The Tim, Author at Ellis.FYI

Tim’s 7 Step Guide to Computer Troubleshooting

In order to solve any computer problem you are having, first stop being so stupid. If that doesn’t work, simply follow these 7 steps. Begin with step 1. If this does not solve your problem, move on to the next step. If your problem is solved, then there is no need to do any of the other steps. Continue through the list until your computer problem is no more. For details performing any of these tasks, contact your vendor.

Reboot your computer.
Re-install the program or drivers for the software or hardware with the problem.
Re-install Windows, then proceed to step 2.
“format c:” then proceed to step 3.
Replace troublesome hardware.
Replace entire computer system.
And if none of the first 6 worked…
Denounce technology and move to Montana.

The Chair

I tire. The weight is too much.
Productivity. Procrastination.
The choices are so numerous…

I can’t think clearly. Too much noise.
The door is closed already. I get up and shut the window.
Now the voices are silent. No more noises.
Still it is too much.

The chair. It beckons me. I am easily persuaded.
I retire to its comforting arms.
So quiet… so relaxing.

Someone is at the door. No. They are already inside.
He has snuck in. It is too late. He overpowers me.
I don’t know where he is taking me, only that I must follow.

We arrive at a door. I walk through, and my eyes behold Her.
I turn to ask my captor who She is, but I have lost him in the fog.
He could not have left me. I would know it. Yet, I see him not.

She is drawing nearer, beautiful beyond words, and so full of mystery.
In Her all my ambitions are realized, all my hopes given reason.
I sit down to contemplate what She could mean to me, and all She could bring.
She draws nearer still, radiating through the mist.
How happy I will be when She reaches me, stretching out Her arms to envelop me.
She is almost upon me. I close my eyes in quiet anticipation.
I can almost feel Her joy encompassing me, Her contentment surrounding me.

But wait.
Something is wrong.
I open my eyes.
Where has She gone?
There, behind me. But She is walking away.
How can this be? I had waited so patiently.
I run, trying to catch Her, but it is too late.

She has disappeared into the fog.
I stand alone. Confused.

A ringing, then silence. I look out to find the source, but see only the white haze.
Again the ringing. Again the silence.
     The vapors begin to clear.
     My surroundings become apparent.
          the door.
          the desk.
          the phone.
A third ring. Leaping up, I answer it, but it is too late. Again I have been passed by.
The chair and its eternal apathy call to me once more.
…this time I stall.
No. This must not continue. I turn to the door, and walk out.
Let the world pass by the chair. I have things to do.
I have my life to live, and I intend to live it to the Fullest.

Continue reading The Chair →

untitled randomness

Ok, this one really is 100% fictional. Here’s the story behind the story: I get bored, and crazy things pop into my mind. I write them down, and here they are.

Chapter 1

See, one time, I was walking along the freeway, I think it was I-34 through New Jersey, and this police officer stopped right by me. I thought to myself: ‘How nice. This officer wants to give me a ride.’ But instead, he walked over to me, took off his belt, and whipped me with it. Well, as you might guess, I was pretty mad. So I jumped into his car, and drove off. Just to spite him, I got on the police radio: “Jones to dispatch. (His name was Jones, I read it on his name tag.) I just encountered a hitchhiker on side of the road, at I-34 and 56 Ave, and when I tried to ticket him, he assaulted me, stole my clothes and my gun, and started shooting. Since I had been disarmed, I got back in my car, and I am currently 3 miles from the scene. Requesting backup. Repeat: Imposter at I-34 and 56th Ave.”

Chapter 2

Next, I decided that I didn’t have a use for the police car any more, so I found a cliff, connected a brick to the accelerator, and had the car drive itself into a supermarket. Luckily, since all the cops in the area were out trying to find the imposter, I was able to walk away from the scene undetected. That is, of course, after I bought some milk, bread, and a few frozen pizzas. So, I figured that once the police figured out that I was the real imposter, they would be sort of upset. So, in order to throw them off my trail, I decided to grow a beard. Good thing, too, because the next day, I had to get married to this girl I met in Bellingham one time on a skiing trip. So, when I went to the courthouse to get the paperwork, they had no clue who I was. Ha ha, joke’s on them. Good, cause I needed to get married.

Chapter 3

Oh, you’re probably wondering now, why I’m getting married. Well, see it’s like this. Being that I am a member of the Black Panthers, I am required to attend their yearly conference in Atlanta. So, I was at the conference this year, and I stopped by this booth that had a lot of information about flashlight bulbs. Well, since I’m so easily talked into things like that, I bought 5,000 of these revolutionary bulbs. Of course, I wanted to try them out, so I thought, no better place than a ski resort in Northern Washington. So, I left the conference early, and flew to Bellingham.

