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The Fantabulous Adventures of Mark and Bill Episode 2
tallman [site] wrote the following on May 20, 2001 1:36 pm
"now if I can just figure out how to dial this TARDIS, I'll get you back to your wife!"
Bill Gates tapped madly at the keyboard, a maniacal grin stretching across his face. Mark couldn't see what was happening,
but he hoped that the malfunctioning Micro$oft software in the Tardis would bow down obediently before its creator. The sooner
they piloted the Tardis out of hell the better.
Bill finished up excitedly and proclaimed "That should do it," as he pressed the enter key confidently. The little Micro$oft
logo started spinning busily in the corner of the screen and the Tardis gave a tremendous jolt.
"What's going on?" Asked Mark anxiously...
rquethe [site] wrote the following on May 20, 2001 5:55 pm
"I wrote a program that causes the TARDIS to make instant expresso. That jolt was just the TARDIS superheating water and
infusing it into the wonderful coffee beans."
"Oh, Right.... About getting home?"
Bill sips his expresso, "Ahhh that's the stuff. Now, what were we trying to do again?"
A look of disbelief is shot back at Bill from Mark, "Get out of Hell."
"Oh that's right, Then out of Hell we shall go."
Bill walks back to the keyboard, coffee cup in hand. "Back in my hacking days, we learned that TARDIS has a backdoor. The
password was Jimmy. This would allow us to play chess, or checkers or Thermonuclear war by simply telling TARDIS what you
wanted to do." Bill types "Jimmy" into his keyboard.
"Hello Professor."
"No this is Bill."
"Oh...Well, what can I do for you Bill?"
"You can get Mark an expresso, I mean get him back to his wife."
"That will be easy, I just need...
DyRE [site] wrote the following on May 22, 2001 7:53 pm
"...your immortal soul."
"Oh!" Bill turned to Mark and said, sheepishly, "It doesn't understand which Bill." The Microsoft head turned back to the
control console. "TARDIS, this is William Henry Gates the third."
A small panel opened on the console and Bill lowered his head to it. A thin red beam came out and began scanning his right
eye.
"Hey, wait! Uh, Bill?" Mark burst out with as it hit him.
"Yes?" Bill asked, still being scanned by the TARDIS.
"Why did you look like me in the first epis- uh, when we were in hell?"
grenville wrote the following on May 23, 2001 7:51 am
After completing its scan, a little alert box popped up on the TARDIS console screen: "The licence to use the Microsoft TARDIS Operating System has expired. This TARDIS will no longer function. You must purchase
a new licence to reactivate this TARDIS." "Ha! I wonder why that happened?" Bill asked sheepishly. "I might be the Devil, but I don't know how to log in to the Microsoft
product activation and licensing server from here. We all have life time licences here in Hell. There's none of this licence
renewal crap here", Bill observed.
"This is what happens when one company has a monopoly over the desktop operating system and abuses its position," Mark observed.
Mark pondered the situation. If only he had not sold his soul and talent to the sleazy and life-sapping world of corporate
software production, and instead had devoted himself to the open source software movement, he would not now be trapped in
hell. Right then, Mark had an epiphany. What the world really needed was a killer free office app for Linux. Mark was sure
he was the man to do it. And maybe the change in the direction of his life would save his marriage, too. "But how to get out
of Hell first?" he thought. Just then....
DyRE [site] wrote the following on June 3, 2001 8:18 am
...the scene changed.
Back on Earth, Steve Jobs, mastermind of Apple Computers, learnt of Bill's absence in his dimension through his spy within
Microsoft.
"Aha! This is the perfect time to launch our new Mac operating system!" cried the enthusiastic Jobs.
"But, sir," came the somewhat nervous voice of Truman, his number one lacky, "the rest of Microsoft is still there. And, and,
people wouldn't just buy a whole new computer because-"
"That's what Plan B is for!" Steve Jobs interjected, proudly.
Truman shuffled through the folder·strewn mess that was the top of his tiny desk, situated within a corner Jobs' own office.
