Now, I wouldn't
say I was that technologically great. I muddle along fairly well, by the simple expedient of if I can't work it out myself, someone somewhere probably has had the same problem as me *and* has found a solution. Google! However compared to some of the people I've met, you'd think I was an IT genius, a paragon of eternal wisdom. My two favourite instances are these:

(1) When I was 17 or so we moved to Ireland, and for a bit I went to an Irish school, where being English and with a very very English accent, in an area of Ireland renowned for holding onto grudges I didn't get along well at all, what with my newfangled ipod, and all. I was the only person in school with an ipod- some had cd players, a few had tapes. This was about 3 years ago mind and absolutely nothing to do with relative wealth, since most of them due to the massive boom were hugely wealthy farmers girls. I went into the IT lesson where at age 17 I was taught how to use Word, playing along I got out my USB drive a simple 1GB and stuck it in the only Windows 2000 PC they had (the rest were 95 or 98.) The IT teacher came up and stared at me. "What's that?" she asked. I thought she was joking and played along. "It's a USB drive." "Oh," she said. "Does it play music? Where are the headphones?" I sunk my head in my hands. She combined teaching IT with PE, with savage results in both, and for the short time I was there a battle of wills developed. I'm not very sporty and resolutely anti touch-rugby where any 18 stone woman is allowed to throw herself on top of me and slam my head against the wall. For every insult and (quite literal) punch, I got my revenge slowly and subtley. She used me as IT support, but couldn't quite figure out why her computer was the only one with popups, and all those other minor inconveniences that make computing hell. Eventually I got out of there, simply walked out of school and asked my parents to send me back to England. Got an email from her asking why she couldn't get her laptop off this bright blue screen.

(2) Makes me giggle when my little sister dropped my dad's laptop with the DVD drive out, and it wouldn't go back in properly. She was crying her eyes out asking me to fix it. It was simple enough- a bit jemmying around with a screwdriver, putting it back in etc, but before I handed it back, I tried the good old magic trick- mutter a few funny sounding words and smile. She was seriously impressed.

Yes that is the limit of my impressiveness- amusing a seven year old.

Apologies for length
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 24 Sep 2009, 14:38, Reply)