ol' beige on a gray and white day

It's snowing and the Networking in my old Beige G3 is seriously corrupted. I asked for advice on an Apple forum and a Macintosh group, and, of course, nobody lifts a finger to give me an answer. Another little reason why some of us feel a little Dumpy.

To get technical: It's an old 266MHz G3 running OS 10.2.8. Network settings in Preferences stalls the first time, shows a lot of blank tabs the second time, and frequently crashes. Network Utility is also flakey and crashy. It does show a phantom PCI Ethernet card in Slot A1 Port 2 which this machine doesn't have. This phantom card does not show up System Profiler. I've zapped the Prams, reset the mobo and ran Disk Utility, none of which fixed anything.

Anyway, forgot to post the "Car Script". The picture is a bit of a rerun.

The Car that Cried Alarm
A Jay Ward and Bill Scott pastiche by Doug Holverson

(Titles):
Pastiche Parable
“The Car that Cried Alarm”

SCENE#1: (A Motorist is dressed like a fifties sports car enthusist.)

Narrator Once upon a time there was a Motorist.

(Motorist waves.)

Narrator And what’s a motorist without a motor?

(A motor falls out of the sky and lands in the outstretched hand of the Motorist.)

Motorist Yeah! Without it I’d be just an ist! (pause) Or worse yet, just a lowly pedestrian!

Narrator And what’s a motor without a car wrapped around it?

(The Motorist tosses the motor over his shoulder, bounces it with his heel, where it lands in the motor compartment a fancy Car! Pan over to a view of the fancy Car, possibly a cartoonified convertible that looks like the love child of the Dodge Viper and the Chrysler 300.)

Narrator Now this wasn’t just any car. It was the extra sporty model!

(Close up of the chrome fender script “190XT Turbo”.)

Narrator And to prove it, this car had chrome letters and numbers arranged in a fast sounding combination and even a buzzword appended.

(Fender shot of a “dub” wheel with a “spinner”.)

Narrator With the shortest tires on the tallest rims with that twirly pinwheel thingy inside.

(View of the Car and arrows pointing to the front and rear spoilers.)

Narrator It had spoilers on its rump and chinny chin chin.

(Side view of the Car with the Motorist in the seat making car sounds.)

Narrator It was adorned with boy racer stripes.

Motorist Vroom! Vroom! Brrruuuuum! Brrrrrraaaaaaaawwwwwppp!

(A radio with Sputnik antennas sticking out of it orbiting over the Car.)

Narrator It had satellite radio.

Radio Beep beep!

(View of five-gallon exhaust tips.)

Narrator It had five-gallon exhaust tips.

(Parody under hood shot with an insane number of parts rotating, half comedically in the wrong direction,and reciprocating.)

Narrator It was over its head in cams. It was all torqued off with horsepower. And had cubic inches by the liter.

(Close up of gaudy chromey taillights with multiple lenses.)

Narrator It had what were called “Eurostyle” taillights, although they seemed uniquely American in their gaudiness.

(Arrows pointing to random parts of the Car.)

Narrator And a lot of other trendy stuff that will make this cartoon’s writer feel hip, but will embarrass this cartoon in a few years when it is all passé.

(The Motorist is brushing the teeth of the grill of the Car while his lonely S.O. pokes her head out.)

Narrator The Motorist truly loved his car as he always washed and waxed and polished and detailed it.

S.O. Hun, you ever gonna spend some time with me?

Motorist In a while, Dear!

S.O. By the way, have you seen my toothbrush?

(The Motorist holds up the toothbrush that he is using, looks at it, and blushes.)

SCENE#2: (The Motorist is flipping a switch on the dash of his Car.)

Narrator Our Motorist had an alarm installed to insure that his true love stayed out of harm’s way.

(The Motorist is giving instructions to his Car.)

Motorist Now you know what to do. Just make lots of obnoxious noises if you would ever find yourself being burglarized.

(The Motorist walks away from the Car.)

Narrator Wouldn’t you know it, just as out Motorist was out of sight of his beloved.

(A dumb drooling Dog walks directly into a fireplug. The Dog walks into it again. The Dog then walks around the fireplug and then up to the Car and sniffs a tire.)

Car BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE! BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE!

(Dog runs away as alarm in the Car goes off.)

Dog Yipe!

(The Motorist and a Constable run towards the Car.)

