Wednesday, June 23, 2010

I'm Furious!

I’m a laid-back guy. I usually don’t want people to know that, because in another life, I took part in all kinds of active and dangerous sports. Too much knowledge hurts the image I’m trying to carry over into my post-retirement years. Last night before going to bed, I put the finishing touches on a 270 page manuscript. My sigh of contentment when I finished would have melted the heart of the most hardened Wall Street banker. After breakfast this morning, I fired up my new computer and was not pleased to find that my perfectly formatted manuscript had been transmogrified into what is apparently Mandarin. While I’ve never thought of myself as being self-centered, this manuscript is my own creation and I do not want it in Mandarin. Fortunately, I make a new file of each days work and will only have to go back a day to two to find a pristine copy that is properly formatted and in English. Major decisions about any computer related action usually involves, ‘are you sure you want to . . .’ You would think that the genius who put language translation abilities into a word processor would have the forethought to do the same. Perhaps I involuntarily touched some icon and this happened . . . But now I’m having second thoughts. My favorite food is Chinese and I eat often in one of the four Chinese restaurants in my area. I’m a good tipper, but I’m going to slip out to my shop and saw the handle out of my shovel, then sharpen it into a spear with my hatchet. If I find one of those little dudes hiding under my bed or in the closet, I’m going to . . . Well, you’ll read about it in the paper. Murder, anyone?

10 comments:

Lise said...

Ah the delights of the technological age. I frequently hear the whispers of "I can't do that Dave" from the computer in 2001 A Space Odyssey.

I have no idea how, sometimes, when I run spell check, for some bizarre reason it says, "Sorry, we don't have the correct tool to read Russian."

Huh? Russian? I speak one language and it ain't Russian. Who asked the computer to read Russian?

I don't understand and never will.

And the frustration level just keeps rising!

Glad to hear you had a back-up, Joe.

Pauline said...

Computers can make you crazy, no question. I've had weird formatting show up, too. After I finish work each day, I save my work in a new place, but not sure that would have helped this situation!

Milton T. Burton said...

Computers are great. Except when they're not.

Conda Douglas said...

This makes me cringe all over, even my toes curl. I'm going right now to save my w.i.p. again.

The Belle in Blue said...

Choose an excerpt and submit it to a Chinese literary journal! LOL

jual parfum said...

nice blog

notebook said...

Glad to hear you had a back-up, Joe.

pulsa jogja said...

good post

jual alat musik said...

great post...!!

Joe Prentis said...

Thanks to all of you guys who left comments!