WHOOPS

(Thanks to Matt Filar)

Comments

[Not My Usual Alias]

Probably the doctor thought the knee problem was all in the patients head.

[Not My Usual Alias]

Err, patients' heads. I'm used to the bot giving me three chances to catch typos.

[Punkin "giant neon arrow pointing to spleen" Poo]

Can we loan them one of our Sharpies to mark the correct spot on the correct patient?

Ridicallis!

[AmerInParis]

Hang on! This article was in the paper WEEKS ago!

[Jeff Meyerson]

*makes note - no operations in Tanzania*

[gjd]

*sends package of Sharpies to Tanzania*

[gjd]

Oops. GMTA, Punkin. :-)

[Mot The Hoople]

Confusing a knee with a brain? mmmmm an easy mistake to make, this is Africa after all.

[Jeff Meyerson]

I wonder if he used Abby Normal's brain.

[Annie Where-but-here]

Siouxie mentioned this may have been posted before. I was gonna have her fired, but she just had brain surgery on her knee, so.....

[AmerInParis]

Just occurred to me that I said the article had been in the paper weeks ago.

Ain't that just the cutest, quaintest term? "Paper," as in newspaper -- not "this one made the round on the web weeks ago"...

Oh well. I will, after all, be turning 50 in 2008, so just call me an aging anachronism (hopefully a creative one!).

Now gather 'round little kiddiewinkles and I'll tell you all about the days when there were NO personal computers!

[Hammond Rye]

Doctor (humming): "The knee bone is connected to the neck bone..."

Nurse: "Doctor, what are you singing?"

Doctor: "Nothing important. Hand me the chainsaw."

[Eleanor]

Isn't that the truth, Amer? ;) Last week I wanted to know if there were any football games on Christmas day, go to google.
Don't call 411 anymore, google the place you're looking for.
I remember when there were no PCs but I can't remember how we found out stuff that we needed to know. :)

[AmerInParis]

"I remember when there were no PCs but I can't remember how we found out stuff that we needed to know. :)"

The library, for one. And then, we knew a lot less about distant lands... no BBC News or Daily Mail!

Even just 11 years ago I remember going nuts in Germany over the cost of a book in English -- and the difficulty in getting it! Now I use Amazon...

[daisymae]

El, when did you ever call 411 to find out about football games?

We got an Apple 2C in, I believe, 1983 or '84. Got our first PC in..mmm...the early 90's. I can't remember when I got my first cell phone. Do you guys remember? It was big is all I know. My husband's first cell phone (he worked for CBS) was big as a shoe.

Anybody still use the phone book?

[AmerInParis]

And there were also those other books, the uh, whatayacallem -- they were in libraries, too. Kinda like Wikipedia, only in hardcopy.

[Not My Usual Alias]

daisymae--
First cellular call was in August 1987. Didn't own one of the blasted things until the Moto "brick" in '94. Half an hour of talk time and a plan that extended to 25 miles short of Urbana, IL from Chicago, lest anyone try to contact the pristine university environment from the large population center.

The death of phone books is unfortunate for those who want to do historical research. In 20 years it will be tougher to track down a lot of stuff.

[AmerInParis]

We still get phone books here for folks with a fixed line account with France Telecom. And I think you can still go in to a big La Poste and find les pages jaunes et les pages blanches for different areas. (I always found it annoying that while most calls I wanted to make were to the 75 (Paris), I would only receive a phone book for the 92 (NOT Paris!).

[Eleanor]

*smacks head*
The Library!!! How cute is that? ;)

I use the yellow pages of the phone book every once in a while and daisy, you just call every football team to see if they're playing. So you had to call 411 to get the numbers. ;) *giggles*

Amer, in the late 80s my now ex-husband and I spent about 6 months travelling through Europe and about 2 of those were in Paris. I'd go to the bookstore on the Rue du (sp?) Rivoli that sold English books, Shakespeare & Co.? And yes, they were freakin' expensive, and so were the magazines, but it was all there was, after you read the International Herald Tribune and USA Today.
Good times, though. :)

[gjd]

Anyone remember not only using the library, but learning to use the card catalog? You know, the system that didn't go down like computers do?

I got my first cell phone in June of 2007. Under protest.

[queensbee]

*snork* at jeff for the young frankenstein ref.bwahhha.

[daisymae]

El, I use the yellow pages occasionally, too. Not everybody is on-line, yet.

snork @ calling 411 for the team names

[AmerInParis]

"Anyone remember not only using the library, but learning to use the card catalog? You know, the system that didn't go down like computers do?

I got my first cell phone in June of 2007. Under protest.

Posted by: gjd | 11:12 AM on December 26, 2007"

Unfortunately, libraries aren't open 24/7.

