The Golden Noob Awards

[DaveW]

I would have liked to turn this into a competition, but i simply don't have the time. Maybe next time!

Who would you nominate for a Golden Noob? Tell us your story, and let's see who has the best!

Personally, I'd have to nominate my mother, who one day started screaming that the computer had some kind of virus and was broken. Yup, you guessed it, it was my 'Enter the Matrix' screensaver. Other amazing noobities from her include complaining to my brother that the electric TV antenna isn't working...she's checked the connection and the power is on, the little blue light is on and everything. Whoops, it's not plugged into the TV mother!

I'm sure you guys can beat this, and i suspect that Airbozo is going to pwn this thread, but i want to who you'd nominate for a Golden Noob. Rules are simple: you have to know the person you nominate, and therefore you will know if your stories are true or not. ;)

Let's see what you got!

-Dave

[Bucko]

I was just at the local PC shop buying a couple of things when I heard a gem from a guy new to computers.
He was in looking at buying a new computer and the sales guy was pricing up some stuff and quoting Windows XP's price.
The n00b said "I was told it's buggy and I'm not going to buy it until they fix the bugs!"
I left my friendly sales guy to it and chuckled to myself as I walked out...

[DaveW]

Heh heh...always a classic. ;)

-Dave

[Mitternacht]

(Does it have to be about computers? If not, here's mine.)

I was helping my friend Ronnie with an engine lift last Christmas break, and his girlfriend came by and wanted us to find out what the rattle in her exhaust is. We decide to screw around with her, and told her that her muffler bearings were bad. She said "Oh," and drove away. She came back an hour later, and she was mad. She told us that she went to Meineke. We said, "you did what?" When she came up to us, and we thought we were caught. :D

She said "It wasn't in the muffler, it was a loose clamp!"

I said "Oh, well, how were the muffler bearings?"

"They were fine!"

[Slug Toy]

ya ive got a couple gems. they're really annoying too. damn computer illiterate parents...

ill start with my mom first. shes the better of the two. the biggest issue is that she cant remember how to copy paste. im always being called upstairs to copy paste things into documents. its as simple as right clicking on the picture to copy, and pasting is pretty straight forward too. she just looks at me like i just solved a complex mathematical equation. ive taught her how to do it about five times now. ill probably have to do it again tonight too.

now on to my dad. this is great. he has a laptop with windows xp pro on it. when he first got it, we had to register windows. i had to go through a few steps to do it, and it wanted to confirm the user name. i put in his name, and for the heck of it i put in the name of his electrical company (he's one of four owners). now every time he installs a program that asks for a user name and/or company, the information i entered pops up and he has a fit. his rationale is that his identity is being stolen, and he starts yelling at me to fix. i do a few things to make it look tricky, and then continue with the installation when he isnt looking. so it still installs under his name and company, but he doesnt know.

the best thing about this situation... every time something goes wrong, its my fault because "no one know what the hell they're doing". i really dont think my dad can complain because hes the one causing the problems because he doesnt know what hes doing. i get stuck trying to fix things when i dont even know what went wrong in the first place. what a wonderful life eh?

[DaveW]

i get stuck trying to fix things when i dont even know what went wrong in the first place. what a wonderful life eh?

You need to make them respect your authority! Pull that line from that movie 'The Core': I only know one language. 101001... ;)

-Dave

[Reyer]

Well in middle school, in the library, there was a bunch of computers lined up, and i used to go behind them with a keyboard and mouse.

I would find some weird kid, and camp out behind his computer, with my keyboard and mouse plugged into the back of his. I would type in " im watching you little child, some times i video tape you when you sleep" it was pretty funny. And i would shake around their mouses and stuff.

Fore some reason they were never smart enough to just stand up and look behind the computer. Instead they would just yell and shake around their mouse.

That was some funny stuff, they would usually call over the librarian, and by the time she would arrive, i would replug in his stuff and book it.

silly noobs

[nil8]

I have to call one on myself.
I've always loved large towers and used to go to LAN parties.
Well, I went to a lan party with my large tower and when I get there and set everything up, my machine wouldn't boot.
I checked my power connections, ram, everything. My friends were fragging each other into oblivion and I was stuck with a machine that wouldn't boot at all. No post, nothing.

