart, Handshake Failed, Fatal Exception Error and Reinstall.

There's an interesting Easter Egg that's part of the little dog assistant in Office, by the way. If you press ^, then * and \ simultaneously, then F13, a window will pop up. Enter the words "Microsoft customer satisfaction" and the little dog will relieve himself all over the screen. Cute.

10-6-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What's a typical day at Living Dead "R" Us like?

--Presenile in Prescott 

Dear Presenile:

Every day is pretty much the same here: being amazed that we woke up; wondering what breakfast will be; wondering what breakfast IS; napping before lunch; napping after lunch; napping before dinner, napping after dinner and getting to bed early so we'll be well rested if we wake up tomorrow morning.

10-7-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What's your sign?

--Moonstruck in Minneapolis

Dear Moonstruck:

D.N.R.*

*DO NOT RESUSCITATE

10-8-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Lap-top or desk-top? What are the pros and cons?

--Lusty in Lusitania 

Dear Lusty:

I understand that lap-top is popular now in some sleazy nightclubs, and desk-top will do in an emergency, but I've always preferred a nice feather bed and a mirror on the ceiling, myself. 

10-9-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I recently read an article about the Senior Olympics on the web and in the article, Dr. Peter Jokl, professor of orthopedics and rehabilitation at the Yale University School of Medicine said, "You can die healthy." Am I missing something here?

--Slacker in Slidell

Dear Slacker:

Dying healthy represents the latest medical thinking on the subject of spontaneous death. They used to think that a person had to go through several distinct stages of dying, like getting old, getting feeble, coughing up parts and not breathing for extended periods of time. However, thanks to all the progress in gerontoenteroplutonology, perfectly healthy people can now shuffle off this mortal coil with a little help from a trained medical specialist.

This has come about due to advances in transplant surgery. At the present time there's a huge waiting list for spare parts like livers, kidneys, hearts, sweetbreads, etc. Many of the people on the waiting lists for transplants are quite wealthy, and this has set the old forces of market supply and demand rolling. A perfectly healthy individual can go in for a checkup, and before he realizes it he's been sliced and diced and patched into 36 other people and his doctor has a new Lear Jet. That's how our economy works.

There are several warning signs that your doctor may not have your best interests in mind:

1. His Yellow Pages ad appears under "Chop Shops."

2. He uses an alias. Several aliases.

3. He takes phone calls while he's examining you and uses expressions like "I've got a liver and 2 kidneys on the table right now."

4. His waiting room is filled with Styrofoam coolers with outbound addresses already typed in.

5. His eyes light up when you mention you have no next of kin.

6. His assistant moonlights in the meat department at Food Lion.

7. The furnace in the cellar keeps running around the clock, even in the summertime.

8. He accidentally refers to your "dressed weight."

9. A man from Goodwill collects your clothes from the examining room.

10. Instead of prescription pads he has FedEx forms.

If you spot any of these warning signs it might be better for you to have a sudden conversion into Christian Science right on the spot. Assuming you can get out of the office in one piece, that is.

10-10-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

My doctor has advised me to get more exercise and I am looking into what's feasible for me, a woman "of a certain age". What's your favorite method of achieving physical fitness? I am intrigued by something called Aqua-Fitness for Seniors, which is offered at the local YMCA. I'm open to other options, of course, and would greatly appreciate your opinions.

--Treading Water in Trenton

Dear Treading:

Give me a break! Not another one of those "Fitness for Seniors" programs? Do you seriously think that standing hip deep in a swimming pool with a bunch of old farts is going to keep you healthy? Chances are it's going to be run by some 19-year-old blonde aerobics instructor with a lot more skin than suit, and the only thing that will happen is some of the elderly gents will have coronaries trying hold their flab in and pass themselves off as swinging studs. Worse yet, there'll be a run on Viagra and yet another desperate attempt at fossilized lust. Old men never can understand that their eyes are bigger than their you-know-whats, and that the only use they would have for a 19-year-old is if she knows CPR.

It's far wiser to accept the fact that your whole body is heading for shutdown mode. Better to sit in a rocker and be thought of as a basket case than to try boogying to Richard Simmons and remove all doubt. 

