LOL, dad

It recently occurred to us, here, at LOLdads, that perhaps some of our readers would like to know of the inception of our blog.

Beginning on this day and continuing for about a month, my father chose to sign his emails in a most precarious manner:

The first email of interest was sent on 23 March, at 1607 local time, Jerusalem (GMT +2) and 0807 Chicago (GMT -6). From my father, Maynard, to me:

"...So skype me now or in the morning, either way i'll be on. LOL, dad"

Exhibit 2:

An email sent the same day at 1653 local time

"then back home probably by 3:30- 4:00 which i know is your midnite. some how there's another thing i need to do somewhere in there. lol me."

Exhibit 3:

March 27, 2010

"...P.S. Where is Mr. Bear these days ? Is he enjoying the dessert too ? LOL, me"

**notice the post script written before the salutation. And, just to embarrass myself a bit, Mr. Bear is my stuffed animal :)

Exhibit 4:

Sent April 10, 2010

"got your message.sitting w/ laptop open, but doing something else. by the time i closed that up, you were gone. sorry i missed you. what time tomorrow? lol me." Exhibit 5: April 12, 2010

"Have to go to starbucks. Its8:30pm your time , I'll be back by 9. Try me then.lol me."

Exhibit 6:

April 19, 2010

"I have to go back for a rolling pin later this week, so let me know. What diameter pin would be best if you had your choice? lol, dad"

Exhibit 7:

April 25, 2010

"Anything going on?

I'm tired, it's 2;25AM. Going to sleep now. bye, lol, dad"

I think we all see where this is going. When did "lol" become a salutation? I thought that it was something thirteen year olds used in IMing during the mid-90's. Oh well. I have to give the man some credit for learning how to use a computer after 35 years. That's right. Sadly, my father, who is so wise and sage-like in his knowledge, never got beyond a type writer.

At least LOL is better than the time he signed the email "TTFN".

*This is a revised post. To anyone who saw the original, I would like to apologize for mentioning anyone by name or including any personal stories in the post. It was recommended to me, by the LOLdads team, that we keep this as impersonal as possible. Which is funny because we're making fun of our families. And also I'm sorry for not having a unified font/size in the original post. Happy reading!

LOL, Elisa

"I managed to create a presentation for work all by myself, but for some reason it doesn't change slides when I click".

Size doesn't matter

Gradnpa: "I shot more than 700 photos while I was traveling, and I copied them all onto this Disc-on-Key. How come there are only 49 on it now?"

Father: "Dad, what's the size of your Disc-On-Key?"

Grandpa: "It says here 256. What, that's not enough for 700 photos?!"

[contributed by Olga]

faceless

On Mom's Facebook wall:
Daughter: "Mom, you should add a profile picture"
Mom: "I tried, but couldn't get it to paste!!"
 [contributed by Gilad]

Change comes from within

My dad still uses Eudora, just because he got it as part of the "internet program package" that came with Windows 3.11. Yes, you heard me. Windows 3.11.




[Contributed by Gilad]

Just a thought-

Some of the people who may enjoy reading us because they're able to laugh at themselves, won't be able to follow it because they just don't know how to RSS.
What a vicious circle.

Tiny niece, huge pic

Dear parent,

A BMP picture can be re-sized and condensed using JPEG.
This way, it won't take 5 hours to send me an e-mail with one picture of my cute new niece, and when I open the picture, her eye won't be larger than my head.

[contributed by Yaron]

Same Dad, different day...

What is the deal with sending me the same spam garbage over and over again?
Below is a list of spam I wish to stop receiving:

1. Anything "inspiring" the Dalai Lama said. 
2. Lists of "funny" things that happen to you when you get old.
3. The winners of "this year's" Washington Post's Mensa Invitational word contest.
4. Pictures of cute dogs and cats.
5. Requests to forward e-mails in order to save someone's life (they are probably dead. the original e-mail is dated 6 years ago).
6. AOL\Microsoft conspiracies. (They won't pay anyone 100$ for anything. you will pay them. "Really! It works!")
7. Those pictures of the amazing street art that looks like there's an actual hole in the pavement to Narnia. Amazing, but i've seen it a million times.
8. Power Point presentations with Celine Dion singing in the background and close up pictures of flowers with a drop of rain on them, and the eyes of a tiger, and a baby hugging a kitten, and nature in Africa.
9. Power point presentations of architecture in the world. (I personally prefer traveling there and seeing them myself).
10. Power point presentations of construction in Dubai\ Dubai wealth.
11. 100 reasons why Israel is amazing.
12. 100 reasons why Israel is terrible.
13. Pornography. (These e-mails don't necessarily repeat themselves, but they are Gosh-Darn-Inappropriate for father to send child).
14. "funny" things that happen to you when you get old (this was one of the first ones on the list, but you probably forgot that by now. f-u-n-n-y.)

love,
General child

My dad asked to be friends on Facebook...

The end.

[contributed by Yaeli the Great]

Our Ever Expanding Universe

In an email from my father, dated 4/5/2010:

"....Had lunch w/ a former classmate, who has( as is now diagnosed) Asbergers Syndrome. It's a form of autism. It was fun, and interesting. I haven't seen him in about 30 years. He's doing OK, way better than I expected. He's in the Guinness Book of world records, a few different times. Do you understand the word " perseveration " as applied to psychology? It means to perform a task repeatedly, with no goal. It applies particularly well to autistics. And in Lee's case, it produced a 5600 page poem entitled" A Cure For Insomnia". Out of room(???)"

Software Update

During family dinner, we were discussing Italian food and such, which, of course, reminded mom she has a computer-related question. How could it not.

- "So I keep getting e-mails asking me to update some programs, do you have any idea what's that about?"

- "what do you mean "some programs"? What programs? Why are you even getting e-mails about that?"

- "I don't know, all I know is that every time I open my Gmail, I get an e-mail asking me to update *some* program. You can come look at it".

(Going over with mom to her computer)

- "OK mom, show me how you open your Gmail"

(Mom clicks on the firefox icon; an "Update to the latest version of firefox" tab appears)

- "There, you see? I opened the e-mail program, and immediately I get this e-mail asking me to update..."

Wrong Text Box

"My grandma wanted to share her deepest darkest feelings of loathing and despise for her neighbor, by Skype chat. However, when the neighbor passed away from a triple heart attack, we discovered the message was posted on grandma's Skype status instead of the chat window".
Ok, maybe the neighbor didn't die, but, well, suspend belief for the sake of comedy.

[contributed by Neta]

Creative Solutions

[Phone rings three minutes after Skype chat ends]
Mom: "hey, so, you know how you taught me to click on the red button to end a voice conversation?"
Ohad: "yeah..."
Mom: "so when our chat ended I looked for the red button and there wasn't one, so I didn't know how to end the chat, so I turned off the computer".

Dear Mom

When will you discover new-line?

:(