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One problem with being a computer nerd is having to fix everybody's shit. They assume you like it, and will do it for free. This is what happened to Ken. Danny, his suburban homeboy roommate from Manassas, VA, assumed Ken would take pleasure in fixing his computer. The problem wasn't that Danny was wrong, rather that Danny wasn't completely right either. In other words, Ken didn't really complain, just as long as Danny got out of his face. The big problem was that it was a Windows XP installation. If you've ever had one of those for long enough, you'll discover windows XP is a dragon eating its tail: Every six months or so, the operating system completely consumes itself, and you have to start from scratch.
So while Ken was going door to door in the hall, asking for a WinXP CD, he ran into Paul. He was looking for Ken to see if they wanted to hang out. A quick explanation was given, and Paul told him he wanted nothing to do with it.
So and they both ended up trying to fix this damn machine. The big problem was they had no operating system CD to boot the machine up. Linux zealots tend not to have any windows XP installation CD's handy, so they had to scavenge. It turned out there was a large pocket of Mac users on their floor, so it was hopeless. They were scoffed at for using a windows PC, which is funny because it wasn't their computer to begin with. They started searching for help through Ken's computer, and found a very peculiar help document on Microsoft's online help system. It looked like the regular help pages, but it had one conspicuous option:
- If all else fails, walk to your nearest religious center. Face the most prominent religious feature in the center (alter, shrine), and chant, "Klaatu Barrata Nictu." A Microsoft Technical Support Goddess will be with you soon thereafter. When prompted for a wish, request to have your Windows XP installation repaired. You will need to lead the goddess to the defective installation.
It was absurd, but they had to do it to prove a point. The Interfaith center was a short stroll away. Since it was kind of early on a Saturday, nobody was outside offering "free gifts" yet. It was uneventful. The Interfaith Center was unlocked, but shut down. Ken was an atheist, and Paul was an agnostic, so neither had bothered stepping inside the place before. "I'm afraid an alarm or something is gonna go off." Paul confided to his friend. Ken was more confident -- these places are dying to have people come by, so they leave their doors open wider than the goatman.
They found the alter, and agreed this was the "most prominent religious feature." Paul started saying, "Klaatu Barrata..."
"It's Verrata." Ken interrupted, "Haf' you ever watched Army of Darkness?"
"Well, yeah, but that's the movie. The directions were clearly for 'Barrata.'" So Ken started chanting with "verrata," and Paul watched as nothing happened. He chimed in with "barrata" three times, and then they both stopped. "This is stupid." Ken declared. He would have been right if it actually wasn't working.
Light was quickly piercing through the previously dark windows. Above the alter, the outline of a woman faded into the world. Her skin was more pale than the snow outside. Her hair was just as pure, and the way it floated around the air betrayed gravity. She was just over 5'6", and well-proportioned. She smelled like Spanish saffron. For all of you not in the know, that smells pretty damn nice.
Paul and Ken were too busy gawking at the pretty lady to say anything, but she was used to this. She curtsied and said, "greetings!" Most portrayals of ethereal voices make them sound like a calm wind, but this voice was much more enthusiastic. She had that charismatic personalty that just pulls you in. After another moment of Paul and Ken gawking at her, she continued, "My name is Ripargasta! I am a Microsoft Technical Support Specialist! Pleased to meet you!"
Ken mustered up enough of something to ask her, "Aren't you thupposed to ask us thor a wish?" Ripargasta giggled and brought her right hand up to her mouth.
"Oh pardon me!" She chimed, "My apologies for such poor manners. Kind sirs, where would you like to go today?"
"My roommate'th Windowth XP got corrupt." Ken told her, "Could you fix it tho he thtops bothering me?"
"Oh dear." Ripargasta said, "That sounds very serious." She used the same kind of concerned tone your best friend would use if you told them your mother just got in a car accident.
"Well, I could be pleased to offer my assistance, but I have one requirement." Ripargasta declared, and then she paused to retrieve something from her sleeve. It was a white CD envelope with a sticker on the back. She held it up and pointed to the sticker. "Could you get your white envelope and read the number on the sticker to me?"
"Dude, I think she wants the registration number." Paul whispered to Ken, who trembled. If he couldn't find Danny's installation CD, what were his chances he would find a valid registration number? "Well, we need to go look for it." Paul told her, "We didn't come prepared with it. Could you follow us?" Paul said the last part with some excitement. It wasn't because he had a naïve, hot chick following him. Rather, he finally pinned down her personality. It reminded him of Mrs. Mulligan, his kindergarten teacher. She always feigned amusement over the crap Paul and the rest of the class did. Paul always wondered how somebody like that could stay amused over mud pies all day long. He later discovered Mrs. Mulligan was addicted to marijuana, then heroin, after which she eventually killed herself. Anyhow, the diety had no problem with following for a little bit, and she nodded to Paul's request.