Chapter 4

While I was taking a break at the ski lodge, this beautiful girl came up to me, sat down, took off her shoes, and threw them in the fire. I thought to myself, ‘Wow, she has some real pretty feet.’ So, later that day, back in town, I was at the Taco Bell, and when I picked up my order, I found that it had been switched with someone else’s. Well, I really didn’t want a nacho supreme, I wanted my 7-layer burrito. So, I’m looking around for the person with my order, and there she was: the girl of my dreams. I was so lovestruck that I forgot all about the burrito, and proposed right there. She accepted, and we set February 29th as the day. (Actually, that was my idea, then I only have to remember an anniversary once every four years.

Chapter 5

So, ok. With the proposal out of the way, that made dating so much easier. You wouldn’t believe. We had so much fun during the 3 months of our courtship. I had never seen the Eiffel Tower before, and come to think of it, I still haven’t. We went on a road trip throughout the US, that is, until our car broke. Then it was… well, I guess it was still a road trip, but we were just walking. Anyway, once I got the papers, we got married, and decided to move to Australia. Why Australia? Well, we had both seen the movie “Rescuers Down Under” and we really wanted to go down there so we could ride all those giant eagles like in the movie.

Chapter 6

All righty… So we’re in Australia, and the weirdest thing happens. Somehow, I got lost one day when I went out to get the paper, and I ended up at the seaport. Well, I figured as long as I was there anyway, I may as well go somewhere, so I called home, told my wife that I would be back in a few days/weeks/months, and got on the first ship. Well, unfortunately for me, it happened to be a ship headed for North Korea. Well, as I’m sure you know, North Korea is well known for their voracious sea turtles. I was really in fear for my life. Well, the boat made it to the harbor somehow, and I was so happy just to be alive, that I headed straight for the nearest fish market and bought me some crab. I love crab…

Chapter 7

So, I’m in Korea, and I just finished my crab. Well, suddenly I realized that Northern Korea isn’t such a nice place. So, I figured I should probably get going. The best place I could think of to go was South Korea, so I rented a car, and I started my drive to South Korea. Well, about the time I get to the border, I start seeing all these warning signs, but, since I can’t read Korean, I just figured they said not to bring fruit over the border, like when you go into California. Well, I didn’t have any fruit, so I figured I was safe. Well, darn my luck, my car overheated, just after I entered this nice flat stretch of road into South Korea.

Chapter 8

Well, there I am, sitting just miles away from South Korea, with an overheated car. I tried to wait for someone to come and help me, but for some reason, the road was completely deserted. So, I figured, I’m so close, I may as well just walk. As I’m walking along, I keep seeing these strange lumps in the ground. Being bored as I am, I make a game out of avoiding the lumps. It was actually kinda fun. After a few hours, I make it into South Korea, only to be greeted by a group of soldiers with guns. They took me prisoner, and shipped me off to Chile to stand trial. So, while I am sitting in my cell in Chile, I realize that I really have to go. I mean really. So, I got up to ask the guard to let me out, when I realized there was no guard even standing watch. To top it off, the cell door was unlocked.

Chapter 9

So, I think to myself, “Well, if they’re dumb enough to leave my cell door unlocked, I’m certainly not so dumb not to leave.” I walk out of the cell, and right out the front door. Unfortunately, the front door was 100 feet underground. I looked around for a while, trying to get my bearings, but considering all there was to light the area was wall torches, I didn’t have much luck there. So I just started walking. I walked for, I think about 3 hours or so, when finally I came across some people. I didn’t figure they spoke any English, and I certainly don’t speak Chilese, so I just sat around for a while to see what was going on. They were doing the strangest thing. It seemed that they had two chickens in some sort of mini-arena, and they were fighting each other for no reason.

Chapter 10

Well, as interesting as the chickens were, I really had to get going, because I checked the train schedule before I left the prison, and my train left in an hour. So, I left them to their business, and headed for the pier. When I got there, my train had already left. So, I got on the next boat headed north. Just my luck, the boat happened to be headed for Alaska, and my uncle’s best friend’s sister lives in Alaska. So, the boat takes off, headed for Alaska, and we ran into a bit of trouble. The seas started to get really stormy, and the situation did not appear to be getting any better, so we had to play paper/rock/scissors to determine who was at fault.

Chapter 11

Of course someone on board was in fact at fault, so as soon as we found out who it was, we threw them overboard. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to help. So, I jumped in after her. Well, I didn’t have much luck finding her, probably because she had already swam to shore. So, I swam back to the boat, and as the crewmen lifted me up, I noticed something weird. Everyone on the boat but me had red hair. Well, I got really scared at that, and threw common sense out the window. I jumped right back into the raging seas, and swam as hard as I could toward shore.

