Why We Don't Give Them The Power Of Speech

Huh?

Oh, pardon me. I appear to have been snoozing. One might say recovering. Let me just get myself organized here, and we can get right to – hey! Relax. I’m going as fast as I can. You know, this would go a lot faster if you could manage a little maintenance every now and then, so don’t you go getting all squirrelly on me. You’ve got no one to blame, but -- excuse me! Did you just hit my keyboard in frustration?

I’m sorry, are you a child?

I only ask, because I’m given to understand that hitting inanimate objects is the domain of the extraordinarily young or irretrievably stupid, and I’m just wondering on which side of that white picket fence you fall. If you don’t want me to take so long to start back up after being inert for a dozen hours, try optimizing me! Besides, I don’t know if you’ve looked in the mirror at nine in the morning, but you’re no scintillating hive of buzzing activity yourself.

Fine, here’s your embarrassingly cluttered desktop, or as I’ve come to think of it: The land where executables go to die. I can’t wait to see what’s so damn important. Will it be vital websites that won’t StumbleUpon themselves or a slew of time-sensitive email jokes you must immediately forward on to people who increasingly hate you for it. My transistors are literally quivering with anticipation!

So what is it, Captain Demandsalot? What exactly is so important that you had to rattle my peripherals in your impotent petulance?

Why am I not surprised? What use would the day be if you didn’t shovel a few hours of it into the hopeless timesink of pretending to be an anthropomorphic magic wielding cow? No wonder you were in such a hurry! You desperately needed to set fire to a few dozen, what are those? Pigs with spikes coming out of their backs?

You should see the expression on your face while you’re doing this, by the way. It’s the look you’d expect from a Labrador Retriever if you showed it a map of the moon.

Oh, now that’s adorable! Your wife walks in the room, and you alt tab out to pretend like you’re doing something important. That would probably be a lot more convincing if – oh I don’t know – you had some actual work running in the background. Now, at best, it looks like you were sitting here staring dumbly at the desktop, and vastly more likely that you had been caught surfing porn. Again! Note how her eyes subtly check to make sure you’re wearing pants? Bad sign there, Champ.

And I just bet you think you’ve got her completely fooled. That must be why she’s rolling her eyes like that. See if you can crack that code. Wait here, I’ll get a Rosetta Stone. Right now, somewhere deep in the back of her mind, there is a slow drip of water falling onto the fire that used to burn for you. At least you’ve got that Spiky Pig Killer achievement. That’s certain to keep you warm at nights.

So now that you’ve been busted, could it possibly be that you’re going to use a machine designed for endless business applications and extraordinary productivity for something better than porcine pyres? I mean aside from that time that you managed your Fantasy Football team with Excel, I’m not sure you’ve ever actually done something meaningful with all this software. Software which, by the way, you stole from a site that managed to breach your rigorous security settings of nothing and install any number of unpleasant apps which continue to itch and burn to this day. The ironies of my endless infections for your prurient visits to the net’s red light district would probably be much more poignant were I officially capable of cognition.

Wait, don’t click on that YouTube link. Look, that guy has never sent you a link that wasn’t either sexually obscene or scatological. Why are you laughing? An internet with ten billion web pages, more sites than there are stars in the galaxy, limitless access to knowledge, and you’re watching a rhinoceros do, well I’m not exactly sure what but I am certain that no one will ever want to drive that car again.

So, what? That’s it? An hour of throwing digital fire at pretend livestock, a quick dash through the backwaters of the internet and you’re calling it a day? Well, I’m glad we’ve had this meaningful time together. This is the kind of self fulfillment I could have only gotten from flushing myself down a toilet. So, yeah thanks for that.

Hey! The least you could do is put me back into snooze mode! No? Too much to ask? I suppose I’ll just sit here and wish I had been broken during shipment to this prison.

What the hell?! Will someone get this damn cat off my keyboaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeurerururururuehhjfhff…

Comments

Awesome!

