EVERYDAY LIFE (25 november 2006)
Have you ever seen this scene on the tram or train?
There are so many passengers that various people have to stand. One seated passenger has put a bag on the seat next to him. And none of the other passengers dare to ask if he may take the seat occupied by the bag.
But my sweetheart found it no problem. Straight away she inquired: "Beg your pardon, could I please sit there?" You see, that's the way to do it, ladies and gentlemen! Or did you expect the answer would be: "No, that's the seat for my bag, you can just keep standing!"
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Everybody who knows just a little about computers will be familiar with this phenomenon: quite regularly people call you up with questions about e-mail, Internet, the printer and all kinds of other things most of which you yourself found out experimentally.
This afternoon, the telephone rang: How to replace the printer cartridge?
You'll probably know how simple this is: push a button and the cartridge appears, get the new cartridge from the box, tear off the protective foil, old cartridge out, new one in, push the button again to send the cartridge back to its place - and that's all!
So I expected this would take no more than two or three minutes. But no, after going through the procedure described above, the printer still did not work! Just give it one more try ... and again the printer refused to co-operate. After twenty minutes I decided to have a look at the printer in situ (five miles away).
When I took the old and new cartridges in my hand, it struck me that the "old one" felt heavier than the "new one". Soon it turned out that the old cartridge had been taken out of the printer and had directly been put back (instead of the new one). That was the whole problem.
If only all problems were so easy to solve!
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Recently, my eldest daughter advised me to take MSN Messenger on my computer. Quite humdrum, your weblogger had added a boring little photo of himself to the program.
That young people can have a fresher eye became clear when my sweet daughter added extra joy by making a nice little Southpark picture for my messenger.
"Any resemblance?" you may wonder. Yes, to be honest, that's more or less what your weblogger looks like, albeit that he is not very often seen with a glass of beer. But don't think he's a teetotaller - as his perceptive daughter correctly saw!