Truman remembers the desk being black but hadn't seen its actual surface in months due to his lackluster filing system. The
desk's height was also a foot lower than Jobs' desk. The whole setup had seemed to Truman to be about making Jobs feel better
about his power (or lack thereof) in the industry but the money was too good to pass up.
"F-f-found it. Plan B." Truman opened the folder. "It says 'go for ice cream.'"
"What?" The growing smile disappeared from Steve Jobs' face.
"Oh! Wait. I see. This is Plan 8, In the Event of Vending Machine Failure, not Plan B."
Steve Jobs picked a small black beret off his own desk and hit Truman over the head with it, as the Skipper would Gilligan
on a TV show from long ago.
"Let me just tell you, Truman! Plan B is mass Apple propaganda! We'll scare people away from Microsoft. Bill Gates' mysterious
absence is the perfect starting point. Then, we'll get our new customers so accustomed to their new operating system they
won't ever want to go back to Microsuck when Billy boy does get back!"
"But how will we do that? Lots of Windows functions have just been cheap knock offs of the Mac OS for long as there's been
Windows. It shouldn't be hard for anyone to go back."
"No, not anymore. Not with OS X! OS X is the first and only operating system to require... STRANGE SPOTTED COSTUMES!"
Truman's eyes widened in horror. He was sure Steve Jobs had gone mad. Mad with power (or the lack thereof). But... how to
stop his strange and probably evil plan? What could this mean for the world? Why do these top computer guys names end is the letter S?
STAY TUNED. WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK.
rquethe [site] wrote the following on June 3, 2001 11:50 pm
WE'RE BACK WITH MORE OF "THE FANTABULOUS ADVENTURES OF MARK AND BILL."
"Damn," Truman thought. He had spent all night looking through dictionaries and reverse dictionaries at all the words that
began and ended with the letter "S." Suffice to say, he found nothing.
"That was a dead end," he thought out loud. Oh well, back to thinking about stopping Steve's strange and probably evil plan. Perhaps I could incorporate the help of Linux creator Linus Torvalds. "Damn! His name ends in the letter "S" as
well. This is some kind of conspiracy."
Just then, the scence changed again, back to...
tallman [site] wrote the following on June 4, 2001 11:38 am
...Hell, where Mark and Bill were still marrooned in a malfunctioning TARDIS.
Mark was wracking his brain for a way to escape hell's evil clutches while Bill amused himself with a game of "snake" played
on his cell phone. (Mark had already tried to use the phone's inter-dimensional roam to contact the Microsoft product activation
and licensing server, but was unsuccessful.)
An idea struck Mark. "Maybe there's some sort of manual override!" he said hopefully as he started rooting through the empty
pizza boxes and soiled toilet paper that constituted the bulk of the TARDIS' cargo.
"Phhhhppt! Even if you are able to find the manual override, what makes you think you'll be able to work it?" Bill scoffed
as he finished his expresso.
"Just about any other interface would be easier than that putrid web-based Windows TARDIS OS" Mark thought to himself as he waded his way through a particularly dense grouping of urinal cakes.
"Eureka!" Mark exclaimed triumphantly...
rquethe [site] wrote the following on June 4, 2001 11:33 pm
"This urinal cake is unused! Now I can take a piss." I've always wondered why they rarely ever show people using the bathroom in movies and stories, are these people super human
or what?Mark thought to himself.
"Anyway, what's this?" Mark said as he bent down to pick up the strange item.
"Hey that my super duper special 5 inch floppy disk," Bill exclaimed. "Mark, please carefully set it down. It has very special
on it."
"It does huh??? What kind of special data."
"Ummm, well I didn't want to say, but that is collection of Gay Porn."
"Yuck, I knew you were a little quere, but I didn't think you were into that kind of stuff," Mark says as he quickly sets
the disk down.
Bill picks up the floppy and begins to laugh like a madman. "HAHAHAHA, you fool, you would be so naive. This disk doesn't
contain pornography, it contains....."
DyRE [site] wrote the following on June 8, 2001 9:06 am
"...a virus."
"A virus? You, of all people, spreading a computer virus?" Mark was quite perplexed.
