Possible Bob(tm) Personalities

By Mark Hartman

Microsoft's new on-line active help facility called "Bob" is rumored to permit you to select a "personality" with which you can interact more easily. Here are a few personalities that I think we're likely to see:

The "grandmother" personality:: Cares a lot about you, and will leave you everything after it dies.
The "jewish mother" personality:: Continuously admonishes you to eat more disk space, and lays a guilt trip on you if you interconnect with goyim (non-Windows) computers.
The "drill instructor" personality:: Demands 20 push-ups every time you click the wrong icon.
The "shy and retiring" personality:: Will only help you if you don't get upset (since this is Windows, after all, very few people will ever see this one).
The "domineering" personality:: Knows what you need to do, and will do it for you. Don't touch the mouse, you'll just get in the way.
The "Bill Gates" personality:: Like the "domineering" personality, but knows that, whatever the need, Microsoft has the answer. Requires a modem and a credit card number (with a high limit) for ordering purposes.
The "BHA" personality:: Before it will help you, it demands adulation (but heaven help you if you mention its name), but gives you help with billions and billions of things.
The "rotten little smart kid" personality:: Does everything for you way too fast for you to see, and then makes comments about your ancestry when you don't do it perfectly yourself.