One I my favorite things about using my computer is all the sound clips I have.
When I start it up, I get “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” From The Princess Bride
For mistakes, I get a gruff “I’m smarter than you.” From *The Usual Suspects *
Or “You’re a loony!” From The Holy Grail
And when I shut down, the ever classic “You have pressed the self destruct button. This ship will self destruct in 3 minutes. Have a good day!” From Spaceballs
A previous shut down favorite, “Ahhh! They’re dogs and they’re playing poker! Ahh! HaaHaaHa! (scamper, scamper)” From The Simpsons
I’m looking for some new ones. Any recommendations?
For “Windows start,” I have a clip of the big “crashing glass” noise from the beginning of the Billy Joel album Glass Houses. I’m a BJ fan, and my previous computer used to crash a lot. I had the sound on there and just carried it over.
For shutdown, I have the slave foreman from Gone with the Wind: “Quittin’ tiiiimmme! <bell ringing in the background> Quittin’ tiiiiiimmmmmmme!!”
(No, I’m not obsessed with GWTW. Just a little co-inkydink there.)
My start-up-Windows sound on my machine at work is Martin Sheen from Apocalypse Now saying, “I was going to the worst place in the world and I didn’t even know it yet.”
My you’ve-got-mail sound is Scully saying, “Mulder, have you checked your email this morning?”
My question/mistake sound is John Cusack from Grosse Pointe Blank asking, “You’re a handsome devil. What’s your name?”
My start up -
Homer Simpson “No time for that now, the computer’s starting”
Question -
Cylon from Battlestar Galactica “By your command”
E-mail
Autolycus(sp?) (Bruce Campell on Xena) “I’m not just leering at scantily clad women you know, I’m working”
Shut down -
Kes from Voyager “Computer, deactivate emergency medical holographic program”
For recieving e-mail I have Monty Python’s “I don’t like Spam!” I have Dinsey’s “Yo Ho Yo Ho, a pirate’s life for me” for start up, and “dead men tell no tales” for shut down, but removed them when they took my pirate theme away and went to a standardized corporate desktop environment.
I have an all-Army of Darkness sound theme going on, which is starting to get a little tiresome, so I think I’ll be changing it soon but:
Start up: “Klaatu, barata, nicto”
Asterisk and critical stop: “Groovy”
Default sound: “Hail to the king, baby”
Exclamation: “see this? This is my boomstick!”
Exit windows: “go ahead and run, run home and cry to mama”
Question: “It’s a trick, get an axe”
For incoming mail I have the “We Just Got a Letter” song from “Blue’s Clues.” If I end up getting too much mail on that account, though, I think it’ll get really old really quick.
Most of my other sound clips are from MST3K:
Default Sound: “Oh, bite me. It’s fun!” – TV’s Frank
Exit Windows: “Push the button, Frank.” – Dr. F
Exclamation: “Doh!” – Crow
Start Windows: Tom Servo laughing evily
I use a mostly-Thief theme. Most of the sounds are voice clips from Garrett. Here are the two most appropriate:
Error–“Uh oh. Looks like this doesn’t work any more.”
Exit–“Well this was a lost cause. Time to get out before I wind up in the cell next door.”
As for “corporate standard desktops” to “enhance productivity”…<insert loud rude noise and a spate of profanity>. My company does this to every machine (not just a desktop, but a whole layer of bogged-down application-crashing crap). We techie types just back up our data, reformat, and reinstall our old stuff. This generally doubles boot- and application-speed. It pisses of the IS people to no end. We have a hidden drive on the network where we keep the cool stuff.
Start up: “To infinity - AND BEYOND!!!” from Toy Story
Mail: “And now for something completely different” from Monty Python (it used to be the arrow hitting and “Message for you, sir!” from Holy Grail, but my wife made me change it after a while…)
Exclamation: Vizzinni from the Princess Bride “Inconceivable!!!”
Question: Johnny Bravo saying “Yeah, whatever”
Empty trash: Worf in ST: First Contact “Perhaps today IS a good day to die!”
Exit windows: The pipes and drums of the Gordon Highlanders playing the first few seconds of Scotland the Brave. (check my name. What did you expect?)
Start Up: “This is a holy place; even I don’t come here. Go away!” – The Maxx Shut Down: “Eehh… I could pull a better cartoon out of my aaaa…hehehehe-- Hey! Whoah! Wasn’t that great kids?” – The Simpsons (Krusty the Klown) Critical Stop: “Core meltdown in ten seconds” – The Simpsons Exclamation: “Sobeka!” – Foreign Relations Advisor from Civilization II New Mail: “We Just Got a Letter!” song from Blue’s Clues Empty Trash: “Maaarrrss… Firree… IGNITE!” – Sailor Mars from “Sailor Moon”
I have an Evil Dead trilogy semi-theme, in that it’s mostly Ash quotes with some other stuff mixed in there.
Start up: “Yo, she-bitch. Let’s go.” Asterisk: “Groovy.” Empty Trash: "What the hell was that? Are you trying to kill us? IM: “Gimme some sugar, baby” AOL Start: “You bastards! Why are you torturing me like this?” File’s Done: “Alright you primitive screwheads, listen up.” Got Mail: “I hate the aspidistra in my room and I’m going to kill it.” (Richard E. Grant in A Merry War.) Critical Stop: “Gee, I wish you hadn’t done that” (That one’s from Brisco County, Jr.) Shutdown: “Well, it’s been fun. As far as near-death experiences go…” (Autolycus from Xena)
I might retool all this in the near future. Some of these sounds are a little long to be using as part of a sound scheme.
I don’t really like .wav sounds to play every time I hit a key, so I usually turn off all theme .wavs except the main ones. My current ones are:
Open AOL: “So, you’ve got nothing better to do, eh?” (Bruce Campbell)
AOL gotmail: “Well, you’ve got mail. But it’s probably crap.” (I think it’s Bruce Campbell)
The rest are just little sound fx, like a cymbal crashing, an ominous sound, etc. I don’t even know if I have a shut down .wav; my computer has to be turned off at the switch when it locks up.
http://www.wavplace.com is one of the best sources for .wavs. Or get on a mailing list; that’s how I got all mine over the years.
Startup: Mr Hankey, ‘Howdy ho!’
Critical Stop: Beavis, ‘I’m trying to watch a porno and you fartknockers keep interrupting me!’
Exclamation: Ike, ‘Don’t kick the baby.’
Empty Trash: Sound of toilet flushing, then Torgo saying ‘ThaNk YoU’.
Shutdown: JC Denton, ‘You’ve got ten seconds to get out of here before I add you to the list of NSF casualties.’
The first sound clip I ever FTP’ed was “Where’s Torgo? We came to see Torgo.” from “Manos: the Hand of Fate.” Ever since, I have named the download directories on my computers Torgo.
I have the complete ending monologue from “It Conquered the World” if you’re interested. It’s kind of big, but pretty good quality. I recorded it myself using a microphone held up to the TV.