10-11-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I have begun visiting some chat rooms. Almost always, one of the first questions I am asked is "What are you wearing?"

Can you help me with selection of a fashionable Internet Chat wardrobe?

--Casual in Canaveral 

Dear Casual:

Oh, we can do a lot better than that. I suggest that you tell them that you're wearing nothing at all, or describe something out of Victoria's Privates or one of those other lingerie catalogues. Casually mention that you're a dead ringer for a certain popular underage rock nymphet. Then tell them to call 1-900-HOT TALK to continue the conversation, and to ask for Britney. At $20 a minute you'll soon have a brand new wardrobe. Maybe a Porsche if you're good enough.

One time I had some old lecher up to the $800 mark when my teeth slipped, I started gagging and he thought he had made the world move. That got me my first mink coat and the first in a series of proposals of marriage. Think Anna Nicole Smith and you'll do just fine.

10-12-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What are the best performance enhancing drugs for a future Senior Olympian?

--Geriatric Gymnast in Genesee

Dear Geriatric:

I strongly recommend prunes. Whenever Old Man Murtchison back in Redbone OD'd on prunes he did the 50 yards to the outhouse in record time. 

10-13-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

On the radio this morning I heard somebody talking about "open sores" programming. That's disgusting! Who in their right mind would invent such a thing?

--Revolted in Ravenna 

Dear Revolted:

Now, now... we sometimes forget that one of the most noble uses of the Internet is to bring together those who, for one reason or another, have been shunned by society, like goat fondlers and supporters of Pat Buchanan for President.

Open Sores programming was established to give lepers all over the world a common political voice. These poor afflicted folks have been shunted into leprosaria at the drop of an ear, shut away from family and friends in spite of all that medical science can do to educate people that leprosy, or "Handsome's Disease" as it's sometimes sardonically called, is no worse that a bad cold, albeit one that involves coughing up your lungs, liver and spleen. So support Open Sores programming whenever you can. And be sure to visit their Web site, "The Leper Pit" for more information. Wear rubber gloves, just to be on the safe side. 

10-14-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

How can I get my computer to run faster?

--Slow Poke in San Pedro

Dear Slow Poke:

Everybody wants to go fast these days. When we first started computing operations back in Redbone people were perfectly happy with 0.05kHz processors, 48 bytes of memory and Winchester 10" floppies that held 22 bytes of information on a good day. Now it's nothing but speed, speed speed.

However, to answer your question, the easiest way to speed up a computer is by installing Quicken software, which, as the name implies, is designed to speed up your computer as far as it will go. For some reason they keep it in the financial section of the software store, on the principle that time is money, I suppose....

10-15-2000 

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I understand from your Archives that you were around back in the early days of computing. What about the early days of aviation? I bet you have some fascinating stories to tell.

--Pilot in Pensacola

Dear Pilot:

You're darned tootin' I was around for the early days of aviation. Orville and Wilbur Wright stopped over in Redbone for a week while they were making their historic trip from Dayton, Ohio to Kitty Hawk. As a matter of fact the first recorded airplane flight was in Redbone itself, although there's no record of it, since Applejack Daniels had used up all the film in his Kodak when I took off my bloomers so they could use it as a windsock.

Wilbur and Orville were a strange pair. They had developed their flying machine as a way to meet girls, since both of them were so painfully shy. One problem was that they had to do everything together, so dating was inconvenient at best. They thought of themselves as unfulfilled Siamese twins.

A few years later, after they became famous, they flew back to Redbone in a brand new plane to see yours truly, since they had both become infatuated with me on the first visit. They kept pestering me to let them show me what they could do, and how much fun it would be, so one day I threw caution to the winds and decided to do it.

As soon as they got tanked up we were off. It was a rough start because both of them wanted to be in control, but I got them sorted out and they agreed to take turns. It was truly amazing what they had learned in just a few years. Orville showed me the 'Immelmann' which is sort of a half-roll and a half loop, then Wilbur did "over the barrel" twice until I was absolutely giddy. They were going to try for a grand finale, which they called 'barnstorming,' but we got to bouncing so hard Orville fell right out of the bed and busted the chamberpot.

