The Beast 666 Computer
In the 1970s there were many whispered rumors about The Beast 666 Computer that Satan was supposedly constructing in Belgium. Our social security numbers were the Mark of the Beast (I used to date her, by the way), and these would be fed into the 666 Computer and then fluoridated or something, and then Satan would rule the world, mwahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!
The founders of this rumor went on to invent Y2K, and urged us all to buy drums of water and sacks of dried peas because when the End Times come and Captain Kirk beams us up to his space ship as the planet explodes we'll all need drums of water and sacks of dried peas.
We now know that the whole bit about Satan and his magic laptop was always quite impossible, since within minutes of its completion the computer would have whimsically shut down and refused to do anything but light up.
Satan would have had to call out a Volkswagen-driving 30-something with thick glasses at $60 an hour to sneer at Satan's outdated hard-drive ("this is sooooooooo last week") and his dial-up connection.
Satan would also have learned that all the dossiers saved on his previous (hardly old) computer in Micro-Blop X-PMS are not compatible with the newer-than-new Micro-Snort Z-Xtreem bundled into his new computer, and would have to sacrifice his first-born, Vladimir Putin, to the computer gods to pay for a patch, which would take three hours to work through each time he wanted to look at, say, his MeMeMeSpace downloads.
Imagine, if you will, buying a new car, and after driving it ten minutes it breaks down, and must be rebuilt at great expense.
Imagine, if you will, buying a new book shelf, and as you transfer those favorite volumes from the old shelf to the new shelf your books simply disappear.
Imagine, if you will, transferring file folders from an old cabinet to a new, and they simply won't fit into either file cabinet.
Imagine, if you will, writing a letter to a friend, and the old pen won't work and the new pen comes with a lengthy instruction manual and then won't work anyway.
Imagine, if you will, writing out your week's work and meeting schedule in your daily planner, and then at a critical moment all your writing simply evaporates.
Imagine, if you will, mailing a letter to a friend, and finding that the postal service no longer accepts envelopes but instead requires a complex new packaging and you must spend a day at a seminar learning this new method.
Yes, I bought a new computer this week.
Satan's in the computer business, all right.
-30-
The Catholic Sun
Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There's always laughter and good red wine.
At least I've always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!
-- Hilaire Belloc
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