&quot;If I don't have internet, how can I turn on my computer?" <sigh>

Oh god, we had this lady come into the repair shop I work in, typical soccer mom AOL user about a year ago or so, and she walks in comes to the front desk, and drops a tower off. Here are her exact words: "The internet has a virus that wont let my computer turn on right, I want that fixed." Let that sink in.

We had a guy who came in wanting to return a store-brand computer. After deciding the video didn't work, he attempted to "remove the video card". However, he for some reason decided it was best to do this by pulling like crazy on the monitor cable (since I guess he had forgotten he had screwed it in and they were in fact two different parts). He managed to rip the onboard video from the motherboard. Needless to say, he did NOT get a return. Funny thing is, when we added in a video card the motherboard turned out to be completely fine other than it being minus onboard video ;)

I used to work as the technical director for a church that also operated a private school. Among my duties was providing audio technology for various church and school functions. The principal of the school came to me and asked for a wireless handheld microphone for her teachers' meeting. I asked her where the meeting was going to be held, and she said, "At the shelter in Sedgwick Park." "Um... I don't think they have a sound system there," I replied. "We need a sound system to use a wireless microphone?" I still haven't figured out the best way to explain that a microphone isn't a magic wand.

mmm, have I got a story for ya :P This is was only a year ago. One of my parents friends were over and somehow while I was passing by the topic of their computer having issues came up. I chimed in offering to fix it for them (they are really nice and often bring me candy [my weakness :P]). The next day, in the afternoon I drove over to their house, had my whole toolkit (awesome swiss knife meant for computer work, multimeter, spare PS, spare PCI vid card, linux cds, windows cd's, cd's loaded with freeware, and all the basic necesseties, and of course the UBCD :P). They welcome me and immediately give me a giant box of whoppers [oh they were delicious! :P]. Anyways, as we proceed into the room where they keep their computer, they were describing that their computer has been getting slower and randomly shutting off. We get to the room and I look at the computer and the whopper I had just popped into my mouth, lodged itself in my throat after what I just saw. THE COMPUTER WAS WRAPPED IN SARAN WRAP!!!! WTF?!??!!?!?! Not only that, but the side covers were completely removed... After I recovered from the deadly whopper, I immeadiatly asked, "What the hell is that?!!" Here is their explanation: "Well, I heard that computers can overheat which is bad, so I removed the side covers to cool it down; but, then I also heard that dust is also bad for the computer so I put saran wrap around it to keep the dust out." ...... X_X Still dumbfounded I quickly removed the saran wrap, double-checked all the connections and tried to power it on. Nothing but a quick on and off. mmmm... you wanna know what my first guess was? Overheating... I unplugged the tortured machine, and started to disassemble the thing looking for signs of damage. I checked the PS first, and everything seemed fine with it. I then tried the processor. Well... I tried to take off the fan [this wasn't one of those tricky ones mind you] and the SOB would come off. I made sure nothing was still connected and gave it a little muscle... hahahahaha yeah, the processor had definitely overheated. I wish I had my camera, it was gruesome. I explained to them about the issues of heat and dust, and that if they ever have a bright idea like that again, ask me first. They were greatly embarrassed, and I was pretty amused :P I still give them crap about it :P

Cody's story reminds me of one time I was staying at someone's house for a concert (had no clue who the person was) and we ended up talking about jobs. It came up that I was working in a computer-related field and I ended up helping her out with whole bunch of computer issues. Long story short, our formerly paid-for night's stay was partially refunded and we got homemade apple pie to boot! When she introduced me to her daughter I knew it was high time to leave though ;)

over the phone technical support (me and a customer) "ok sir we need to reseat your memory, it can sometimes become disloged during transit, if you look at the back of the machine to right you will see two large screws holding the side of the case on. I need you to remove those" ........time passes noise in background of an electric drill "ok, done" customer walks into the computer shop where i work.. "pc has a virus, I am the only one that uses it and dont even use the internet how could this happen?" we take it in to check it out and find over 38 gig of downloaded porn. customer comes in next day... "we have checked your pc and you had over 100 viruses in direct relation to the adult content that had been downloaded from various underground websites" "this pc is not mine" customer walks into the shop where i work again... "do you sell mirrors?" customer rings up the shop "hi im wondering if you can help me I have a PC but cannot connect to the internet with my dial up modem" "ok sir we will check your connections from the modem to the phone line first of all" "I dont have a phone line yet im on my mobile, i just moved here" ........ and many many more