"The Japanese have a saying. Business is war. Only... they don't say it in English. Um, anyway, I was going to have someone
sneak into Apple's offices and spread it. Well that was the old plan, anyway. Now Microsoft is designing Windows XP to be
more restrictive than ever. We figure we'll screw every non·Windows based PC out of anything remotely cool in a couple years
and not have to worry about any other companies interferring."
"Won't you really get reemed by the monopolies commission that way though?" Mark asked.
"Well, uh-" Bill began but was interrupted by more questions from Mark.
"And who the hell still uses disks this big? How exactly would you infect anything at Apple? I don't think they're still using,
like, the Apple IIc anymore."
"Oh, yeah. I know. Some of the other big Microsoft guys and I just thought it would be really funny to have a copy lying around
on an old disk."
"You guys are such nerds."
"Well duh. Hey! I think I know how we can get out of here!" Bill exclaimed with excitement as a new idea spontaneously slammed
into his brain like a frivilous lawsuit spontaneously comes up in a California court. He rushed over the urinal cakes and
began gathering them up.
"Ew. Damn, Bill. Don't you know what those are?"
"No time for disgusting specifics. Here, hold these while I get more." Bill moved to offload a bunch of the urinal cakes into
Mark's hands. When he let go the urinal cakes ended up back on the floor as Mark backed away in disgust. Bill looked Mark
dead in the eyes. "Mark, listen to me very carefully. We need these urinal cakes to break the Windows coding the TARDIS uses."
"What?!" Mark yelled, hardly believing he was hearing this.
"Allow me to explain..." began Bill.
rquethe [site] wrote the following on June 8, 2001 3:53 pm
"These urinal cakes are in reality super conductive electronic chips capable of a Google Giga Flops every microsecond. With
this kind of power, we will be able to easily break the Windows coding the TARDIS uses. They're disguisded as urinal cakes
because no one would ever suspect the urinal cake."
"Are you insane?"
"Yes. But right now, I'm dead serious."
"So do what I tell you to do with the cakes if you want to get out of Hell alive." Bill proceeds to hand Mark the cakes which
he reluctantly holds.
Meanwhile back at Apple!
"Eureeka!!!" Truman exclaimed. "I'll just discreetly switch Plan B with Plan 8. Steve will never know the difference.
Truman proceeds to discreetly switch the plans. Just as Truman finishes, Steve walks in.
"What were you doing Steve?"
"Uhh, nothing. Yeah nothing."
"Right. Anyway, I need some help with my implementation of Plan B. Got any ideas?"
"I've got 49 cents, that should help."
"Huh? How the heck would that help?"
"Well, I think Dairy Queen sells small cones for 49 cents."
"What does ice cream have to do with Plan B?"
"You should know sir." Steve walks over to the pile of folders and papers and opens up a Plan B.
"I guess you were right Truman, but I could have sworn that Plan B was..."
Quickly and assuredly Mark interrupts, "So how about that cone sir?"
"Oh yeah, sure."
WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK WITH MORE OF "THE FANTABULOUS ADVENTURES OF MARK AND BILL."
DyRE [site] wrote the following on June 10, 2001 7:44 am
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WE NOW RETURN TO "THE FANTABULOUS ADVENTURES OF MARK AND BILL"
man [site] wrote the following on June 17, 2001 3:56 am
this site is cool.
rquethe [site] wrote the following on June 17, 2001 6:35 pm
...Bill said while looking at a teen porn site on the internet.
Out of nowhere Mark says, "Where am I? Who's body is this? Bill Gates!?!"
"What's up Mark?"
"I'm not Mark, I'm Truman."
"Right, whatever you say Mark...."
The scene changes back to Apple.
"Sure, lets get that cone."
"What, What am I doing here? And why did I ask you about getting a cone?" Mark said.
"Something wrong Truman, you were telling be about the plan..."
"Wait, I'm not Truman, I'm Mark. And you're Steve Jobs."
"Truman, maybe you'd better sit down for a while."
