[Last updated August 22, 2004] Hey, sometimes we all need to take a break and laugh at ourselves, our jobs, and our so-called lives. Grab 5 minutes and have a giggle before you punch out that monitor! (Want to point us to more Sysadm humor? Drop a note to the webmistress.)

Sysadm Geekery:

• VAXbar shows a VAX 11/780 turned into a bar, with schematics. The webmistress could use this in her living room! It would go so nicely with a leather seat round Cray and circuit board artwork.
• Bastard Operator from Hell: BOFH is a genuine classic. Multiple sites to choose from.
  • Bastard Operator from Hell from Simon Travaglia himself.
  • Bastard Operator From Hell from www.leo.org
  • The Register contains the BOFH 2K+1 archives.
• System Administration Tools Your Vendor Never Told You About; Revisited shows a few new tools we could certainly use.
• Hats for System Administrators; more SA tools lists other useful tools sysadms should have in their toolbox. The webmistress used to keep a rubber chicken and a cow skull handy, for repairing the worst system problems.
• Address to the Unix Sysadm Class of 1999/Wear a Leatherman is good, funny advice to the new crop of Unix sysadms.
• Guidelines for Working with Tech Support is a funny, caustic look at how many users seem to behave with their professional support people.
• Mad User Syndrome looks and sounds as if a user has finally had enough. It's a 425KB mpeg movie, but worth it.
• Should I become an astronaut, firefighter, or system administrator? A handy guide to those vexing career questions.
• Information Technology vs. Business Management shows the difference between the two.
• Tales of tech support are true stories from the front lines.
• Silicon Graphics O2 Haiku is poetry only an SGI sysadm could love.
• Virtual Sysadmin Problem Report shows how we're really like users to report problems.
• Haiku On System Errors shows that there is poetry even in system despair.
• Top 10 Signs That The Tech Support Person Has Gone Completely Nuts reminds us of our own days in Tech Support. Part of a wonderful, original humor site, TopFive.com.
• The Top 54 Computer T-Shirt Slogans is a classic from the days of DOS.
• Top Ten Signs That You Might Be A Sysadmin rings all too true.
• Machine Room Operations is a classic, caustic "bad sysadm with clueless user" piece from the rec.humor.funny archives.
• Why you can't find your System Administrator Compiled by the readers of alt.sysadm.recovery.
• The Illustrated Guide to Breaking Your Computer details a solid engineering approach to completely destroying that computer you hate. Wonderful pictures!
• System Administration Support Fees: What we all would like to charge our more painful users.
• Tales of Unix System Administration: Been there.
• 30 Signs That Technology Has Taken Over Your Life: So true, so true.
• Know Your Unix System Administrator: A Field Guide One of the classics, found again.

Microsoft Bashing:
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• Microsoft Conducts Nuclear Tests during talks between Microsoft and the US Department of Justice over possible antitrust action.
• "Star Trek Lost Episodes" transcript describes Microsoft vs. the Borg.
• Microsoft Technical Support vs. The Psychic Friends Network Which provides better support for Microsoft products? This is a supposedly true story about the differences in technical support between the two.
• Software glitches leave Navy Smart Ship dead in the water is a true story that shows how NT can wreak havoc with divide-by-0 problems.
• Microsoft Windows 95 Errors Explained documents the error codes M$ didn't tell you about.
• Bill Gates Calls the Belgian Police ...well, it could have happened...
• Gates-McNealy Frisbee News tells how the press would probably report a game of Frisbee between Bill Gates and Scott McNealy.
• The Devil & Bill Gates Talk is truly scary. Wickedly unnerving.
• Microsoft to acquire the English language and Scott McNealy has a plan for countering Microsoft's new language dominance.
• Bill Gates Hears From His Housing Contractor who turns the tables on the master of product upgrades.
• Instructions for Microsoft's New TV Dinner Product: Is your microwave Windows-compatible?
• Windows 95 Definition is short, accurate, and perfect to us open-systems folks.
• Is Windows a Virus? outlines the differences (differences?) between MS Windows and a virus.
• Microsoft Waiter reminds us of our recent episode of trying to get a working version of MS Project out of Mr. Bill's Support Group.
• Where's Hale-Bopp when you need it? Dark times in a Redmond, Washington cult.
• If Microsoft Built Cars... Good twist on an old theme.

Unix Abuse:
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• Other Unix is a great collection of non-computer-oriented things called Unix. Diapers, fire extinguishers, barber shops, shelving, and other strange items. Compiled by Dennis Ritchie.
• Thompson, Ritchie and Kernighan admit that Unix was a prank. We're sure glad that this is fiction!
• who(1)'s on what(1)? If Abbot and Costello knew Unix
• Berkeley, California: An ode to some of our founders.
• The Day SunOS Died: Seekers of meaning behind this entry should know that this poem may not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Stokely Consulting board. Seekers of irony should know that this page was set up using Solaris 2.5. So, there.

