Category: humor

What to do if your Internet connection goes down.

Every year we grow more and more dependent on the Internet. But would you know what to do if your connection suddenly went down?

Internet Humor
No one knows when the Internet will fail. It could happen at any time, leaving you bereft of your e-mail, your sports scores, and your Blogs. Therefore, it’s important that you and your family have a contingency plan for just such an emergency. If your connection to Cyberspace were to ever get severed, you should at least be prepared. We have included a few key points that should assist you if that were to happen.

1. Panic!
   An excited, agitated state will give you that heightened sense of awareness and will increase your thought processes allowing you to come up with rational solutions. Panic is just nature’s way of putting your body into over-drive. It’s a defense mechanism that gives you an edge when dealing with potentially harmful situations, such as a severed arm or the loss of your Internet.
2. Find A Telephone
   Do you have access to a telephone line? Early computers connected to the Internet using a dial-up device along with a hardware device known as a “modem.” Since this technology is obsolete, it will be of no use to you. Instead, use your telephone to call your friends to see if their connection is also down, as you will have lost the ability to send an email or an instant message. You can also use a telephone to call 911, an emergency service that will first tell you to calm down, and then will send out specially-trained technicians to find the source of the Internet’s failure.
3. Use Your Back-Up Computer
   It’s always good to have an emergency laptop handy, in case you need to harry over to a buddy’s place where the Net is still up. If there is still no Internet at that location, at the very least you could connect to a small network or LAN (Less-than Adequate Network). Laptops can also be placed on tables at coffeeshops, while you sit around with a latte, nervously waiting for your connection to be restored.
4. Install A Game
   In emergency situations, installing a single-player computer game can occupy your down-time. While it won’t replace the adrenaline rush of intense networked multiplayer action provided by the Internet, a quick game of Sim City or Flight Simulator may distract you long enough for your connection to return.
5. Perform Routine Maintenance
   While programs such as Norton Antivirus have removed most of the tedium of computer system maintenance, nothing could help pass the time faster than cleaning out your hard drive, emptying your cache, or organizing your celebrity fake porn collection. Take the time to stare at your screen while you perform a defragmentation. The time will literally fly while you barely notice your separation from the Internet.
6. Turn On A Television Or Radio
   Televisions, strange boxes that sit in your parents’ living rooms, were once used to provide entertainment, long before DVDs and Playstations were invented. Televisions have the capability of broadcasting streaming information similar to the content on multimedia websites. With a “remote control,” a wireless device that is like a small one-handed keyboard, you may be able to surf a limited number of “channels,” while you deal with the loss of your connection. Unfortunately, television is only a one-way media.

   In ancient times, radios were also used to entertain. A radio allowed you to listen to news, sports, and music, much the same way that you listen to live streaming audio on a Shoutcast server. Like the television, a radio will only have a limited selection of listening stations, and no video. Hopefully your separation from the Internet will be brief.

7. Read
   People in pre-Internet times used to read “books” and “magazines”, written materials once created in printable format to pass the time. Some e-books are still available on paper, and may offer a short-term solution until your power is back and your broadband is restored. If reading is not an option, as a last resort, you may wish to try doing “chores,” or try your hand at cooking. While these activities cannot replace the Internet, they may be able to make the down-time a little more tolerable.
8. Go Outside
   The idea of leaving your workstation may seem a little extreme, but you can perform errands that you normally get parents or spouses to do: grocery shopping, drycleaning, etc. Leaving your dorm room, basement, or above-garage apartment suite, may be risky, but again, the time may afford an effective distraction from your Internet woes. NOTE: Be careful to avoid the sun, because your pasty white skin will not be used to the exposure.
9. Spend Time With Your Spouse
   Communicating with your wife or girlfriend may seem like a radical suggestion, but the time investment may offer long-term rewards. Spending any amount of time talking about your “relationship” may free up more Internet time for you later on, when your ADSL or Cable link to the World Wide Web has been restored. WARNING: These will probably be the longest hours of your life.
10. Use Your Emergency AOL Disk
    If you find that your connection to the Internet is going to be longer than you can possibly stand, as a last resort, pull out an emergency AOL CD, the one with 910 free hours of connection to the AOL service. Take the CD in one hand…and slash it across your wrist! Suicide will probably be a better alternative than connecting to that service.

    Hopefully some of these Internet alternatives will be able to assist you during an offline crisis. Emergency radio broadcasts will likely advise you of the state of the Internet and be able to predict when your bandwidth will be restored, but remember to have an emergency plan in case your digital detachment is longer than you expect.

Blogger now has an official stance on the subject.

Previously.

Dave Barry has a solution for the tense relationship the American’s and the French are going through right now. From his article:

We simply cannot allow a close relationship like this to be destroyed because of some silly little dispute over who gets to run the world. That is why today I am calling upon you, my fellow Americans, to “extend the olive jar” to our French brothers and sisters and yappy little dogs. I want you to deliberately approach French people wherever you can find them — on the street, on the Internet, in the “Small World” ride at Disney World, in public restrooms — and make friendly overtures to them in their own language (French). To help you do this, here is a list of friendly French phrases:

“Bonjour, personne francaise!” (“Hello, French person!”)

“Je suis un Americain, et, dangue il, je vais vous donner une grande vieille etreinte!” (“I am an American and, dang it, I am going to give you a big old hug!”)

“Parole! Vous ne sentez pas demi aussi de mauvais que j’ai prevu!” (“Say! You do not smell half as bad as I expected!”)

“Qui s’inquiete qui court darned le monde?” (“Who cares who runs the darned world?”)

“Voulez-vous la gomme? Elle ketchup-est assaisonnee!” (“Do you want gum? It’s ketchup-flavored!”)

“Voulez que je vous porte au mail dans mon SUV?” (“Want me to take you to the mall in my SUV?”)

“Vous pouvez vous rendre au garde de securite!” (“You can surrender to the security guard!”)

“Ha ha, je suis badiner juste autour hors de l’amiti!” (“Ha ha, I am just kidding around out of friendship!”)

“Hey, revenez ici!” (“Hey, come back here!”)

“Il n’y a aucune cause pour l’alarme! Mon pistolet a une surete!” (“There is no cause for alarm! My gun has a safety!”)

Yes, fellow Americans, with a little effort, we can heal this rift between us and our old friends. Because, in the end, we have a lot more in common than we do separating us! Or, as the French would say, “Je suis un grand gros menteur” (“I am a big fat liar”).