Car BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE! BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE!

(The Car quietly snickers as the Motorist gives an embarrassed shrug as the Constable gives him a stern look.)

Car Hee hee!

(The motorist and the Constable walk away from the Car.)

Narrator Just as his back is turned.

(The Car is sitting by itself. A leaf flutters in the direction of the Car. The leaf lands on the Car and the alarm goes off.)

Car BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE! BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE!

(The Motorist and a Constable run towards the Car.)

Car BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE! BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE!

(The Car quietly snickers as the blushing Motorist gives an embarrassed shrug as the Constable gives him a stern look.)

Car Hee hee!

(The Motorist and the Constable walk away from the Car. When they are out of sight, a sullen Teen sulks by the Car and gives it a sideways glance.)

Narrator A sullen teen just happens to sulk by and gave our car a sideways glance.

(Sullen Teen runs away as alarm in the Car goes off.)

Car BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE! BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE!

Sullen Teen Yipe!

(The Motorist and a Constable run towards the Car.)

Car BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE! BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE!

(The Car is quietly sinckering as the blushing Motorist gives an embarrassed shrug gesturing with his palm held up as the Constable gives him a stern look.)

Car Hee hee!

(The annoyed Motorist waves his finger at the Car as the Constable walks away.)

Motorist I am getting so sick and tired of your false alarms! The next one better be for goodness real!

(The Motorist walks away from the Car. The Car is sitting alone.)

Narrator Just after the Motorist stormed off to savor a decaffeinated double espresso…. (pause)… And for no apparent reason.

Car BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE! BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE!

(The Motorist and a Constable run towards the Car.)

Car BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE! BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE!

(The angry Constable points his billy-club at the sweating and forced grinning Motorist.)

Constable Just a friendly warning, citizen, this here town does have a noise ordinance!

Motorist Yes, sir! Absolutely, sir!

Car Hee hee!

(The annoyed Motorist waves his finger at the Car as the Constable walks away.)

Motorist I’ve had it up to here with your false alarms! It’s enough to drive me to seek the companionship of actual human-type people!

(The Motorist storms away from the Car. The Car is now sitting alone.)

Narrator Just as luck, or the polar opposite, would have it….

(Stereotypical unshaven and masked cartoon Burglar with crowbar shows up to threaten the Car.)

Narrator Who would show up but a genuine to badness Burglar on his nefarious rounds!

Car *Gulp!*

(The Burglar raises the crowbar over his head. The Burglar is swinging the crowbar down. Cut to a view of the city’s sky line.)

Sound Effects SMASH! BWEEEEEEE!!!! BWEEEEEEEEEBLE!

SCENE#3: (The Constable in a dinner with a cup on coffee on the counter and he is about to bite into a donut as the alarm wails in the background.)

Narrator But after just so many false alarms.

(Constable pauses to glance in the direction of the noise Then the blasé Constable bites into his donut.)

SCENE#4: (The Motorist is sitting on his couch with his S.O., trying to hold hands and snuggle cheek to cheek, but the alarm wails in the background. The Motorist and S.O. make annoyed glances to the direction of the noise. The Motorist reaches over and pulls down the window shade. The Motorist and his S.O. position a shared set of earmuffs over their ears. With their earmuffs on and the noise blocked out, the Motorist and his S.O. go back in warmly holding hands and snuggling cheek to cheek.)

SCENE#5: (The shocked Motorist comes out to see that his Car has been battered and stripped.)

Narrator Next morning after the dirty deed was done.

Motorist Oh my goodness! What a disaster!

(With quivering lower lip, the Motorist talks on this cell phone.)

Motorist Hello? Insurance? My car’s been vandalized and stripped of all of its goodies! Totaled? Listen up! This was my special unique car! I can’t just get another one just like it! Look at how Detroit messed around with the newer models! They’re all lower and faster and more powerful!

(The Motorist has an epiphany. Then the Motorist walks off scene, away from this Car, while talking on this cell phone.)

Motorist Be right down to fill out your form to get me one of them new models! And this time I won’t repeat the mistake of not ordering those goose down stuffed, 27 way power Corinthian leather seats!

(The sad stripped Car is just sitting there.)

Narrator So the moral of this story is: To the victim belong the spoilers!

(The close up of the sad stripped Car is just sitting there with a Noise Ordinance ticket pressed on its shattered windshield.)