Later they took me up in the plane. That was fun, too.

Nettie makes a quick exit in search of her bloomers. (from Aunt Nettie's Photo Album)

10-16-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Maria V. Jones, a fun loving 4-foot-10, 75 year old great-grandmother, with a great pair of legs, competed in the Roller Skating Solo Dance Event at the California State Games on Sunday - June 4, 2000, at Rollerskateland in Santee, CA. - San Diego County, and won the Gold Medal. See her web site for the whole story.

What do YOU do to keep yourself young at heart?

--Birthday Girl in Boca Raton 

Dear Birthday Girl:

Digitalis, and lots of it.

You know, it really frosts my fanny whenever I see a story about someone like this who doesn't have the common decency to lie back and let old age flatten them like a slow steamroller. There's a time to rock and there's a time to roll over and die. Roller skating, indeed! I can hardly wait for geriatric skateboarders and centenarian BMX-ers and whatall. It stands to reason that if the Almighty had intended us to act like adolescents he would have *kept* us adolescents. Look at that old coot who married that Playmate Smith person. Where did it get him? All he got out of it was a Final Climax.

10-17-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Do I need to register the software programs I install on my computer? I'm told that some programs, like Office 2000, will quit working after the 50th time I use it if I haven't registered. Is this true?

--Crabby in Canton

Dear Crabby:

Not to worry. I have been assured by experts in the use of Office 2000 that it will quit working long before the 50th time you use it, registered or not. However, Office 2002, which will be available in early 2006, will fix this problem for a trifling $495 upgrade fee.

10-18-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

You must have seen a lot of substances used, abused, banned and criminalized, licensed and unlicensed over your lifetime.

What do you think is the most dangerous one and why?

--Dopey in the DEA 

Dear Dopey:

The most dangerous one in my opinion is testosterone, a hallucinogenic steroid stimulant that's the leading cause of war, crime, drunken driving, road rage and the intense need to own several assault rifles, 10,000 rounds of ammo and a couple of anti-tank mines.

If global testosterone levels were reduced by 80% there would be no more wars, no more violent male religions, a 98% drop in the crime and drunken driving rates and the disappearance of personal weaponry. Also TV would be free of football and baseball, and there would be a sudden interest in men's romance novels.

Best of all, men would finally learn the art of shopping. It would be paradise on earth.

10-19-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Recently, Hunk-o-Rama Richard Gere, when asked if he could choose to be any woman for a day, said that it would be Madeleine Albright. What do you think of his choice? And by the way, if you could be any man for a day, who would it be?


--RuPaul in Rio Bravo 

Dear RuPaul:

Madeline Albright, eh? This is what happens when a fine young man is exposed to intensive Cindy Crawford radiation for too long. It simply burns out their interest in the opposite sex, just as surely as if you dropped a railroad flare down their pants.

And he's not alone. Just look at the answers all of Christie Brinkley's ex-husbands gave: Margaret Thatcher, Roseanne Barr, Mama Cass and Lassie. When someone pointed out to Billy Joel that Mama Cass was dead, he just shrugged his shoulders and asked if it really mattered. It's so sad.

Myself, I'd want to be Jesse Ventura. I think he's a hoot. Especially in a feather boa.

10-20-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What's an online mail bomb, and do I have to worry about getting hit by one?

-- Fragged Bigtime at Fort Bragg 

Dear Fragged:

This is only a risk if you use MIME e-mail encoding. Apparently mimes the world over think it's hilarious to send a mail bomb to an unsuspecting member of their species. As soon as the big letters BANG! appear on the screen the target mime has to fling itself back in its chair, sprawl out on the floor, then go through the whole Bomb Victim shtick: shaking the head, rubbing the eyes, painstakingly getting to their feet, staggering around dizzily and spinning their arm as if it was broken at the elbow.

As you can understand this can be highly embarrassing, especially to closet mimes who work, say, in the Pentagon or in a major stock brokerage house. Or the Vatican.

10-21-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Stephen King recently published a book on the Internet. Does this portend the end of civilization as we know it?

