Excerpted from the Seattle Galosh Inquisitor:

Freelance tech reporter Marco Wormwicker could hardly contain his excitement at the prospect of seeing a new and improved “blue screen of death” twice maybe three times a month.

“It’s fantastic,” said Wormwicker, “Absolutely fantastic.  Instead of your run of the mill, drab blue background, Microsoft finally called in some designers and UI experts to really crank it to 11.”

“It’s got everything: A gradient background and not one, but two little paperclip, Office Assistants to temper your frustration and be pleasantly unhelpful.”

“I didn’t ever think that I’d actually be looking forward to the 2, 3, sometimes 10 times a month when my Windows laptop crunks and hits me with a blue screen of death, but that day is here.”

“Thank you, Bill Gates.”

Excerpted from the Palo Alto Post Examiner:

Bill Doohickey recently bought a smartphone for his elderly father and was surprised at how difficult it was for him to use it.

“I have the exact same model Nokia and I love it.  I mean, I freakin’ love it.  It does everything.  So, I thought what the heck, I’ll get one for Pop.  Unfortunately, it just hasn’t worked out.  He accidentally calls me all the time and I’ll get these long, incoherent messages, sometimes while he and my Mom are at the chuckwagon arguing over whether he’s piling his plate too high or not.”

“Just last month he accidentally surfed the internet for 72 hours straight.  I’m not sure how he pulled that off, but you can imagine the resulting data charges.”

“Anyway, long story short, he and my mother are now the proud owners of matching Jitterbugs.”

Excerpted from the Manassas Statesman:

“Stunningly illegible” is how local resident Paulie Wormwicker described the captcha he encountered while trying to sign up for a forum on learning beginning bass guitar.

“Overlapping numerals, squiggly letters that run into each other, you name it this captcha had it.  Just all around terrible, really.”

“Absolutely, f***ing unreadable.”

Excerpted from the Palo Alto Post Examiner:

Employees said the CEO had had enough.

Said one member of upper management, who wished to remain nameless, “Initially our company encouraged employee tweets during business hours and each was setup with their own account.  While the minimum amount of tweets per day was 15, some self-starters would express themselves with up to 37 tweets a day.  The CEO, wanting to keep his finger on the pulse of the company, would follow all their accounts daily.”

“It nearly drove him mad.  I found him lying on the floor one afternoon muttering about the ‘banality’ of it all.”

“I splashed him with some water, helped him up and we quickly wrote and sent the company directive striking the minimum tweet number and ordering all employees to refrain from mundane posts, such as ‘Restocking mechanical pencils in storeroom.’”

“The results have been wonderful.  Not a single tweet in 72 hours.”

Excerpted from the Local Happenings section of the Fargo Planet:

Local resident and expert video-game Marine, Alexander Wormwicker, finished Call of Duty IV last night.  According to the first hand account provided by his sister, Lily, he then exhaled loudly and whispered under his breath, “You’re welcome, America.”