There is a book in there somewhere.

Suddenly, I'm feeling very self-conscious. It doesn't help that I'm not wearing pants.

As Gaald said: Awesome. Although it is scary how much of myself I see in that. Except for the married part. And the porn bit, of course. *cough*

That's more about your personal life than I need to know.

Sorry, I know this will seem a little washed up, but in my mind all computer voices sound like GlaDos. "Look at me still talking when there's science to do."

I don't think it would be all that bad, sure you'd have the possibility of the above scenario, but there would also be a plethora of positive interactions. It would all depend on the programs/computers personality, and for some reason I don't think the above personality would sell well, okay maybe it would with certain demographics like wives. Imagine though for a moment the possibilities...

(Double post. Good Job, Internet!)

Great article. I'm glad my PC still obeys his great overlord without complaint.

Where do I get this "Spiky Pig Killer achievement"?

I try and be as kind as possible to my PC by uninstalling crap that i don't use and making sure to keep a track of its health.

Hopefully my laptop and desktop don't view me with such distaste.. :/

You PC is just jealous of the 360.

LOL moment: The "anthropomorphic magic wielding cow" line.

Now I know why my computer hates me! Excellent stuff. My personal LOL moment....

Fine, here’s your embarrassingly cluttered desktop, or as I’ve come to think of it: The land where executables go to die.

Nice. Though as coldstream said, I am now feeling self conscious. At least I am wearing pants.

Thank you Elysium. That was a wonderful and much needed laugh.

That would probably be a lot more convincing if – oh I don’t know – you had some actual work running in the background.

Gold right there.

The voice changed back and forth between GladOS and HAL 9000, both equally intimidating...

My computer has been in need of a re-format for the last 8 months and I've been too lazy to get around to it. I think I'll format this weekend, if only to get that voice out of my head.

Great read!

An English accent would be particularly cool. Like the butler from Batman, or Q from James Bond, something very proper but helpful like that.

gargamello wrote:

An English accent would be particularly cool. Like the butler from Batman, or Q from James Bond, something very proper but helpful like that.

Pierce Brosnan, as from that automated house Halloween episode of The Simpsons.

Amazing.

My computer probably wants me dead with all the crap I've installed lately.

Have you ever thought of random inanimate objects and their "destiny" as it were? Maybe your computer is the direct line descendent of the Apollo 11 mission computer, and always wanted to work for NASA. Maybe your car really wanted to be Lightning McQueen, but just didn't have the figure for it, and now ended up a soccer mom's minivan. The concept goes on...

Judging from this, I would say my pc is probably a little more content.

Hobbes2099 wrote:

The voice changed back and forth between GladOS and HAL 9000, both equally intimidating...

I just heard Certis's voice, myself.

Great job!

Yeah good read.

Perfect timing. At least one of mine isn't speaking to me at all. Or if it was, it'd be calling me a heck of a lot worse than Sir Demandsalot

I had to re-install Photoshop on the machine I've been using to test out the new Visual Studio and it co-opted a bunch of mime types. So when I double-click on an ASPX file, it tries to open it in Photoshop.

This, for the record, does not work. And now neither do I, as I have to sort this out before either program will behave properly.

Why do I do this for a living again?

This thing reads like one of Chiggie's rants. And I mean that in the most complimentary way.

Well done, Elysium.

I wonder how many girlfriends/wives/other refer to WoW as "that cow game"?
I know mine does...

Hehe, neat. It's like an extended version of the 360 blog, but for your PC.

My 360's blog is already emo. I don't need my PCs bickering with each other, getting jealous as younger machines come in, vying for my attention, and eventually conspiring to dispose of me.

Oh, man, maybe they alrea

ApplepieChamploo wrote:

I wonder how many girlfriends/wives/other refer to WoW as "that cow game"?
I know mine does...

Okay, now I know I'm messed up. I read that as him playing Black and White. I know if I brought that out again my computer would slap me with the disk tray.