They walked back to the dorms with Ripargasta in tow. She followed with a heavenly skip. One foot would land on the ground, and another would send her five feet in the air. She bobbed up and down like an ocean wave; gravity yielded to her elegance. Students passing by were blinded with her bright aura. Some engineering students, frightened at the sight of bright light, went running into the woods screaming. Ripargasta giggled and waved at them.
Ken's hall was less civil than a pirate ship that had just robbed the Spanish Armada. Some kid down the hall was blasting Dave Mathew's Band (as always). He always thought requests to turn down the volume were temporary, as he was at it again. People were playing games across the LAN, and were busy screaming obscenities to each other. The dorm adjacent to Ken's was playing booty rap. Paul scrambled to hush people and make the place more friendly for the divine. Ken asked him why he even bothered. The answer was demonstrated by a neighbor's rap CD, as it screamed, "Nigga' fuck you in da asshole!" They walked into Ken's room, and then Ripargasta, who had been suspiciously quiet this whole time, asked, "Pardon me, but what is an 'asshole?'"
"Bill Gates." Ken said instinctively. It came off the tongue like magic. "Hey, if you're going to call Bill Gates an asshole, you might was well call Richard Stallman one too." Paul told him. Irregardless, the goddess was thrilled that Ken was aware of her Creator.
"I wish we had more assholes in technical support, if they are so wonderful." she professed with dreamy eyes.
"Oh trust me, you have plenty." Ken chimed again. Ripargasta clapped her hands together and said, "Really?! Does that mean I'm an asshole?" This was left unanswered.
Paul turned Danny's desk inside-out looking for a windows XP sleeve. He got fed up and took a break by staring at Danny's computer. This is when he noticed the bland monitor and even more bland case. It had a sticker for "JKL Computer Company" on the front. He recognized the problem right away.
"Ripargasta... ma'am?" Paul asked to the goddess, "I believe this computer was built in a small store; they're notorious for not including the CD they used to install the operating system."
"Oh dear!" She said with grave concern, "What happens when you need to insert the CD?"
"A copy of all the files is probably on the hard disk." Paul told her, "They like to copy the same CD over and over for all their customers. They can't give away that golden copy, or it wouldn't work anymore."
It looked almost like Ripargasta would cry. "They means . . . that means . . . this is piracy!" She gasped. "Paul! I must do something about this! May I have the contact for JKL Computer Company?" Of course, Paul didn't have it; he didn't own the computer, and the way Ripargasta implied he did was kind of insulting. It was a windows computer, God dammit! But there was nothing to worry about. She brought her hands up to the sides of her head in thought. She was going to search them out directly.
Somewhere in a Northern Virginia computer store, a fatass was interrupted from his Counterstrike session. The phone insisted on ringing past the answering machine. Gees, that's odd. He had already lost the round so he had nothing better to do than answer it. He hadn't had a chance to say anything on the phone. A commanding voice blew him away, booming "You must tell me the Windows XP serial number for a Mr. Daniel P. Allingston's computer at once!"
"Ummm wha?"
"Now!" The voice compelled him. His hands floated to a drawer, and he began to open it. There was a paper on file in there . . . oh wait the next round on Counterstrike was beginning. Ripargasta's efforts in using her powers to coax the technician to her side failed.
"I'm sorry, but we don't give out those serial numbers to our customers. You can order a windows XP installation for $75..."
"Nonsense! This is an act of piracy, and your failure to comply will have terrible consequences."
"Not now, bitch, ... damn..." the technician was saying. He was too busy with his game of Counterstrike to hear a helicopter land on the roof. Agents dressed in heavy kevlar armor dropped out. The initials B.S.A. were marked on their backs. The Business Software Alliance had come to clean up. The rappeled from the roof, through the windows, and straight into the technicians lap.
"Freeze, pirate!" One of them yelled. He shoved his submachinegun into the technicians ear. Another agent gave the guy a swift kick in the head. The poor guy wet his pants. Counterterrorists win.
Ken was killing the time during Ripargasta's trance by hitting around one of those paddle balls. Paul was fawning over the idling goddess, concerned that she had finally lost her mind at RIT. Her inability to respond to stimulus was so ... much ... like ... standard RIT women. Reassuringly, she suddenly lit up, and looked at both of them. "I am pleased to inform you a suitable registration key has been retrieved!"
"It's about time!" Ken declared. Ripargasta was surprisingly somber. "A man called me a bitch. I thought I was an asshole?" Paul, in his ongoing pursuit of stifling any bad feeling whatsover, tried to reassure her by saying, "You are whatever you want to be." This makes no real sense, but was enough to strike a chord with the poor diety. "OK! We may now use the Windows XP CD..."
"...We don't have the CD." Ken interrupted. He didn't miss a beat with the paddle.
