...Wait, what?
...It's not actually a...
...Are you sure?
...Seriously??
...Alright...
Blue screen of death. Windows sucks. The end.
...Okay, maybe not quite the end. You see, I can't seem to get Windows working again since last night's defrag, and my patience for such things just isn't what it was before I started using an operating system that actually works. All I wanted was to build a new playlist to sync to my iPhone! Is that too much to ask? But nooOOOOooooo, Windows, being the evil Microsoft product that it is, was feeling lonely and neglected since my switch to Ubuntu and decided to exact some old-school revenge.
Of course, it doesn't help any that the machine in question just so happens to be trying to boot Vista. The poor thing.
In all fairness, though, it's not entirely Microsoft's fault. It's only ninety eight thousand percent Microsoft's fault. The other hundred and forty two billion percent of the blame lies with Creative Labs for being one of the worst managed companies around. Seriously, people, how about releasing a set of drivers that don't cause everyone's computers to explode in a brilliant ball of superheated gas, our keyboards to spontaneously melt as if dipped in that green acid which gave the Joker his sparkling smile, and all of our bases to belong to some guy in Russia who has nothing better to do with his time but hack into the totally unsecured graduate mainframes of colleges half the world away.
Boy, I tell you, sometimes it seems like the whole world's gone completely bonkers.
At least there's still Linux.
Go get 'em, Tux.
Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bed sheets, still I sat there doing spreadsheets.
Having reached the bottom line I took a floppy from the drawer,
I then invoked the SAVE command and waited for the disk to store,
Only this and nothing more.
Deep into the monitor peering, long I sat there wond'ring, fearing,
Doubting, while the disk kept churning, turning yet to churn some more.
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave not token.
"Save!" I said, "You cursed mother! Save my data from before!"
One thing did the phosphors answer, only this and nothing more,
Just, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
Was this some occult illusion, some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices undesired, ones I'd never faced before.
Carefully I weighed the choices as the disk made impish noises.
The cursor flashed, insistent, waiting, baiting me to type some more.
Clearly I must press a key, choosing one and nothing more,
From "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
With fingers pale and trembling, slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee, timidly, I pressed a key.
But on the screen there still persisted words appearing as before.
Ghastly grim they blinked and taunted, haunted, as my patience wore,
Saying "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
I tried to catch the chips off guard, and pressed again, but twice as hard.
I pleaded with the cursed machine: I begged and cried and then I swore.
Now in mighty desperation, trying random combinations,
Still there came the incantation, just as senseless as before.
Cursor blinking, angrily winking, blinking nonsense as before.
Reading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted.
Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor.
And there I saw a dreadful sight: a lightning bolt cut through the night.
A gasp of horror overtook me, shook me to my very core.
The lightning zapped my previous data, lost and gone forevermore.
Not even, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
To this day I do not know the place to which lost data go.
What demonic nether world us wrought where lost data will be stored,
Beyond the reach of mortal souls, beyond the ether, into black holes?
But sure as there's C, Pascal, Lotus, Ashton-Tate and more,
You will be one day be left to wander, lost on some Plutonian shore,
Pleading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
~ Unknown Author
Like it or not, Pixels for Thought.
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