Friday Feature: Crazy Apple Help Desk.


Every Friday, the staff at Crazy Apple Rumors Site answers common help questions based on our vast experience with Apple products and our fervent belief that we know more than you do.

Q: I was experimenting with installing a Linux distribution on my 12-inch PowerBook and now I can’t get the OS X installation CDs to recognize the drive. What do I have to do to get my OS X environment back?
A: Wait, why were you trying to install Linux on your Mac?
Q: Um, well I don’t see how that really matters at this point. I’m just trying to get back to OS X.
A: I think it matters. I mean, here you have the best desktop Unix environment there is – OS X – and you go and screw it up by trying to install Linux. Why should I help you?
Q: Wh-what kind of help desk is this?!
A: Well, I could show you how to get OS X to recognize your drive again, but what are the guarantees you won’t go dabbling in inferior operating systems again? To truly help you, I need you to see the error of your ways.
Q: I’m starting to think my error was going to you for help.
A: Oh, this is not about me. This is about you. Now… give me the Linux disk.
Q: No! No! I can quit any time I want!
A: You have a problem! GIVE! ME! THAT! DISK!
Q: Just one more installation! One more!
A: No! Friends don’t let friends install sub-standard operating systems on sweet hardware like a 12-inch PowerBook!
Q: It helps me relax! I like myself more when I’m on Linux! I’ll cut back!
A: Don’t you see you have people who love you?! People who don’t mind physical confrontation?!
Q: OW! Get off of me!
A: You’ll thank me when this is over! Howard! Ugluk! Chet! Stop him!
Q: No! No! Hellllllllp!
A: Grab his legs! He’s a kicker!
Q: I don’t have a problem! You have the problem!
A: Ugluk! I can’t… get his… ah, crap, he got away!
HOWARD: He’ll be back. I got his pants.
MACGRUDER: Those… those are mine.
HOWARD: Oh. So they are. Sorry about that. There were just so many legs and… Well. Sorry.

Q: I have a question about the Java 1.4.2 update 2 that was recently delivered via Software Update. Have any other users experienced weird results after applying this update?
A: According to Apple’s discussion boards, there have been sporadic issues but nothing that can be categorically tied to the Java update.
Q: Ah. I see. So… no… Satanic possession… or anything?
A: Satanic possession?
Q: Well, I’m not sure what to call it. Bleeding screen… Speakable Items cursing… icons flying around the desktop and… whatnot.
A: Nnno. Have you installed any unusual third-party software recently?
Q: Mmm, no. Not that I can think of. Quicken 2004. Real Player. Harvey McSatan’s Evil Posso-Rama and Fish-Eye Lense Filter for Photoshop.
A: Yeah, well, see, I’m thinking that could be your problem right there.
Q: Oooooooh. OK. I, uh, thought the name was just ironic.

Q: My Dearest Melanie,
How I long to see your face. But this infernal war shall keep us apart again this Christmas as I continue to march further from you, my love.
A: What the?
Q: The locket you gave me with your picture is my only solace as the winter snows begin to fall here in Appomattox.
Meanwhile, the Babe’s health was failing. In a last-ditch effort to stay in the game, he took a management position with the last-place Boston Braves.
A: Oh, no! He’s overdosing on the iMovie Ken Burns filter!
Q: When Lewis and Clark crossed the Mississippi, they found a fearsome sight waiting for them. Four thousand Shawnee Indians had gathered in a war party…
A: Listen to me! I’m gonna talk you down! But you’ve got to switch filters now!
Q: Grant marched on to Vicksburg, Frederickstown and Marysville. “Nothing,” one Confederate general wrote, “will stop this madman from destroying the South.”
A: [slap!] YOU’VE GOT [slap!] TO SNAP [slap!] OUT [slap!] OF IT! [slap!]
ENTITY: Burns.
A: What?
MACGRUDER: I think he means that this guy’s not overdosing on the Ken Burns filter, that this is Ken Burns.
ENTITY: Burns.
MACGRUDER: [sniff] Or, possibly, his cloak is on fire. Either way, I think this is, in fact, Ken Burns.
A: Oh. Huh. Well… uh… think it’s OK if I keep slapping him anyway?
MACGRUDER: [shrugs] Fine by me.
A: [slap!] YOU’VE GOT [slap!] TO STOP [slap!] MAKING [slap!] THE SAME [slap!] DOCUMENTARY! [slap!]

23 thoughts on “Friday Feature: Crazy Apple Help Desk.”

  6. I’m pretty sure I don’t have Harvey McSatan’s Evil Posso-Rama and Fish-Eye Lens Filter, though…

    I will admit to a fairly heavy software collection addiction, though… at least, that’s what my wife calls it. I prefer to just think of it as “those moving boxes stuffed with disks that will be useful the minute I throw them away, but are entirely too plentiful to be able to find anything I’m looking for, even if I try to catalog them using some kind of database, or alphabetizing, or, well, actually I’d really like to get rid of them all because I don’t even have a Mac Plus to run The Art of War on anymore since I gave it to my father-in-law 10 years ago or more, let alone a computer that will run System 7, and the computers that will run OS 8 or OS 9 are all in various pieces that I could put back together and give away to someone who doesn’t even have a computer but I’m really too busy to ever get around to it and even if I did my own kids would get really pissed at me because they always have to fight with me to get at the computer I’m hogging even though I hooked wired Ethernet ports to all their rooms but haven’t put computers in their rooms so why do I even bother keeping all the software lying around” situation…

    Is anyone else in a similar situation?

  10. Y’know, I only watched 30 minutes of “The Civil War,” and yet I can’t get the music from “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder” out of my head, even after all this time.

    Is that what they mean by the Ken Burns Effect?

    Not eleventh!

  11. Hey Huck! Eleventh post is available! Right here! Just for you! J-

    Oh crap….

    Sorry Huck.

  18. “Fredericksburg” not “Frederickstown”. Ken Burns would know that. That guy is a Burns wannabe.

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