I didn't start using a "telephone portable" until 2004, I think, when I was looking for work and found it useful to be able to set up job interviews while shopping for art supplies. And then I think I've mentioned before how helpful they are with French digicodes, or when meeting up with a friend at a place one of us kinda knows (OK, so follow one of the three Metro exits -- now, which one is it, oh there's a photobooth by it. You can't miss it.), but the other doesn't know it (did she mention the guy selling roses, or that candy machine???).

[AmerInParis]

"I'd go to the bookstore on the Rue du (sp?) Rivoli that sold English books, Shakespeare & Co.? And yes, they were freakin' expensive,

Posted by: Eleanor | 11:00 AM on December 26, 2007"

WHSmith is on Rue de Rivoli, between Place de Concorde and the Louvre, and there's an English/French bookstore is a few stores down. It has an Italian -sounding name. There's also an American/French bookstore called Brentano's that's near the Opera (not too far from where I work).

The books are all still expensive (except probably for Shakespeare). I use Amazon.fr for books in French or English -- no shipping charges unless I have to use one of their alternates (like Powell's) but even those usually end up cheaper.

Shakespeare's is a revered Paris institution -- even among the French (many of whom speak English MUCH better than they think. Many speak English much better than I speak French).

[Jessica R.]

We go to the library once a week! I use the phone book, but my husband would rather look up a store online. I don't like the computerized card catalog very much because there is no uniform entry SOP. Try looking up a SERIES in that thing! I wanted to find some of the DK Wonder series of books; its title is Oceans. YIKES!

We got our first PC in 1992 shortly after our wedding date. Jim had a cell phone for work by about 1996, I think. I didn't get mine until about 2002, I guess, before that there was no extra money for such luxuries.

[4'11]

The phone book is useful. I was 4'8" when I was 16, and needed it to see over the steering wheel. 7 years ans 3 inches later, i still do.

[Batman]

I had a portable phone back in the 1960s. It had wheels and was powered by a turbine.

[AmerInParis]

"The phone book is useful. I was 4'8" when I was 16, and needed it to see over the steering wheel. 7 years ans 3 inches later, i still do.

Posted by: 4'11 | 12:11 PM on December 26, 2007"

Just like my Granny! She was 4'11" (and my Granddad was 5'2").

It was cute to see her drive her Caddy.

[ScottMGS]

Two things:

1) AiP: I, too, turn 50 this coming year. Yeah, 1958!

2) Sylvia Beach (founder of Shakespeare and Co.) has a B&B named after her in Newport Oregon, called (obviously) The Sylvia Beach Hotel. All the rooms are decorated after a particular author. A very fun place.

[ScottMGS]

That should, of course, read "Newport, Oregon".

[Suzy Q]

gjd: I remember the card catalog in the library, too. Those long banks of cabinets with little slide-out drawers with thousands of cards. And you had to know the Dewey decimal system to use the library, too!

Ah, those were the days...

*sticks thumb out for ride on geezer bus*

[GungaDan]

I wrote my first business plan using the phone book and citing their marketing research, They were 100% correct. I did get 7 calls a day. 6 were marketers though. LOL
(soon we
will be telling young'ns about rotary phones and having to get up to change the Chanel on the TV)

[Eileen]

I remember working at the St. Petersburg Evening Independent in 1976 when their reporters got their first PCs. I wrote the obituaries on Saturday morning, entirely in DOS. And I ended up training many of the reporters -- long since retired -- at the paper -- long since dead -- before I graduated to a community weekly. Wait a minute; Is that an oxymoron or just moronic?

[Mare Bear]

For all the blogits who think they're ready for the geezer bus: you're not. I'm 27, and remember how to use the card catalog, the Dewey decimal system, owned and used a rotary phone, still have a set of encyclopedias, and have a 1970 black and white non-cable ready TV that has the greatest over-the-air reception of all our tvs, so good that it's kept in the basement in case of tornadoes.
I don't think that being well-educated in the glories of yesteryear makes you a geezer; it makes you normal. I used a computer for the first time in 4th grade (1989) and never owned one till I entered college (1998). My teachers hated that I turned in papers in handwriting, so I had to buy one.
Although I now have a cell phone, 5 email accounts, a Blackberry for work and access to multiple computers throughout the day, I'd much rather have the peace and quiet of the pre-computer days, when you could actually go home at 5 and it meant you were disconnected from work. Or go on a vacation without feeling you needed to check in with the office. (In spite of this article, though, I am thankful for modern medicine!)

[GungaDan]

You rock Mare!! first round is on me!

[Eleanor]

Yes, Amer - W.H. Smith. Thanks. And I seem to remember there was a little stand up and order place nearby by you could get a Croque Monsieur. Yum.

[JEC666]

Paper or no, this was posted a loooong time ago. Does the interweb damage the memory? And it didn't take a knee surgeon to figure that one out.