"Oh..." Ripargasta said, enlightened to the gravity of the situation. "I can work around that. I shall enter the repair console with my technical support powers!" She placed her right hand on the computer case, and with her left hand over her heart, she closed her eyes and prayed. The computer booted and went straight to a command prompt. "I shall repair it now!" She declared.
"...About time..." Ken observed, reaching his 78th consecutive paddle hit. A command instantly was entered on screen: chkdsk -r. The repair command was taking its sweet time, but it was kind of enough to include a percentage update. It went something like 1% ... 7% ... ... 27% ... ... 56% ... 34%...
"Hey! It just went down!" Paul said. He pointed that the monitor for additional effect. Ken hit his 89th hit, screwed up his 90th, threw down the paddle, jumped up, and declared, "This is boring. I'm getting thomething to eat."
"What can be more interesting that repairing Windows XP?" Ripargasta shrugged. Ken stammered out the door without telling her. She was genuinely curious, and flew out to the door to see where he went. Poor tech support goddesses; they don't seem to get out much.
"Excuse me... Paul? What would Ken do that is more fun than this? I thought we were having tons of fun!" Ripargasta asked Paul, and then looked back out to the hallway. Ken disappeared faster than she had anticipated. She floated down the hallway in the direction he had left, and Paul followed cautiously behind. She made it to the other end of the hall, turned around, shrugged to Paul, and then peered into one of dorms to her side.
Emma Krutch was editing her Livejournal on her Macintosh when she was interrupted by a flash of long, white hair in her room. "Excuse me, have you seen Ken?" Ripargasta asked Emma in her kindergarten teacher voice. Emma just blinked at her through her thick-rimmed glasses. The goddess smiled at her, smiled at her roommate, smiled at the pet hamster they weren't allowed to keep in the dorm, smiled at Emma's computer... what's that? A Macintosh! Ripargasta gasped in horror and pointed at it. "Step aside from that demon before it destroys you!" Ripargasta pleaded with Emma, who was still in shock. Ripargasta prayed to the heavens (through the ceiling) in dramatic, heavenly tones, causing the Macintosh to shake off the desk. "Fly, fly far away, my poor possessed child!" Ripargasta commanded it. The computer grew a pair of wings that began to flap it off the desk. It soared out of the room with keyboard, mouse, and Emma in tow. "Come back, computer!" Emma commanded.
"Resist the Apple scourge, my poor child!" Ripargasta hollared from behind. Soon the hall was thrown into the chaos you'd expect from a bunch of Macintoshes growing wings and flying to the nearest open window. This opened window was, of course, owned by the single RIT freshman that came from Alaska. He suffered a concussion when a flock of computers swarmed into his room and knocked him over on the way out. Emma chased her computer out to the courtyard, but lost it when it flew far, far away. You could have seen the V-formation of flying computers heading south and never known they were a flock of Macs. Emma fell on to her knees and cried, "My Weezer website! My Livejournal . . . my photo project . . . all gone!!!"
Meanwhile, Ken reappeared from the elevators and found Paul chasing Ripargasta around. "Hey, did you just thee thomething funny?" He asked them.
"Apple computers are not a matter of humor, Ken!" Ripargasta scolded him.
"Oh no, I mean like peculiar."
"Ahh yes. I have diagnosed your windows XP installation!" She chimed, "A windows XP computer in proximity to a Macintosh will be corrupted by the offensive machine. I liberated the area of them. The operating system should now function perfectly!"
They went back into Ken's dorm and found the computer was, in fact, running flawlessly. It had somehow managed to reboot and log itself in. Ripargasta clapped her hands together and declared, "All done! Please have a nice day! Is there anything else I can help you with?" Paul and Ken declined to ask for anything else. Besides, why should they waste their time with a goddess that ends her sentences with a preposition? She began to skip out the door, and then turned around. She pulled a card out of her sleeve. "My apologies!" She told Paul, "If you ever need me again, please contact that number on the card, and at the prompt, dial my extension! Thank you!" She then vanished around the corner. The last signs of her departure came from the gasps of the students she passed on the way out.
Moments later, Timothy, the resnet whacko, came by and into the room to see Ken and Paul standing there like idiots. "Dude, was the lady helping you?" he asked them.
"Yeah, she was a MS technical support goddess. She granted our wish to repair the computer here." Paul told him.
"Really? She asked you for a wish?"
"Well, yeah, that's what goddesses do." Ken told him. As if he were the authority . . .
"Gees, you should have asked her to be your girlfriend, like in Ah! My Goddess!"
There was a moment of pondering.
"Shit." Paul commented.
"What's he talking about?" Ken asked. Meanwhile, the loud music never missed a beat.
"Nigga'
fuck you in da' ass' ho'!" blasted from down the hall.
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