Friday FAIL

 Yesterday morning after feeding and walkingthe dogs, I sat down at our computer and jiggled the mouse to wake it up. (We don't turn it off overnight; it just goes to sleep.) Imagine my surprise when, instead of the wallpaper background, I sat the "blue screen of death". There was some kind of scary warning that something was terribly amiss, and I should restart immediately. If the problem didn't go away, then I would need to call a technician.

I pressed enter and the machine then restarted itself, going through the usual boot cycle on a black screen. I saw a message, "no operating system found". Wait, what" I did too have an operating system - Windows 7. "Are you sure you looked everywhere?" I asked it.

The computer replied by restarting itself again automatically, and I held my breath, waiting. The result was the same. "No operating system". I was starting to get worried. What if Ron or I had unwittingly downloaded malicious code that ate Windows? I would have to take the machine in to be repaired, and everyone there would see my browser history. Why, oh why, had I not cleared my history? They would have such a laugh over all the spanking blogs in my history.

I ahd one last ace up my sleeve. I pressed the on/off button and held it down firmly until the machine switched off. I counted to thirty then pressed it again. the computer came to life, breezed through the black screen boot up processes, and then I heard the chime and saw the welcome words, "Windows is starting". Phew!

 I need tp have this inscribed on my Medic Alert bracelet.




Now on to the lighter side of computer usage.

 That's a relief!

 It sure is. Who can remember the password?

Good old spam comments. Don't you love them?



Don't forget to complete the caption in the next fifteen minutes, or you will have seven years of bad luck.

Wednesday WIN

Today let's take a trip down memory lane. Many of you might remember back in the 1980s when personal computers first came out. For those of you who have never known life without the internet, hold onto your mousepads.

How many times have you struggled with a Word formatting problem? Wasn't it easier with a typewriter and a little correction fluid?

Who remembers Clippy? He was the little animated office assistant who helped you figure out how to use Microsoft products. A help file with attitude.

It took big bucks to have a small fraction of the processing capacity we all take for granted today.

For those of you who don't understand this, let me explain. Before Windows was developed, there was DOS. No icons, no wallpaper, no Start menu, just a black screen where you typed your commands beside the C prompt. If you typed something the computer didn't understand, it would helpfully display the message "Syntax Error". Now sing along...

Lolcats didn't exist way back then, but systems crashed just as often.

Wednesday WIN

Most of us are deeply devoted to our computers and the internet.

The concept has been around for thousands of years.

 You can take on a totally new persona, because no one can see you.

Surfing the net takes you to places you wish you hadn't gone. (Insert bookmark here.)

Just when you're settling down to enjoy a good spanking story, you get interrupted.

The last wish for most of us. Remove those spanking blogs STAT!

Is Your Bottom Ready?

Get your backside ready for the rest of the summer with these three handy tips.

1. Take the stairs whenever you can.

2. While you're stair-climbing, straighten each leg and lift it straight back.

3. Do squats.


And to prepare your backside for some special attention, these three exercises can be done during spare moments throughout the day.

1. Practise bending over every available chair, sofa arm, desk, railing or table whenever you can. Include a few toe touches because you just never know.

2. Take a deep breath. While exhaling, say "ow, ow, OW" loudly and forcefully. If you think someone is staring at you, switch to "ho, ho, HO" and say you're playing Santa at the office Christmas party.

3. Clench one bottom cheek, hold for a count of one, then release. Repeat on the other side. Continue to alternate sides for the length of an average spanking.

Do these three simple exercises daily and you - and your backside - will be ready for summertime spanking.

Knock First

The 25-year-old boyfriend of a 34-year-old woman was beaten with a baseball bat and punched by a group of her teenage daughter's friends. The girl heard slaps and screams coming from the bedroom, assumed her mom needed help, and called some friends to intervene. But it seems the noise was all part of some consensual intimate activities. Police charged the teens with assault.

I first saw this item in a newspaper, where the slapping was mentioned twice, and it sounded like some spanking fun to me. When I searched for a link to the story so I could include it here, few of the websites that carried it included any mention of slaps.

Read a full account of the incident here. The comments at the end of the item leave no doubt that most readers considered it harmless fun.

The Power of the Internet

The internet is a powerful resource. It can be an asset or a liability, a friend or an enemy, depending on how we use it.

I want to tell you a story, but it isn't about spanking. Some of the details have been altered to protect the identities of the people concerned, but it really happened a few years ago.

I belong to an online group of people who correspond by email to discuss a [vanilla] interest that we all share. Some groups don't permit off-topic posts, but in this group, anything goes, so the conversations are about anything and everything.

One day, a group member asked us all to think good thoughts about her son, who would be undergoing surgery the next day. Many members responded that they would. At the time there were about 800 people in the group.

The following week, someone else asked us to think about her mother who was ill. These requests became more frequent as people realized this was a place where people cared about each other. The moderator added the names of those who were sick to the home page of the group, as well as to the bottom of each email that went out to everyone. Names were added and removed as time went by.
Ron has a friend whom I'll call Pat. On a holiday long weekend Pat came down with something, probably the flu, but serious enough to warrant a trip to Emergency. The diagnosis was indeed the flu, and that was that.

But Pat didn't get any better. After a few days another trip to Emergency resulted in an airlift to a bigger hospital that was better equipped to deal with whatever this was. And the news from the big hospital was not good. Pat was having organ failure and was put at the top of the transplant list. 

Ron had known Pat and Pat's partner Chris for many years, and had watched their children grow up. He was as upset as they were, and there wasn't anything any of us could do but stand by helplessly and wait. Then I had an idea. I told my group about Pat's predicament and soon another name appeared at the bottom of every email. Pat was in the hearts and minds of 800 strangers all over the world.

I told Ron what I had done and expected him to be sceptical. But I was wrong. He was touched by my gesture, and told Chris and the children, who were also very pleased and grateful.

We were all prepared for the worst. But after a few days, Pat started to improve, and by the end of the following week was released from hospital and sent home with medication. We'll never know exactly what was wrong or why the condition suddenly reversed itself, but I like to think that my 800 friends on the internet--strangers I've never met and probably never will--played some part in it.