--Fearful in Fairfax 

Dear Fearful:

It certainly does. As a matter of fact, every advance in technology means the end of civilization as we know it, all the way back to fire and walking upright. It's the only thing that's kept us going as a species.

10-22-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

How the %$&* do I shut off that #$%&*^@ modem noise?

That screeching, caterwauling, brain-bashing modem noise is upsetting Mr. Winkle.

--T.B. Dogg, Personal Assistant to Mr. Winkle

Dear T.B. :

I'm afraid that the unpleasant modem noises are an essential part of the functioning of the dial-up modem. "No noise, no 'Net," as they sometimes say.

However, I would like to point out that what you hear as an unpleasant screeching is actually a speeded-up version of a quite pretty series of electronic exchanges.

Slowed down to human-ear speed, it sounds like this.

"I am calling yoooooooooooou, hooooooooooooooooooo hoo hooooooooooooooo hooooooooo hoo hoo.....
Will you answer toooooooooooooooo - oo - oo - ooooooooooooooooooooo -00-oo -oo?
That means I offer my packets to yoooooooooooooooooooou to be your ownnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

Chorus: buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz hissssssssssssssssssssssssss
gnarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr snik! snik! wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooooooo

If you refuse me, I will be bluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuue
And waiting all aloooooooooooooooooooooone
But if when you hear my love-call ringing clear
And I hear your answering echo so dear,
It will be TCP/IP for thee and meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...."

Isn't that sweet? Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald couldn't have done it much better.

10-23-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Where do you stand on penal reform?

--Incarcerated in Incathaway

Dear Incarcerated:

Hand in hand with Lorena Bobbitt.

10-24-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I got this error message today on my computer:

"Error #101: No keyboard. Press F1 to continue."

What the...????

--Oxy Moron in Ocala

Dear Oxy :

This happens quite frequently with keyboards that are manufactured in Zen monasteries overseas. The monks program a series of Zen riddles, or "koans" into the keyboard software to challenge the mind of the users and force them to accept that the world is not as it seems. Some other famous keyboard koans are:

"What is the sound of one finger pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del?"

"Press Insert and what you enter, erases."

"Why is End the opposite of Home?

"Where do you want to go today?"

and my favorite:

"Press Pause to continue."

10-25-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What kind of educational system did you have in Redbone where you grew up? Was it the classic one-room schoolhouse, or were the facilities more advanced than that?

--Academic in Akron

Dear Academic:

Your first guess was the right one. We had the classic one-room schoolhouse, and, thanks to the heroic and selfless efforts of the schoolmarm, Miss Prawncrafter, we all managed to attain a quality education. It was nothing like schools today. Miss Prawncrafter would start the youngest ones on a project at the kindergarten level, then effortlessly switch over to high school geometry, then to 5th grade geography, or maybe introductory calculus with the college freshmen, then reading Dick and Jane with the first grade, then off to give a quiz on advanced pathology to the medical students, or lead a discussion on electron orbits with the physics graduate students.

To an outsider it may have looked like sheer confusion, but it was really quite a lot of fun, and to this day I can't read a line from Dick and Jane without recalling the smell of formaldehyde and seeing in my mind's eye the mathematical proofs for the Uncertainty Principle there on the blackboard.

10-26-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Recently, I saw an article in PC World titled "Fantastic Flatbeds". What's so fantastic about flat beds? I thought all beds were flat.

--Florence from the Flat Earth Society

Dear Florence:

Well, you gave old Aunt Nettie her laugh for the day. The reference is, of course, not to beds, but to *scanners*, and the "flatbeds" in this case refers to long-haul diesel trucks. Many of the drivers of flatbeds use scanners to search all the different channels of CB radio quickly to discover who has their ears on and what Smokeys may be lurking in a speed trap up ahead to prevent Mother Trucker from putting the hammer down and making home twenty before lights-up.

10-27-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I've just purchased a Long Base Folding Scooter, and let me tell you, I can really fly. It's great for scaring old people on sidewalks. What do you think about them?