DyRE [site] wrote the following on June 26, 2001 8:47 am
Mark looked around at the office. As if suddenly being in Steve Jobs office and being addressed by him as Truman wasn't enough,
Steve's office was weird. The desk in front of Mark was cluttered with tons of papers and folders, many of which were labelled
as a plan of some sort, denoted by a letter, number or both. It was also rather low to the ground. Halfway across the room
was another desk with a plaque identifying it as Steve's. Various parts of the desk were translucent orange or green or whatever
other colours Macs come in.
— — —
Truman looked around at the TARDIS. As if suddenly being in a TARDIS with Bill Gates and being addressed by him as Mark wasn't
enough, Bill was looking at teen porn. The floor in front of Truman was cluttered with tons of urinal cakes, many of which
were stained and pungeant. Halfway across the TARDIS was a control panel with a blue screen of death displayed on it, which
had popped up sometime between Mark and Bill finding out the TARDIS' license had expired and Bill had realised the urinal
cakes could help them. Various other urinal cakes were positioned about the TARDIS and connected through standard CAT 5 networking
cable, which connected to a hub also connected to Bill's laptop and the TARDIS.
— — —
"I'm not Truman. I don't know even know who Truman is! I was just sitting there in the TARDIS in Hell trying to figure out
what Bill Gates was doing with those urinal cakes. Then he found that porn site—"
"Wait a minute!" Steve interjected. "Bill Gates? Urinal cakes? TARDIS? That rat bastard! He stole my idea! It was I, originally,
that thought of using urinal cakes as super conductive electronic chips for operating a TARDIS. Something must have gone screwy
with it and switched your mind with Truman's. Well, good thing it didn't work, I suppose. It's bad enough the look of Windows
is such a rip of the Mac OS design."
— — —
"I'm not Mark. I don't know even know who Mark is! I was just sitting there in Steve Jobs' office trying to stop him from
whatever evil plan he was going to do with that anti·MS propaganda. Then we were going to go for ice cream—"
"Wait a minute!" Bill interjected. "Steve Jobs? anti·MS propaganda? Ice cream? That rat bastard! He stole my idea! It was
I, originally, that thought of using ice cream as super influential propaganda for scaring consumers away from an OS. Something
must have gone screwy with something and switched your mind with Mark's. Well, good thing it didn't work, I suppose. It's
bad enough the Apple sticks around with those colourful iMacs with mice that still only have one button."
— — —
In two different places, two employees who had quite their fill of their previous bosses' company and scheming began to hatch
plans to not only get their appropriate bodies back but stop anymore of this interdimensional corporate warring.
grenville wrote the following on July 11, 2001 1:48 pm
Mark sat before Steves Jobs listening to one of the meanest rants he'd ever heard. "That rat bastard Linus bloody Torvalds.
Came out of fucking nowhere. I was number one pretender to Bill, and then that four eyed Fin comes up with Linux, a fucking
amazing OS that's fucking free for Christ sake. I don't fucking believe it! Its not fair."
Mark tried to block out the foulmouthed rant by playing with his cell phone. "Here I am stuck in an office with a mad man,"
Mark thought to himself, "and all because of an expired TARDIS licence. How the hell did I get into this? How do I get out?
There must be some key, some code that will do it." Mark tried to put the pieces together. A TARDIS, a shark, Bill Gates,
Steve Jobs, and that bloody Blue Screen of Death. That was the final straw.
Mark continued playing with his cell phone, keying in words as he tried to block out Job's demented rant. "Its so cool," Mark
thought to himself, "the way phone designers have assigned letters to numbers like that: ABC=2 DEF=3 GHI=4 and so on." Mark
keyed in TARDIS - 827-347 - "That number is unavailable" said the automated voice on the other end of the phone. Mark keyed
in BILL GATES - 245-542-837 - "This call will be charged at 25 dollars per second said the voice." Mark quickly hung up. He
keyed in STEVE JOBS - 783-835-627 - "This line is down for maintainence", said the voice. Mark keyed in BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH
- 258-372-7336-633-3284 - "You have reached the TARDIS service centre", said the voice. Mark sat bolt upright. "AH! Got it,"
he yelled. He listened intently to the automated voice: "To order TARDIS t-shirts, cups and pens, Press 1. To order additional
TARDIS Console Themes and Screensavers, Press 2......"
tallman [site] wrote the following on July 16, 2001 2:05 pm
"... If your TARDIS Urinal Cake processor has created a rift in the space/time continuum and temporarily swapped two personalities,
press 3. If you are calling from a rotary phone, please press 4..."