Chapter 12

I soon got tired of swimming, and decided to try floating on my back for a while. After about 3 days of that nonsense, I finally reached shore. Well, obviously, after having eaten nothing for 3 days, I didn’t really care about where I was, but rather I was interested in getting something to eat. So, I walked around for a while, and soon found a village. Well, luckily the people in the village spoke German, because I wouldn’t have understood them otherwise. They told me that I had landed on the California peninsula, and the best way back to Australia, so I thanked them and left. Well, I got into the yacht that they had given me, and headed towards Australia. I really was beginning to miss my wife.

Chapter 13

Well, would you believe it, but after only 5 hours out to sea, I run into a terrible storm. It was almost as bad as the movies, where those ships get thrown all over. Lucky for me, however, I was in a “future yacht.” This thing was able to suddenly encase itself (like the Batmobile), and then turn into a submarine. Once I got under water, the storm really didn’t matter at all. You know, that reminds me of this man who used to cook deluxe burgers at my college. His name was Storm. What a great guy. One time, there was a huge fire in the kitchen in back, and nobody could find a fire extinguisher. Well, Storm just lept right up onto the fire, smothering it. Too bad I don’t have any real need to do that right now. It sounds like a real fun thing to do. Oh well.

Continued whenever I next get bored…

Conformity

A Bible-based skit written for church use.

Romans 12:2

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Characters:

Witness
At least 4 “conformers”

Setting:

A couch (or row of chairs) is setting at rear center stage, with a remote control setting on the ground beside it.

The conformers are scattered about the stage, with their heads down, frozen. The witness waits off stage out of sight. Big band music begins to play. The conformers awaken, and begin to dance with each other, in somewhat of a swing style. After about 20 seconds of this, the witness walks on to stage carrying a small Bible, observing the conformers. They attempt to make the witness join, but he resists.

The music stops. The conformers freeze. The witness continues to walk about them, trying to get their attention, but they are like statues. Suddenly, some suspenseful music (James Bond, Mission Impossible, etc…) begins to play. The conformers immediately awaken, and begin to walk shrewdly around with their fingers shaped as guns, making jerky movements, pointing the “guns” around. The witness comes up to one of them with the Bible, and opens it and points to it. The conformer sees the Bible, and gradually stops doing what the others are.

The music stops. The other conformers freeze. The witness and converted conformer try to get the others’ attention, but cannot. Suddenly, some popular sitcom theme music begins to play. The conformers walk over to the couch and sit down as one picks up the remote. They laugh and point at the imaginary television on front center stage. The witness and old conformer then approach the conformer on the end of the couch (the one with the remote) and show them the Bible. The conformer tries to ignore at first, but is eventually paying attention only to the witness and Bible, and powers off the TV with the remote. The music stops, and the remaining conformers freeze and put their heads down. The witness and two former conformers get on their knees as if to pray. When they are done, it is suggested to play “Hallelujah” from Handel’s “Messiah”.

Fade out after about 20 seconds.

UPC Bar Codes

Since I have done this research on my own, which I did in 1996, I have come across other websites that explain the concepts quite well. This one, in particular, does a great job. I would update this page, but you can just go there and save me the time.

WARNING
This document is to be used for informational purposes only. DO NOT use this information in order to produce fraudulent barcodes. Do not attempt to use fraudulent barcodes to purchase goods at extremely low costs.

Method for forming standard UPC bar codes:

1) Bar code must begin with the start sequence.
2) The first 6 digits use the “Left Side” codes.
3) After 6 digits, the middle sequence must be inserted.
4) The last 6 digits use the “Right Side” codes.
5) Bar code must end with the end sequence.

Notes:

– Standard UPC bar codes consists of 12 digits.
– Each 1 stands for a line of the standard width.
– Each 0 stands for an empty space of the standard width.
– 1 pixel wide is an acceptable standard width for functional barcodes.

Left Side		Right Side

1) 0110010		1) 0110011
2) 0100110		2) 0110110
3) 1111010		3) 0100001
4) 1000110		4) 0101110
5) 1100010		5) 0100111
6) 1011110		6) 0101000
7) 1110110		7) 0100010
8) 1101110		8) 0100100
9) 0010110		9) 0111010
0) 0011010		0) 0111001

Start:		1010
Middle:		101
End:		0101

WARNING
DO NOT Attempt to use this example barcode to purchase expensive goods at the price of Lemonade Kool-Aid (about $0.25) by printing it out and taping it over a real UPC barcode.