Verity Stob is the comedienne of the programming world. She has been writing satirical chronicles of techie life since 1988. Her column first appeared in the legendary .EXE Magazine, then Dr. Dobbs" Journal, and it now graces The Register. For the first time, the very best of Stob"s columns have been collected into one essential book. Discover why Mrs. Bill Gates calls in a programmer to fix her plumbing; find out about the Google computer that suffers from Tourette"s syndrome; discover the shameful secret of the CEO who types his correspondence in CAPITAL LETTERS, and much, much more! Table of Contents How Friendly Is Your Software? The Programmers’ Guide to Programmers Larn Yasel Programmin! POET’S Day The Maltese Modem Late One Night The Kraken Sleeps Twenty Things (Almost) You Didn’t Know Few Lend (but Fools) The Best Improve with Age STOB versus the Software Engineers Auntie Verity’s Hardware Help Underground Liff The Games We Play A Chance to Meet You Wot Any Bule Kno About Not Fairies’ Footfalls FLGMJLLGHQ In Glorious VerityVision I Want to Die Dear Bill Modem Tales Around and Around Four Yorkshiremen Email and Femail Morse Code I Prefer Tea Junior Makes Three Don’t Look Back Book of Anders The Black Eye of the Little Blue Techie Mr. Jobs Works Next Door Quality Street You May Start 8086 and All That The Browser Park Gates Et Tu Gnome? Let’s Parler Y2K! Yocam Hokum Bye Bye Byte Night Mail Cringing for Bobot or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About the Quality of My Work and Just Made Dreary TV Programmes Instead One Nostril Hair, 17mm, Grey The Dog’s Breakfast Book of Yoc-am (Cont"d.) Fair Play By Other Means Waltz$ Thirteen Ways to Loathe VB Claire’s Story and Other Tragedies Down the Pole Out to Lunch Two by Two Big Iron Age Man Just William Downwards and Backwards with Dotdotdot Up with the Joneses Wherever He Goes The Devil’s Netiquette At the Tomb of the IUnknown Interface Double Plus Good? I Know This, It’s Unix Your Call Is Important to Us Way After 1984 Patter Song Roger D. Hubris Ate My Hamster State of Decay In Memoriam—Edsger Dijkstra, 1930–2002 Open Saucery Idle Thoughts of an Idle Process Fragments from a New Finnish Epic Stoblog We Don’t Guarantee That Using The Latest .NET XML Windows API Feature Can Metaphorically Speaking Put Bounce In Your Boobs And/Or Hairs On Your Chest (Delete As Applicable) But By Golly We Find It Extremely Hard To Imagine Circumstances Under Which This Will Not Follow As Naturally As Night Follows Day Soundtrack Damnation Without Relief Cold Comfort Server Farm ForgeAhead One After 409 Jam Today Borland Revelations Patenting by Numbers Confessions of a Spammer Solder Cellar—Kindly Accept Substitutes Lara’s Last Stand? Too Obscure or Rude