Mark pressed 3 frantically.
[Meanwhile, back in Hell]
Truman sat before Bill Gates listening to one of the meanest rants he'd ever heard. "That rat bastard Linus bloody Torvalds.
Came out of fucking nowhere. I was had already broken Steve Jobs' will to live, and then that four eyed Fin comes up with
Linux, a fucking amazing OS that's fucking free for Christ sake. I don't fucking believe it! Its not fair."
Truman simply ignored the foulmouthed rant. Ever resourceful, he had found the urinal cakes and figured out what had happened.
In fact, back at home, sitting on his cluttered desk, was a folder marked "Plan 1218: Urinal Cake Processor failure and YOU"
He strained now to remember its contents...
ummm...urine was the key ingredient..what next..ummm..TRUMAN!! Do u know the other ingredients?? But truman was tsill rantinga
nd couldn't give a damn at what the othjer ingredients were.
"Face it Bill, we belong here in Hell and even if those urine cakes could get us out, we have NO idea how to make them, we'd
better get used to this life"
At this Truman walks off and Bill is left standing there...what are the other ingredients...
tallman [site] wrote the following on August 6, 2001 12:05 pm
Bill watched as Truman walked around, trying desperately to find the exit to the TARDIS. Then his gaze fell upon the urinal
cakes. "Well," he said, "Here goes nothing...
"Uhhhhhggggg....yeaaaahh" Bill exclaimed as he took a monumental piss on the remaining urinal cakes.
Amazingly, the TARDIS gave a big jolt, and the TARDIS Console began beeping and popping.
"YOU DID IT!!!" exclaimed Truman...
XMark [site] wrote the following on September 28, 2001 4:16 am
At that second, Mark and Truman's minds were once again switched back. Mark looked around.
"Crap! I'm in hell again!" he moaned.
Bill smiled. "Not for long! All I have to do is push these buttons and we're out of here! Now get in the TARDIS."
Mark walked in the TARDIS. Bill keyed in some commands and the TARDIS began to light up and make some default Windows sounds.
There was a great white flash of light and the sudden sensation of movement.
But then there was a loud BANG and the TARDIS stopped again. On the monitor of the TARDIS was the words "General Protection
Fault. Program will now terminate." They were in a different place. It was in the middle of a long, dark, rocky tunnel, lit
only by torches on either side.
"Let's get out and find out where we are." said Bill. The walked down the hallway and around a corner and ran into a blind
old man.
The old man began to speak. "Whooooo... aaaaaarrrrre..." he cleared his throat. "Who the fuck are you guys?"
Bill spoke first. "We are interdimensional travellers, lost on our journey to find Earth. We came here in a TARDIS."
The old man looked at him strangely. "What the fuck is a TARDIS?"
Bill opened his mouth to explain, but Mark interrupted. "Hey, could you just tell me where we are now?"
"This is the second level of hell; the level where all the complete idiots who phone tech support lines all the time are damned
for all eternity."
Bill fainted. Mark collapsed onto his knees and screamed "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"
WILL MARK AND BILL MAKE IT BACK TO EARTH? WILL STEVE JOBS' EVIL PLAN TO GO FOR ICE CREAM COME INTO ACTION? WHAT LIES IN FATE
FOR OUR HEROES? IS MY VOICE AS SEXY AS THE GUY WHO DOES ALL THOSE MOVIE TRAILER VOICE-OVERS? FIND OUT IN THE NEXT AMAZING
EPISODE OF "THE FANTABULOUS ADVENTURES OF MARK AND BILL!!!!"
Stay Tuned for more episodes of The Fantabulous Adventures of Mark and Bill!