I completely took apart my computer and reassembled it. 2 hours after I discovered there was a problem, I figured out what the issue was. My Slot A Athlon slightly shifted in transit and didn't connect completely.
That was a serious doh moment for me.

I have a couple of work stories that should go in here, and will eventually.

[Omega]

I have to call one on myself.
I've always loved large towers and used to go to LAN parties.
Well, I went to a lan party with my large tower and when I get there and set everything up, my machine wouldn't boot.
I checked my power connections, ram, everything. My friends were fragging each other into oblivion and I was stuck with a machine that wouldn't boot at all. No post, nothing.

I completely took apart my computer and reassembled it. 2 hours after I discovered there was a problem, I figured out what the issue was. My Slot A Athlon slightly shifted in transit and didn't connect completely.
That was a serious doh moment for me.

I have a couple of work stories that should go in here, and will eventually.


I have TONS of LAN Party horror stories. Some later, as sleep is now.

[Drum Thumper]

The obligatory World of Warcraft story:

We (as in my guild and I) are raiding Molten Core (40 man end game raid for those of you who don't play the game). We wipe on Geddon and I call for a 5 minute bathroom break. I go take care of business and I come back to my computer to find my roommate 3 sheets to the wind and meowing over vent. How he figured out what my hotkey was is beyond me, especially since he was drunk.

So I kick him off my computer and tell him that he needs to get his system up and running so we can deathmatch in UT2K4.

About an hour or two later, we're finishing up for the night (8/10 for the evening, not too bad for the second full guild run if I do say so myself) and I hear my roommate out in the living room cussing up a storm. I go out there to see what the hell is going on and he's about to do some serious damage to his computer (decent ASUS skt 939 board, 3 ghz chip, 2 gigs of ram and 3 hard drives) cause he can't get the thing to boot.

Bear in mind, he's rip roaring drunk at this point.

I tell him I'd be more than happy to take a look at it, cause I had a pretty good idea what the problem was.

Root around in the case for about 30 seconds, plug in his 3 hard drives to the PSU, and whaddya know? His computer boots up!

And as payback for 'meowing' on my vent, I went and told half my guild what had just transpired.

Lesson of the day: Don't drink and build computers. Especially when I'm present. Cause I won't let you live it down!

[DaveW]

My Slot A Athlon slightly shifted in transit and didn't connect completely.

Dude, that's not a noob story at all! A noob wouldn't have even got that far!

-Dave

[Ironcat]

I don't know that this is a "noob" story but it's the true story of the stupidest girl I ever dated.

I once dated a girl named Nicki. Anyway, one night we are watching "Dances With Wolves" on television and the majestic buffalo (bison) were thundering across the plains.
She turns to me and very earnestly asks "Where are their wings?"
I believe my reply was a heartfelt "huh?"
She said "We eat buffalo wings all the time, but I don't see any wings on them."

I stared at her in awe and horror, realizing I'd have to end this relationship soon, and decided on how best to tackle this.

"Well Nicki... penguins have wings and they can't fly right?"
"Right"
"Same thing."
"Oh, okay."

It didn't have to make sense, she didn't need to see the wings, she just needed someone to explain it to her.

True story.

[slytherock]

This story bring me back to MY n00b years.
It started when I got my first USB Keyboard :rolleyes: I was so excited to get it out of the box and plug it. So I did, installed the drivers and all. Everything was working well.

When I rebooted, the comuter started beeping Beep, beep, beep... with no end. The computer was working right, exept when I enter a writing section, the letter eeeeeeeeeeeeeee was starting to write himself with no end. and the annoying beeps wont stop.

I sended messages to a couple of forums asking for help.

It took me hours to figured out I still had my old PS2 keybord plugued (no problem there) but it was standing on the side of my monitor hitting the letter e....

[d_stilgar]

I needed to get a copy of my birth certificate at school, so I had my mom fax it to me. After it was done faxing she said, "Could you fax that back when you are done, it's my only copy." I'm not sure how she thinks the machine works, but she obviously thinks that science is a little farther ahead than it is.



Okay, that didn't happen. Pretty funny though right?
You can thank Brian Regan (http://www.brianregan.com/) for that one.