Life in hell

**zipulrich** · #1 December 10th, 2002, 03:22 AM

Due to an ice storm, I was without electricity for days. My cable connection has been off more than on (I think it's finally stable now). So, I decided to take care of a few things in the meantime.

A client's Win95 box hadn't been defragged in 743 days. No time like the present, I figured. After about 3 hours, it finally hit 93%.

Then the electricity went off. For days.

Today, I decided to download and install SP1 on a WinXP machine at work. It's the one that one of the bosses uses. Apparently, I didn't read the dialog box that popped up saying 'Would you like to hose your computer now?'.

I clicked 'Yes'.

"No problem", I said, "I'll just do a system restore." Any of you tried WinXP's system restore? I did. Then left.

A few minutes later, a voice on my radio said "Zip - come to the office, please". (Actually, I added the "please" part

) The monitor screen was a vibrant shade of blue - stunning, really - with 2 lines of white text at the top. I'd tell you what the text read, but the lines ran off the screen, and since the thing was locked up hard as stone, I couldn't scroll to read it all. It was probably quite meaningful.

I pulled the plug.

Since that was all the PC would boot to, I decided to use the Dell Restore CD that someone threw at me in a panic. After setting BIOS to boot from the D drive, the thing came to life (sorta) long enough for me to discover that neither I nor anyone else at the office knew the admin password. I'd already removed the jumper and cleared the CMOS password earlier (in order to mess in the BIOS). The admin password, however, was a stumper. And without it, Dell won't let me access the restore CD.

I left the office about 7pm.
Quickly.

**smurfy** · #2 December 10th, 2002, 03:40 AM

So, since Hell has actually frozen over I should expect that phone call from Cindy Crawford any day now then huh?

**AnnMarie** · #3 December 10th, 2002, 04:01 AM

Quote:

I left the office about 7pm.

Are you going back for more tomorrow zip LOL!!!!

Jethro · #4 December 10th, 2002, 05:45 AM

Quick question Zip ... can you blame some one else

Theoran · #5 December 10th, 2002, 05:58 PM

I think he is someone else.

Jethro · #6 December 10th, 2002, 09:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Theoran
I think he is someone else.

Well he's fairly well stuffed then

**Spider** · #7 December 10th, 2002, 11:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by zipulrich
A few minutes later, a voice on my radio said "Zip - come to the office, please"

We have an intercom system and I get those pages from
"the big guy". It takes me about 5 minutes to get to that area
of the building. 80% of the time it's some nightmare of a problem
and I have learned to fear those pages now. That 5 minute trek
is now a horrible thing, I find myself trying to guess what could
be wrong and what the last thing I did to the system.

**zipulrich** · #8 December 11th, 2002, 12:11 PM

An Update:

Yesterday morning, I downloaded all 6 boot disks from MS, used that to get to the restore CD. Installed the Home v. over itself, and all's wonderful. Every user's settings came through OK, all apps and data untouched.

The W95 machine got defragged, etc. I cleaned it as much as I could, added a NIC, but with 16MB ram I think the owner's not gonna rejoice too loudly.

smurfy - Yes, actually you should. Wait by the phone and let me know when she calls, OK?

AnnMarie - Against better judgement, I did. Worked out OK tho. A lady couldn't get online on our T1, so I did an IPCONFIG /RELEASE_ALL and RENEW_ALL and now everyone thinks I'm a genious. Or an idiot savant. Either way, I can breathe a little around there.

Jethro - Yes, as a matter of fact I blamed you. Thanks for the suggestion.

Theoran - Day before yesterday, I was. Now I'm one of those savant things, however.

Spider - Buy and wear a pair of Jerry Lewis buck-teeth, and the thickest coke-bottle glasses you can find. Never look anyone in the eyes. Wear a shirt that says "got Root?". And a tie.

Hopefully, you'll be mistaken for a savant and left alone (pretty much avoided altogether, I'd guess).

I have to install a Cisco switch today. Stay tuned for the hilarious hijinks (unless hell's thawed out).

Harrie · #9 December 11th, 2002, 02:02 PM

In other words, they change the hat on you all the time, eh?

LWerner · #10 December 11th, 2002, 02:05 PM

Speaking of hell.......

Here's an interesting approach I received in an e-mail from friend. Just thought I'd share.

THE THERMODYNAMICS OF HELL

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry midterm. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues via the Internet, which is of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law, (gas cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate that souls are moving into Hell and the rate they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions, and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to
expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Ms. Teresa Banyan during my Freshman year, "...that it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you.", and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then, #2 cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and will not freeze.

The student received the only "A" given.

**Spider** · #11 December 11th, 2002, 07:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by zipulrich
so I did an IPCONFIG /RELEASE_ALL and RENEW_ALL and
now everyone thinks I'm a genious

Uh huh. This has happened to me as well. It seems that when
you open DOS and type something in there many non-techies
think you perform miracles.

Quote:

Wear a shirt that says "got Root?". And a tie.

:-S

If anyone saw me wearing a tie they'd call 911.