Many of you may have missed the news due to some sort of election that was held recently, but on November 1, 2008, Microsoft officially stopped issuing licenses for Windows 3.x. (story via news.bbc.co.uk).  It’s EULA-gy read:

Windows 3.x required an 8086/8088 processor or better that had a clock speed of up to 10MHz. It needed at least 640KB of RAM, seven megabytes of hard drive space, and a graphics card that supported CGA, EGA and VGA graphics. Windows 3.x is survived my it children Windows 95, ME, XP and Vista (who could not be reached for comment due to compatibility issues).

I have seen reports that Windows 3.x customers everywhere are now in a state of sadness and panic. One former Windows 3.x user was detained for questioning after “allegedly” trying to bootleg the OS onto toaster ovens. Microsoft will begin forming support groups (though not technical support) for those who now believe their life is over because of the death of Windows 3.x to help them better cope with new technology.

Yes, it is a sad day indeed. Microsoft is expected to release a statement today encouraging users to make the leap and upgrade to Windows 95 and regrets to inform users looking for a loophole that the downgrade option from Vista to 3.x is out of the question.

There are reports starting to surface through the interweb that Windows 3.1 will be returning to join the rock band KISS on their new tour “Yes, Retirement Still Sucks and We Know There is Still Money to Be Made Despite Current Media Induced Economic Conditions, Part IV”.

Craigslist is quite simply an awesome place. I called originally about a Ms. Pac for $300 in decent condition and by the time I got there he had sold it. However, there was a un-working Pac-Man console that I got for the bargain price of $100. My seller was also kind enough to throw in a new Pac-Man Controller, a Ms. Pac controller, a Pac man plus marquee and a Ms. Pac Marquee, in addition to letting me keep the old Pac controller board.

So my restoration project has begun. I had the board repair and a 4-in-1 mod (that way Mr. & Ms Pac could be together again) done by a very cool guy named Peter from New Hampshire. He was awesome to work with and took lots of time to help me understand the arcade world a bit better.  I would love to learn to do it myself but I figured I needed to crawl before I walked… or something like that. It needs some minor repair and cosmetic work still, but that should be less than $50 total. I bought new molding and leg levelers from arcadeshop.com.  I also bought Pac-Man marquee off of eBay though it’s no where near as cool as Jason Cipriano’s signed Pac-Man Merquee, I suppose we can get everything we want.

Either way, here is a picture of my baby, on the day we brought it home. The garage is much cleaner now so I can walk to the game without inflicting bodily harm upon myself.

And for those of you not awesome enough to have a Pac-Man console to play at will I give you the of flash version of Pac-Man to play online.

Anyone working in tech support has had those moment. You know the one’s where your standing (or sitting there) not really knowing how to explain that an issue is fixed…or for that matter at times why it is fixed in the first place. What do you say? What do you do? Will They understand? Will they even believe it? My suggestion, just have fun with it. Fine…But what should I say?

Well worry no more. Just put that person on hold (where you cleverly have Chocolate Rain as your on hold music…which consequently may get you off the hook of giving a reason in the first place) and grab one of these incredibly thoughtful technical excuses. Like they will ever know…

1. Solar flare activity was very high yesterday and it took until today for the light to reach earth.
2. Caps lock was on.
3. It must be a hardware problem.
4. It must be a software problem.
5. Your problem is caused by another company’s product or services.
6. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
7. I’m sorry. No one here speaks English.
8. The flux capacitor was damaged.
9. It must be an I-D-10-T error
10. I never thought anyone would actually use that feature.
11. Well…it wasn’t plugged in.
12. I think it needs more fictional memory.
13. The “mouse server” is down.
14. We don’t support that.
15. Problems like that are only caused by looking at porn. I’ll need your name for our records.

and if those aren’t good enough try Jaco Strauss’ Tech Support Excuse Generator, where you will find great random technical excuses such as: Partial, unvalidated retrieval lockout… or just laugh profusely and walk away. Overall…just be good to the people you support. No matter how hard that may be at times…they are the reason you have a job. =P

Enjoy

…btw…Like these or have some to add? Comments are there for that!

Cheers.