04.13.03
The other day, the power kept flickering on and off all throughout the morning. Because of the frequency of weird stuff like this happening, Dad went out and bought some sort of appliance into which he could plug all of the computer and LAN equipment.
After a half-hour or so of the flickering power, the back-up appliance thing -- which I am to this day uncertain of its true nature or purpose -- started beeping every ten seconds or so. I don't know exactly how long this went on, because I had to go to work.
Later than evening, Dad couldn't get the computer to operate. He fiddled with all of the cables and everything, but it wouldn't work. I went in and unplugged the computer from the back-upamajig, and into the wall socket, rendering the computer again fully functional. Except, for some reason, the computer wouldn't connect to the internet.
My dsl was working fine, so it was obviously something wrong on their end, and much fiddling ensued. A call was placed to our dsl-provider, and it was eventually determined that nothing was wrong on that front -- something was wrong with the computer.
I looked up the number to HP for him, Dad called, and after much talking and further fiddling, they decided for some reason that a complete reboot was the answer.
Which of course accomplished nothing beyond wiping out all of their files and programs.
The point of this story, beyond occupying a brief moment of your time is this:
Dad asked me to look up the number for HP again. I told him from memory that it was 1-800-HP-INVENT.
He wandered off, and a few minutes later came back in to inform me that couldn't be it, because it had 12 characters, which was one too many.
So I told him to try 1-800-HP-INVEN, which of course worked.
Will wonders never cease?
What's in your head?