Funny story I’ve got to relate about my brother-in-law. I picked up my niece at the airport this weekend and she happened to have a Furby packed in her luggage. It was kind of funny throwing a suitcase into the trunk and hearing it respond with strange, Gremlin-like noises.
Anyway, my brother-in-law was over at our house the next day and we told him about it. We already knew that Furbys respond to voices and other sounds, but he was under the impression that they contained sophisticated recording devices that stored incredible amounts of audio data which the government could retrieve in their various information-gathering laboratories. I think I was successful in not letting my eyes roll up in their sockets when those words passed his lips. (Yes, he was dead serious when he said it.) I felt it would be a waste of breath to point out how wrong he was.
Does anybody else have any amusing stories in this same vein? Don’t limit yourself to “conspiracy theory” types of stories.
“It’s only common sense,
There are no accidents 'round here.”
I had a customer who insisted that the Mexican mafia was infiltrating Network Solutions (the dotcom people) in order to steal domain names from hard working Americans like himself.
Uh huh.
Usually in instances like this, my coworkers and I say the customer’s been smoking crack again.
I (dimly) remember reading in the local paper that furbies were actually banned at one of the federal government agencies because they believed that furbies contained primitive recording devices. It was one of our spy-related agencies, but I can’t remember which one.
(The basis for this belief was that furbies supposedly start off knowing only a few words of “furbish”, but increase their vocabulary over time. Some folks surmised that they contained primitive recording devices, and gradually included the sounds they picked up using those devices in their speech. My boss told me that what they actually contain is a pre-set vocabulary and a timer that gradually lets them use more of the words in that vocabulary over time. The latter approach makes sense to me, as it would involve only few cents’ worth of extra electronics, whereas adding otherwise unused recording equipment would add a lot of expense to an inexpensive toy.)
I had a co-worker who was convinced that some ultra-secret government agency was monitoring her every move via concealed cameras. She went to great lengths plugging every tiny nail hole in the plaster walls and keeping detailed records of what kind of vans were parked in the parking lot and how many helocopters she noticed that day. Once I went into the bathroom and discovered she’d taped a newspaper over the ventilation grate in the celing. Why she thought the CIA, NSA, FBI, Childrens Television Workshop or whoever would be interested in a middle-aged picture framer with six cats is anybodies guess.
I work at an IBM site. Furbies are not allowed to be brought into the building. The unoffical story is that someone had one on his desk, and it overheard “confidential” information that it repeated. Sure. This is a fun site. These people autopsyed thier dead Furby. They DID find a microphone, however. : Furby Autopsy I’d buy the dog barking thing, but not much else. However, I did read somewhere that if you have one Furby with an advanced vocabulary, and one that doesn’t, if you leave them in a room together, the one with the good vocab will TEACH the other one. eep.
{{{Usually in instances like this, my coworkers and I say the customer’s been smoking crack again}}}—phouka
Living in Long Beach, I have to say that it certainly makes you wonder sometimes.
Back in my PC servicing days I had a customer who was exceedingly proud of the fact that she owned a color monitor–they were relatively new and quite expensive at the time. She was equally proud of her “vast knowledge” of PC hardware.
On an all too routine : :rolleyes:: call at the woman’s home, she mentioned something that gave me pause. She wanted the color cartridge replaced in her monitor. My attempts to explain to her that monitors did not require any such thing made no headway. She was adamant and bolstered her position by showing me an invoice for her system that indicated that she had been charged for a color cartridge to the tune of $240.00.
She explained that she had company coming over for the weekend, and she didn’t want the color to run out of the monitor while they were there, thus I was to replace the cartridge. Okie-dokie.
I opened up the monitor and, with her watching me occasionally, I rooted through my tool case and found an unopened pachage of Post-It notes and slid it in where it wouldn’t cause a problem, buttoned up the monitor and fired up the computer for her approval.
She expressed amazment at the enhanced colors that the “new cartridge” gave her, and quickly wrote out a check for the invoice, which included an additional $240.00 at her insistence.
I still have the invoice in my files as proof of her satisfaction with the work done.
Another happy customer.
–Kalél TheHungerSite.com
“If ignorance is bliss, you must be orgasmic.”
“Well, there was that thing with the Cheese-Wiz…but I’m feeling much better now!” – John Astin, Night Court
Sorry for not being clear in my earlier message. Yes, Furbies do contain primitive microphones that detect the presence/absence of sound. Furbies begin their sequences if/when they detect the presence of an external sound. There’s no recording equipment or recording media inside, though. Remember, this {B}is{/B] a thirty-dollar toy we’re talking about here.
(One of the fun things to do with furbies is to put two of them near each other. At some point, one will make a sound. The second will react to the first by making his own sounds. The first will react to the second by making more sounds. To the onlooker, the two furbies have started “talking” to each other.)
EnigmaOne, that’s hilarious! It reminds me of the guy who came to my theater and started complaining because my soundsystem didn’t sound like he wanted it to and he knew all about exhibition picture and sound because his TV at home had Dolby surround. LOL!
Now there’s nothing unexpected about the water giving out; “Land” is not a word we have to shout.