How to be Annoying in the Computer Lab
• Log on, wait a sec, then get a frightened look on your face and scream, “Oh my God! They’ve found me!” and bolt.
• Laugh uncontrollably for about 3 minutes and then suddenly stop and look suspiciously at everyone who looks at you.
• When your computer is turned off, complain to the monitor on duty that you can’t get the darned thing to work.
• After he/she’s turned it on, wait 5 minutes, turn it off again, and repeat the process for a good half hour.
• Type frantically, often stopping to look at the person next to you evilly.
• Before anyone else is in the lab, connect each computer to a different screen than the one it’s set up with.
• Write a program that plays the “Pokemon” theme song and play it at the highest volume possible over and over again.
• Work normally for a while. Suddenly look amazingly startled by something on the screen and crawl underneath the desk.
• Ask the person next to you if they know how to tap into top-secret Pentagon files.
• Use AIM to make passes at people you don’t know.
• Make a small ritual sacrifice to the computer before you turn it on.
• Bring a chainsaw, but don’t use it. If anyone asks why you have it, say, “Just in case…” mysteriously.
• Type on VAX for awhile. Suddenly start cursing for 3 minutes about everything bad about your life. Then stop and continue typing.
• Enter the lab, undress, and start staring at other people as if they’re crazy while typing.
• Light candles in a pentagram around your terminal before starting.
• Ask around for a spare zip disk. Offer $1. Keep asking until someone agrees. Then, pull a disk out of your fly and say, “Oops. Forgot.”
• Every time you press return and there is processing time required, pray, “Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease,” and scream “YES!” when it finishes.
• “Disk fight!”
• Start making out with the person at the terminal next to you, whether you know them or not.
• Put a straw in your mouth and put your hands in your pockets. Type by hitting the keys with the straw.
• If you’re sitting in a swivel chair, spin around singing “The Thong Song” whenever there is processing time required.
• Draw a picture of a woman (or man) on a piece of paper and tape it to your monitor. Try to seduce it. Act like it hates you and then complain loudly that women (men) are worthless.
• Try to stick a Nintendo cartridge in the disk drive. When it doesn’t work, get the supervisor.
• When you start up a PC, ask loudly where the smiling Apple face is.
• Print out the complete works of Shakespeare, then when it’s all done (two days later) say that all you wanted was a line or two.
• Sit and stare at the screen, chomping on your nails. After doing this for a while, spit them out at the feet of the person next to you.
• Stare at the screen, grind your teeth, stop, look at the person next to you. Repeat procedure, making sure you never provoke the person enough to let them blow up, as this releases tension, and it is • far more effective to let them linger.
• If you have long hair, take a typing break, look for split ends, cut them, and deposit them on your neighbor’s keyboard as you leave.
• Put a large, gold-framed portrait of the British royal family on your desk and loudly proclaim that it inspires you.
• Come to the lab wearing several layers of socks. Remove shoes and place them on top of the monitor. Remove socks layer by layer and drape them around the monitor. Exclaim sudden haiku about the aesthetic beauty of cotton on plastic.
• Take the keyboard and sit under the computer. Type up your paper like this. Then go to the lab supervisor and complain about the bad working conditions.
• Laugh hysterically, shout “You will all perish in a great flood” and continue working.
• Bring some dry ice and make it look like the computer is
