Here I come to burst your bubble:
If you've been an Internet user for more than a couple of months, you've more than likely watched the 30-second video clip of the fat guy in an office cubicle beating up on his computer. It's been doing the rounds since 1997, but unfortunately it's not the real deal. We explain.
The clip opens on a large man in a Dilbert-style cubicle working on his computer. Something frustrates him and he gives the keyboard a whack. When this doesn't help he goes ballistic, punching the keyboard and eventually using it to swipe his monitor off the desk. He gets up to finish the job, and puts the boot in on the trashed monitor before leaving the cubicle.
The brilliance of the clip is that very few computer users have not experienced a similar frustration. The Bad Day mpeg sums it all up perfectly - "I'm trying to get something done here and the bloody thing won't work!"
Bad Day has done the rounds since 1997, appearing in many an office worker's inbox, and most viewers would love to know just who the fed up chap in the video is. He's become known as the patron saint of computer bashers, and has developed something of a cult following. So who is he?
According to Michelle Delio of Wired News the man's name is Vinny Licciardi, and he appeared in the video as part of a marketing campaign for surveillance computers, made by a Colorado company called Loronix Information Systems.
Vinny is the shipping manager for Loronix, and he appeared in a series of promotional videos made by the company, all of which were intended to show the benefits of purchasing a digital video recording system from Loronix.
The only one that made an impression, however, was Bad Day. It originally appeared in 5MB form, but was subsequently edited down to make it a more acceptable 416KB, for email distribution.
Licciardi himself is a former actor, and by all accounts a really nice guy - not the sort to beat up on computers in real life.
If you are a computer beater yourself, however, don't feel bad - a recent survey conducted by British firm Novatech revealed that 25% of all computer users have beaten the bastards, and we reckon they probably deserved it.
AO
That's great.
