Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 18:16:28 -0500 From: Tommy Carter Subject: Introduction. I come in peace. Hello Everyone, I thought I would slip in the middle while a few people are upset. I figure this way if I make any mistakes; no one might notice. I have been watching the list for a while now, and totally enjoying myself. You folks are really talented. That is why you might think I am a glitch in a well oiled cog. I have a seventh grade education, and a powerful urge to learn. The only way I can learn is to get my head out of the sand and work. You will find many errors in English, and punctuation in my work. I hope you can work around this, and give me helpful insights in my writing. I am 41, and much too old to learn things in a hurry. So I pick up what grammar and punctuation I can; then I hire a professional to dot the Is, and cross the ts. I know this will drive some of you crazy, but I know others will be kind enough to give me bits, and pieces of wisdom that I shall treasure. As an introduction I am sending you a little something I just wrote. It is not great, but it will give you some insight to who I am. I hope it makes you smile. If so, It would be music to hear.. Thank you Tommy Carter Bubba Does Computers by Tommy Carter Ya'll know me as Carter560, but in reality I'm just plain old Bubba. Yep, redneck born, and when I die they will probably bury me in the corn field back home. Right beside Milly the cow, and Rex my old hound dog. I got this urge to get myself smarter, so I figured a computer would be a big help. I was too smart to depend on the pimple faced computer geek at the local Office Depot store to guide me. I approached this as I would any problem. I buy a cheap book. I never buy new books when the used book store sells five year old manuscripts in good order. So, I became an expert on IBM, supporting the fantastic operating system of Dos 1.0. Did you know how little demand there is now days for 1.0? I thought you did. You are probably laughing as hard as that pimple faced computer geek at Office Depot. Okay, the book deal didn't work out the way I planned it. I have never been one to give up easily. I began to ask questions of everyone I knew. That is when I found out most rednecks don't own computers. I figured this out, when I asked my neighbor. "Computers, uh yeah, my cousin had to pay a fortune to put a new one in his car." "No, no. I mean a computer for the house."I say "Well, you can talk to my cousin, but I don't think he ever had one installed in his house. I would talk to his wife. She would know more about the running of the house." I decided it best to give up this line of questioning. I finally found someone who understood I would have problems, and wrote a bunch of books for dummies like me. He called them computer books for Dummies. I soon found out they were written for a smarter dummy than I. It took a while but I finally understood a very small amount about buying computers. You go to the store, and let the pimple faced geek pick one out for you. I finally purchased my Packard Bell, which was on sale. It had a 75-megahertz Pentium. Which I was informed was much better than a 486. At first I thought he was lying; everyone knows 486 is bigger than 75. After many failed attempts to explain, he reminded me of IBM Dos 1.0. I didn't want to go there again, so I pretended to understand just fine. I was very happy with this even if I still had no idea what a Pentium was. But I was glad I was too smart to get stuck with one of those outdated 486 ones. Not to mention that mine came standard with eight megs of Ram. No, I had no idea what a ram was either, but I was glad to get twice as much as the outdated 486. The now smiling pimple-faced boy assures me that any idiot could set it up, but for a fee he would be glad to do it for me. I wasn't going to fall for this one. I read in the book for Dummies that Packard Bell came with color coded wires and even I could set it up. I spent two hours, and had a large amount of computer accessories strewed in a wide array in my living room. I finally called the pimple faced geek, who charged me seventy-five dollars, and swore if I had not messed things up so bad, it would have only cost me fifty. Now I am ready to freely compute astronomical amounts of data at lightning speed. Wrong! I spent so much time trying to figure out things like, what a hard drive is. Then there was this software problem. I went to the store and bought a perfectly good program, which worked perfectly fine if I had an Apple computer. I couldn't take back this over priced piece of@#$##%$ because you can only exchange for the same kind you have. Who wrote that rule? I did become slightly better, but not smarter. I stocked the house with all the great bargains. I bought many package deals of software. You know, top ten hits for $9.95. That is when I learned a new word. Can you say system crash? I became proficient with it. Anyone need to buy a bunch of cheap software? Then a nice man named Mr. Gates sent me a free copy of a new, and fantastically futuristic copy of a system called Windows 95. It was guaranteed to make my computer do somersaults, and make me appear to be twice as smart. After many poor attempts to install this miracle operating system I got a refresher course with an old word. Can you still say system crash? I finally, with the help of the pimple faced kid, installed my free copy of the miraculous Windows 95. Can you say who cares? I am still trying to figure out the big deal. Now I have a lot more software, which will only run under windows 3.1 laying around the house. I proudly opened my first Internet account, with Aol. I made my must visit to a chat room, and was more confused than that cat my cousin tied the string of firecrackers to. I gave this up pretty darn quick. Especially when I found out LOL did not mean lots of luck. How was I suppose to know they were laughing out loud at me!! I did learn about something called cybersex. I told my wife this was something I just couldn't get a grip on. She told me I had better not. Me, and Mama Bubba got a good understanding. I don't mess around, and she doesn't cut off what most men tend to think with. If you have any thought that I am not serious, I point you to her framed picture of Loraina Bobbit, she keeps by our marriage certificate. I still need to understand this cybersex. Just how does one cyber? I know us country boys ain't too bright, but we all come from big families. I believe we got this sex thing pretty well figured out. Don't both people need to be in the same room? I got it figured that mankind adapts, and procreates; so what will this new generation of cyber kids look like? Will their faces be like computer screens with pimples? Will the males still brag about who has the biggest hard drive? Will we judge women by who has the biggest speakers up front, and the prettiest floppy in the rear? Enough, I'm going to get in trouble. I still have some questions on cyber though. I guess I will never know. I would never risk trying, and deciding I like it. First time I was making love to my wife, and accidently yelled WWW dot backslash backslash colon damn CS4578 that was good, I would be sleeping on the www.//.couch. I think in the last two years I have made giant strides in operating my computer. The pimple faced kid has stopped laughing, [most of the time] and I found myself giving advice to a newbie the other day. I guess I have been drooling over the new Damark catalog lately, you know the way you did the Sear catalogs underwear section when you were a kid. There is a computer with 32 megs of ram, a 3.1 hard drive, a 33-fax modem, and the prettiest set of speakers you ever saw. It didn't say so, but I figure for the money I will pay, it should do the cooking, and maybe sing me to sleep. I have talked Mama Bubba into letting me buy it next month. It makes me right proud to be an American. I have left the corn field, and joined the computer generation. Yesterday I even found a pimple The End