--Xippy in Xenia

Dear Xippy:

I think they're a great source of cheap amusement for the elderly. Every day we send out teams from the Home to look for these sidewalk kamikazes. While one of us distracts the rider, another slips a cane under the front wheel or hooks the pushing foot. It's a riot. We also have a souped-up motorized wheelchair that can catch and flatten anything on two wheels. After every mission we paint little red scooters on the Big Chair to mark our kills. We're saving up for studded tires and some ram bars from the demolition derby supply people. 

10-28-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Recently I've been getting a modem error message "RAS 666." What does it mean? I'm fearful of the symbolism.

--Apocalyptic in Apalachicola 

Dear Apocalyptic:

You have every right to be fearful. This is the dreaded "Rising Age of Satan" message that heralds the end of the world, according to my research associates at that fine publication Weekly World News©. The person who receives this message has been chosen to be the Antichrist, and is expected to lead the demonic forces that overturn civilization and imprison humankind in chains for a thousand years. Hope you've kept yourself in shape.

However, according to the Microsoft Ignorance Base, it could also stand for Remote Access Server Error #666: Your modem (or other connecting device) is not functioning.

There's only one way to be sure: if, over the next few weeks you feel an unaccountable urge to desecrate churchyards, sow discord and reap mayhem and climb to the top of tall peaks during lightning storms chortling "All this is MINE!!" as the wind whips your huge black wings, then you're probably the Chosen One.

If, on the other hand, the message goes away after you reload your modem software, it's probably the other.

10-29-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What do you think of having to switch from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time and back again every couple of months? Is there any reason for it, or is it just part of a vast temporal conspiracy?

--Suspicious in Susquehanna

Dear Suspicious:

I don't think it's nice to fool around with Mother Nature, or Mother Nurture, for that matter. It stands to reason that the body's internal clock can't be reset anywhere as easy as the timepiece on the mantel or the grandfather clock in the hall. (Not that Grandfather Clock had any notion of time after about 10am when the gin kicked in.)

Now, everyone knows that Daylight Savings Time had a noble purpose when it was first proposed. Back in Redbone we thought it was a whale of an idea because it let us spend more time in the fields winnowing the hedgerows, or whatever it is we did on the farms back then. And during Standard Time the sun came up earlier so the farmers could milk the cows in daylight, not that the cows cared one way or another.

That all seems a little pointless now. Long summer days simply allow people more time to risk killing themselves on recreational vehicles and jet skis. And Standard Time allows people to drive home from work in the dark and risk getting killed that way. And what about the fact that Halloween is always a day or two after the switch back to Standard Time, which allows millions of kiddies to wander the streets in darkness wearing black costumes?

Personally, I think it's a vast conspiracy on the part of the population control people. 

10-30-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What are Boolean Operators? Are they the switchboard gals at Internet Central? Any relation to Ernestine?


--Wooley Booley in Worcester

Dear Wooley B:

I'm afraid you're a bit wide of the mark. Boolean Operators are the latest fad in robotic surgeons. Commonplace operations like appendectomies and tonsillectomies and cataract surgery can now be handed over to these clever machines, which allows overworked doctors to spend more time on the golf course with their investment counselors.

Boolean Operators, Ltd., a joint venture of the Stihl chainsaw and Singer sewing machine companies, manufactures a whole line of these specialized stainless steel surgeons that can slice you and stitch you in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Hopefully there will be enough time for the anesthetic to take hold before you're loaded onto the assembly line for processing.

The one flaw in the system is that the software runs on MS Windows, so system crashes can be frequent and decidedly unpleasant. "A Fatal Error has occurred" takes on a whole new meaning in this situation, as does the Blue Screen of Death. (Code Blue® is also a MS product, by the way.)

Worse yet, the Boolean Operators tend to take the reset functions, Control, Alter, Delete literally. This can significantly affect your life if you've gone in for, say, a vasectomy.

10-31-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Do you celebrate Halloween at the Home?

--Costumed in Cosumel

Dear Costumed:

It would hardly be worth the effort. No mask could be scarier than what we're already stuck with, and who would notice a few extra living skeletons or witches in this place? Here at Living Dead "R" Us every day is Halloween.

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