Internet Adventures:
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• Lime Cat: What happens when you have nothing to do, own a sharp knife, have a large lime, have a patient cat, drink too much tequila and it's football season?
• 40 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena is an amazing set of images to trick your eyes! I love this stuff.
• Online Bubblewrap will keep you amused while you're waiting for your vendor to return your call. Macromedia flash.
• SPAM Response for Dummies is a great, funny flash animation that educates the gullible about SPAM. (Titled by this webmistress.) Say it with me....
• Income Tax Return for Recently Laid-Off Dotcom Employees with No Job Prospects (PDF) A 1040 form that could be very useful to many folks.
• File /funny404 not found is a wonderful lament from a depressed web server who can't find the page you want.
• I Shot A Query Into The Net covers the joys of trying to ask questions on UseNet. Must be an old piece, because it doesn't mention spam!
• Geek Theology: In the Beginning, God Created the Bit
• How many Internet mail list subscribers does it take to change a light bulb? Gee, sounds like most of the mailing lists we're on....
• Twas the Net Before Christmas Delightfully seasonal troubleshooting
• The History of The Net as built by God, Dennis, Brian, Bill, Tim, Marc, Larry, Randal, Tom, Scott, Steve, and Linus. Thank you all!
• U.S. Senate demands end to Web browser development. Have you downloaded all the plug-ins yet?
• April Fools on the Net: An historical retrospective of the finer April-foolish Internet escapades.
• Internet 1-Liner Signatures: Creative geekery.

Technological Chaos:
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• HotAIR, from The Annals of Improbable Research, is a science humor magazine about research that makes people laugh, then makes them think. Read great scientific articles on topics like the comparison of apples and oranges, why exotic meat tases like chicken and the need for double-strength placebos. Great Ig Nobel prize competition.
• John Klossner Cartoons is a fabulous site of Klossner's great tech (and non-tech) cartoons. Klossner is the editorial cartoonist for Computerworld and Federal Computer Week magazines, along with other publications.
• Primate Programming Inc: The Evolution of Java and .NET Training - Don't bother outsourcing overseas, save substantial money by outsourcing to non-human primates. "Visual Basic 6.0 was the preferred IDE for the majority of experiment primate subjects."
• The Dialectizer takes text or other web pages and converts them to great dialects. Try Redneck, Jive, Swedish Chef, Hacker and others.
• The Love Song of J. Random Hacker, 1995, a great ode to computing of days gone by.
• Shark Tank is an excellent column in Computerworld full of real-life, jaw-dropping stories about clueless consultants, bungling bosses and useless users. You can also join their mailing list and have new stories mailed to you daily.
• Interview with the Search Engine where a reporter Asks Jeeves.
• SPAM haiku Archive also has SPAM sonnets and limericks. The food product, not the indigestible email.
• What the MIS Organizational Chart Doesn't Tell You shows who really wields the power in a DP shop.
• Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division provides information about research results, regulations, exposure and contamination alerts for dihydrogen monoxide. Protect yourself and your loved ones!
• You Know You've Been On The Computer Too Long When... your life and your computing are hard to tell apart.
• Remember when... there was a time before computers?
• The Silicon Valley Tarot is great! It contains The Hacker, Venture Capital, The Consultant, The Network... From the keyboard of Thomas Scoville.
• Interested in a dead horse business venture? shows other things many businesses tries to do with dead horses (doomed projects).
• Creator of C++ Admits Why He Created the Language is a fictitious but spooky interview with Bjarne Stroustrup.
• Why did the chicken cross the road? An Acrimonious Consulting approach to solving the problem.
• Top 10 Signs That You Work In The 90s really hits waaaay too close to home.
• Management Speak Translation Guide so you can know what they REALLY mean!
• The Shipwrecked Engineer shows how engineers will always behave in character.
• Funny RFCs is a list of real, intentionally funny Requests for Comments developed over the last 30 years. Splendid!
• The Original JCL Deck Has Been Found! In the beginning was the card deck....
• Open Season for Nerds reminds us to be careful where we go.
• Tired of Boring Interviews? Creative interview questions for managers.
• Computers in Movies makes us wonder if we should let Hollywood design the next round of hardware and software.
• Hacker Barbie: The doll our webmistress really wanted as a child.
• Evolution of a Programmer shows our code through the phases of our lives. Wild and all too real!
• Silicon Valley Jargon Watch An update from the Jargon Watch team on new lingo flowing out of the Silicon Valley and corporate jungles.
• What Software Version Numbers Really Mean - Engineers know this is true
• You know you work in Silicon Valley when... or, with this much pain you know you're alive!
• You know it is time to get out of consulting when... Most long-time consultants will recognize themselves, wince and chuckle.
• Why Engineers Don't Write Recipe Books An Engineering approach to making chocolate chip cookies. Yum!
• People for the Ethical Treatment of Software put more companies on their watch list for torturing software during testing.
• Abort, Retry, Ignore - Poe Puree Late night PC pleading a la Edgar Allen Poe
• Rules to Live By
• A Grandchild's Guide to Using Grandpa's Computer: Read this aloud!

Y2K Fun:
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• Y2K Problem Solved, so you can rest easily now.
• US Government Year 2000 Status Memo will set all our minds to rest about Y2K.
• A Year 2000 Parable Future history, as it may unfold.
• Millennium Problems - Deja Vu All Over Again And you thought you had problems with this millennium!